Tesla Stock Rebounds After Tumble Fueled by Musk-Trump Feud
Key Takeaways
- Tesla shares rose 4% in premarket trading Friday, winning back some of the EV maker’s big losses from Thursday.
- The stock tumbled as CEO Elon Musk and President Donald Trump traded criticisms over the Trump-backed budget bill currently in Congress.
- Analysts have been looking ahead to the planned launch of Tesla’s robotaxi service in Austin, Texas, this month as a possible boost to shares.
Tesla (TSLA) shares are rebounding 4% in premarket trading Friday, a day after the electric vehicle maker tumbled 14% as the relationship between CEO Elon Musk and President Donald Trump looked to be fraying.
The spat erased over $150 billion from Tesla’s market capitalization, once again dropping it out of the $1 trillion market cap club. Shares entered Friday down 30% since the start of the year.
Musk has spent much of the past several days criticizing the Trump-backed budget bill currently working through Congress. Trump responded Thursday, saying he was “very disappointed” in Musk’s criticisms, claiming the tech CEO only takes issue with the cuts to EV and solar energy incentives passed by former President Joe Biden.
The pair continued to trade remarks on their respective social media platforms, X (Musk) and Truth Social (Trump), through much of Thursday afternoon, with Tesla shares seemingly falling further with each new post. Late Thursday, Politico reported that White House aides had scheduled a peacemaking call with Musk for Friday.
A gain Friday would be a positive end to a difficult week for Tesla shares, as continuing weak sales data has also pressured the EV maker’s stock. Analysts have been looking toward a planned launch of Tesla’s robotaxi service in Austin, Texas, this month as a potential positive catalyst for shares, with Musk saying in interviews that the plan is to start with a small number of fully autonomous vehicles on the road, and scale up in the coming months as it expands to other cities.