An insult goes viral
Just after sunrise on 5 June, Elon Musk opened X and unloaded on the president’s flagship One Big Beautiful Bill Act. He called the proposal “a disgusting abomination” and “fiscal suicide,” then twisted the knife by reminding Donald Trump of past flights with Jeffrey Epstein: “If you hadn’t spent so much time on his jets, maybe the country’s moral compass would be intact.” The post rocketed through every feed within minutes.
The White House answers in kind
By mid-morning reporters were shouting questions on the South Lawn. Trump shot back that Musk had “gone off the deep end,” vowed to review every federal contract tied to Tesla and SpaceX, and floated the idea of a special tax on electric cars. “No subsidies for companies that insult the president,” he added before walking off.
Shockwaves across markets
The tit-for-tat landed like a punch. Tesla shares slid a little over five percent before the closing bell; venture desks trading private SpaceX equity marked their bids down roughly seven percent. Bitcoin held up better than tech stocks—off about two percent—but ether lost nearly double that. The real blood was in meme territory: the jokey $TRUMP token, beloved by campaign die-hards, plunged a third in a single afternoon, and a fan-made $TESLA coin on Solana fell close to twenty percent. Gold and short-term Treasuries, meanwhile, crept higher—classic risk-off behaviour.
Why it matters
Federal money on the line. SpaceX launches for NASA and the Pentagon, EV-bus grants, charging-station roll-outs—tens of billions in future revenue suddenly look less certain.
A crack in the tech-politics façade. For three years Musk had been the administration’s poster child for American ingenuity. A public breakup shows that billionaire loyalty is negotiable.
A live stress-test for crypto narrative. Bitcoin’s small dip versus Tesla’s full stumble reminded traders that digital “hard money” behaves differently from growth stocks, while the crash in $TRUMP underscored how quickly meme assets price reputational hits.
What to watch next
Treasury and Defense officials now have thirty days to catalogue every contract with Musk’s companies; anything trimmed or frozen will hit quarterly guidance straight away. In Congress, the bill at the heart of the row heads back to committee, and the clause on EV tax credits is expected to draw blood-red edits. Musk, for his part, is said to be drafting a shareholder letter framing the fight as political strong-arming—an opening move in what could become a court-room drama.
