Elon Musk News Today - DOGE, Trump and Tesla
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It all started with a cheese hat. Then came the $20 million political misfire, a tanking quarter for Tesla, and now whispers from mega loyalists urging Donald Trump to quietly sideline Elon Musk. How did the world's richest man go from tech messiah to...

took political liability and corporate anchor in just 24 hours. Now, his mounting defeats are more than a billionaire's bad week. They're a warning about unchecked ego, messy alliances, and what happens when Elon Musk mistakes noise for influence. On Tuesday, Musk's political gamble in Wisconsin exploded spectacularly.

betting big, $20 million big, on a far-right candidate for the state Supreme Court. Now, Musk showed up at a rally in Green Bay donning a giant, goofy cheese hat, checkbook in hand, and hope in his eyes. The stunt was pure Musk, headline-chasing and full of bravado. It also didn't work at all.

the liberal-leaning court retained its 4-3 majority, rejecting not just the candidate, but Musk's overt display of wealth and persuasion. He handed out $2 million checks to supporters on site, an act that drew immediate legal scrutiny. Now, buying influence in court races isn't just distasteful. In some states,

It borders on illegal. Elon found a way around this, though. And this loss might have stung more if it stood alone. But hours later, Tesla delivered even worse news. The company posted a 13% drop in sales for the first quarter, the sharpest decline in the company's history. Now, that number was made even more humiliating by the context. Its top competitor, BYD, saw its revenue jump 60% over the same period.

Now the contrast couldn't have been more direct or damning. Investors quickly punished Tesla stock, driving it down 6% in a matter of hours. Now Tesla's slump is about more than earnings though. It reveals the company that's straining under poor leadership.

distracting direction, and a fraying identity. Musk, who once charmed a loyal base of environmentally conscious early adopters, has alienated much of that support by veering hard right politically.

Coastal progressives, the very demographic that gave Tesla its cool factor, are abandoning the brand and Musk hasn't figured out how to replace them. His solution? Embrace red state buyers who have long rejected electric vehicles. And it's not going well for Tesla right now.

And the Commerce Secretary's awkward pitch urging America's people to buy Tesla stock seemed like a panicked attempt to counteract cratering confidence in the brand. A bizarre live sales event at the White House lawn with Trump present came across as more desperate than strategic.

Then the FBI jumped in announcing they might prosecute Tesla vandals as domestic terrorists. This is a redefinition of the term that legal experts quickly dismissed as overreach. Now, none of these moves slowed the bleeding though. If anything, they made it worse. And perhaps the loudest rebuke came not from investors or federal agencies,

But from Washington insiders who are suddenly less enthusiastic about Musk's involvement in government. MAGA-aligned officials claims Leon Musk has outlived his usefulness and his welcome in Washington. According to them, Musk's role in the Trump administration as a special government employee assigned to the Department of Government Efficiency or DOGE

is winding down soon. So it was a 130-day stint. It's expected to expire in late May or June. And the White House initially dismissed the story as garbage, complete trash. And Musk responded with his usual flair. He just said fake news on X. But then came confirmation that Musk's time in the federal gig is indeed ended. That detail was enough to reverse Tesla's stock slide.

suggesting that Wall Street might finally want Musk to get back to building cars again, rather than rewriting the constitution or acting like a part-time government fixer and trashing our government. For now, investors seem cautiously hopeful he'll abandon his political sideshow and focus on reversing Tesla's steep decline. Now Trump, in his usual tone, tried to keep things amicable while offering a soft push out the door.

When asked about Musk's expiring government role, Donald Trump replied, Well, I think he's amazing, but I also think he's got a big company to run, and so at some point he's going to be going back. He wants to. Basically, he said thanks, but it's time you went back and played with Tesla again. Now, it's worth noting that Musk hasn't been universally reveled inside the White House, though.

Some aides have praised the cost cutting measures his Doge group introduced across various departments, but the price of his presence, constant media chaos on X, internal rifts and backlash in federal courts has worn very thin. Now, several Trump advisors had grown so exhausted with Musk's unpredictability that they stopped trying to reign him in and instead

began counting down the days until he'd be out of their hair. Now, Elon Musk still has a lot of money. His financial fortunes have taken a beating, though. Since January, he's shed more than a quarter of his total net worth. Given he still holds a commanding $323 billion fortune, well ahead of Jeff Bezos, who trails by over $100 billion, the dip might not seem catastrophic at first glance.

Still, the number isn't just symbolic. Much of Musk's wealth is tied to Tesla stock. The Tesla sharp nosedive reflects not only its weak sales, but a broader market revaluation of Elon Musk himself. But why does this all matter? It's because Tesla isn't just another automaker. It's a bellwether for the EV industry and a public-facing laboratory for new tech.

When Musk flounders, confidence in EVs and Tesla and tech wavers. For average consumers deciding whether to go electric, Tesla's instability injects uncertainty into a choice that's already expensive and unfamiliar. And for investors, Tesla's erratic performance casts doubt on the entire sector's reliability and its stability. It also matters politically.

Musk's attempt to realign Tesla's customer base with red state values while simultaneously partnering with Trump's administration kind of blur the line between corporate strategy and also the White House.

And yet, despite the barrage of criticism and setbacks, Elon Musk remains a repentant. His feed continues to pump out provocations and potshots, seemingly undisturbed by the crumbling credibility of both his company and his personal political alliances. His online audience, huge.

offers a kind of echo chamber that may be shielding him from fully grasping just how many bridges he's torched in the real world. Does he read the comments? Maybe. Tesla's deteriorating reputation among its core customers is perhaps the most glaring consequence of Musk's hard right turn. Once the darling of coastal liberals and environmentally conscious tech enthusiasts,

Tesla now finds itself battling for relevance among buyers it once ignored. But the rural and conservative markets Musk now courts have long been skeptical of EVs. And no amount of red baseball caps or MAGA hats or Trump-adjacent stagecraft has changed that. Musk's attention span seems increasingly fractured. Autonomous driving, once Tesla's big promise and selling point,

remains perpetually just around the corner, a couple years away. Tesla's much-hyped self-driving software, FSD, remains in beta still, years past its original promised delivery. Now, meanwhile, competitors like BYD and even legacy automakers, Ford and GM, are catching up.

in some areas surpassing tesla both on tech and also what we all want affordability of an ev the cheese hat debacle that was goofy it exposed a core misunderstanding musk seems to have about influence money buys access but it doesn't buy legitimacy and it certainly doesn't buy votes

Wisconsin voters rejected not only the candidate Musk backed, but the motion that a billionaire with a goofy-ass hat and a blank check could hijack their democratic process. Then came the legal cloud.

Musk's $2 million handout to rail-goers raised eyebrows across legal circles. The PC gave us computing power at home, the internet connected us, and mobile let us do it pretty much anywhere. Now generative AI lets us communicate with technology in our own language, using our own senses. But figuring it all out when you're living through it is a totally different story. Welcome to Leading the Shift.

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And that prompted questions about electioneering and the legality of such blatant financial incentives during an active race. The episode sparked an investigation into whether the checks violated campaign finance laws. Now, whether that's leads to consequences or not, the optics are already damning. The backlash hasn't just come from Democrats or the usual Musk skeptics. Even inside the Trump camp, the cracks are visible.

Now, Musk's erratic behavior has divided Trump's inner circle, too. Some aides view him as a valuable disruptor. Others see him as a volatile liability. The internal conflict has reportedly led some senior officials to resign themselves to simply

managing Musk's presence until his time runs out at Doge. Elon Musk's credibility is wearing thin with the EV crowd. Promises of a $25,000 Tesla model meant to be a game changer remain unfulfilled for years. Manufacturing delays, recalls, and half-launch features have become the new normal for Tesla. While

While early adopters once forgave delays because they believed in the vision, many now feel strung along by empty timelines and broken pledges by Elon.

The bottom line is that Musk's political stunt work and ideological shift haven't saved Tesla. They've heard it. And while he may still be the richest person alive, his influence is showing sign of real erosion. Even Trump seems to recognize that the Musk brand, once at onset, may now be a liability. And Elon Musk's political misventures, corporate distractions, and failing bets have finally caught up to him.

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