The article, headlined “The Decline and Fall of Elon Musk” mentions an unverified incident, a dramatic confrontation between Musk and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent within the White Home:
“F*** you! F*** you! F*** you! Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent was shouting at Elon Musk within the halls of the West Wing final month, loud sufficient for Donald Trump to listen to and in a language that he may actually perceive,” the Atlantic article narrated. “Bessent and Musk had been preventing over which ones ought to select the subsequent IRS chief—and, implicitly, over Musk’s bureaucracy-be-damned campaign. With out securing the Treasury chief’s sign-off, Musk had pushed via his personal choose for the job. Bessent was, fairly clearly, not having it. The battle had began exterior the Oval Workplace; it continued previous the Roosevelt Room and towards the chief of employees’s workplace, after which barreled across the nook to the nationwide safety adviser’s warren. Musk accused Bessent of getting run two failed hedge funds. “I can’t hear you,” he instructed Bessent as they argued, their faces simply inches aside. “Say it louder.”
Dismissing this account, Musk wrote on X, “They’re the previous, the legacy media fading into obscurity.” Conservative media persona Meghan Kelly got here out in Musk’s assist, writing: “If his life is in ‘decline,’ signal me up for decline.”
Musk’s practically four-month whirlwind tenure within the Trump administration has drawn to an in depth as he shifts his focus to his companies, mainly Tesla which has hit a tough patch.
Elon Musk’s fall from the Trump administration
After Donald Trump received the 2024 election, he sought to deliver high-profile enterprise leaders into the fold to bolster the picture of a revitalized, results-driven authorities. Musk, the maverick entrepreneur who had supported Trump throughout his marketing campaign, was tapped to steer DOGE — a symbolic nod to his internet-savvy picture. For Trump, Musk’s presence lent a veneer of innovation and private-sector credibility. For Musk, it was a chance to reshape federal paperwork, promote superior automation, and doubtlessly create favorable regulatory situations for his firms.The early months had been crammed with headlines, daring guarantees, and futuristic proposals — digitizing public companies, lowering bureaucratic waste, and making use of Tesla-style effectivity to all the things. However behind the scenes, frictions started rising.Musk’s ideological ambiguity quickly turned a legal responsibility. Whereas his libertarian-technocratic leanings initially aligned with Trump’s deregulation-first agenda, their variations widened. Musk’s more and more public clashes with social activists and imprecise statements on points like free speech, trans rights, and company variety alienated elements of the administration keen to keep up a fastidiously managed populist picture.
Federal departments resisted Musk’s technocratic interventions. Profession officers, unions, and even GOP lawmakers complained that his proposals lacked feasibility and sensitivity to institutional norms. Inside months, Musk had turn out to be extra of a legal responsibility than an asset. His affect started to wane, his entry curtailed, and his DOGE proposals sidelined in favor of extra conventional conservative priorities.
Trump used to put up so much about Elon Musk on Reality Social, about 4 instances per week in Feb and March, in keeping with a Politico report however now Trump and Musk each have stopped speaking about one another publicly. Musk had turn out to be unpopular with the general public, primarily based on polls and the way folks reacted to him throughout the Wisconsin Supreme Court docket race. The report cited a GOP insider saying, “He’s completed, executed, gone. He polls terribly. Folks hate him.”
As Musk’s political stature dimmed, his enterprise empire started to falter. Amid rising EV competitors and controversial public conduct, Tesla’s market share and model attraction declined. The corporate misplaced floor in Europe and China, whereas US gross sales stagnated underneath the shadow of Musk’s polarizing persona. Delays in federal approvals for Starlink expansions and house launches — some allegedly political — added to the pressures. The message was clear: Musk’s companies wanted his full consideration. Shareholders in Tesla and SpaceX started pushing for his return, citing lack of path, public backlash, and missed product targets. Analysts started asking if Musk had overextended himself, each politically and professionally.
Whereas Musk’s exit has been framed as voluntary, it does not look like so. Musk had successfully been sidelined a lot earlier, excluded from core coverage selections and relegated to symbolic roles. DOGE continued in title solely, stripped of affect and ambition. Forward of the 2026 midterms, Trump would need his authorities to retain common assist which was eroding because of Musk’s radical cuts in employees and spending.
Musk, who spent practically $300 million to again Trump’s presidential marketing campaign and different Republicans final yr, mentioned on Tuesday he’ll reduce his political spending considerably. Musk has mentioned he’ll scale back his work for Trump and give attention to Tesla. “My tough plan on the White Home is to be there for a pair days, each few weeks, and to be useful the place I may be useful,” he mentioned.
What awaits Musk at enterprise?
Musk’s foray into authorities was daring, disruptive, and in the end unsuccessful. But, in stepping away from politics, he might have rediscovered his core id: not as a political determine however as an innovator. With Tesla dealing with headwinds, SpaceX eyeing new frontiers, and X needing a imaginative and prescient past controversy, Musk’s true check lies not within the halls of energy, however within the factories, labs and launch pads that first made him a family title.
Whether or not this return is a reinvention or a final stand stays to be seen. Longtime Tesla Bull and wealth supervisor Ross Gerber bought greater than 26,000 of his Tesla shares within the first quarter of 2025. This accounts for roughly 10% of his wealth administration agency – Gerber-Kawasaki, says a Enterprise Insider report. Gerber has initially predicted that Tesla’s inventory may drop by as a lot as 50 p.c — a forecast that proved correct after Tesla shares drop by as much as 43% following the backlash to Musk’s controversial Nazi-style salute throughout Trump’s inauguration. Though Tesla’s inventory has recovered since then, Gerber instructed the publication that he doesn’t imagine the rebound can be sustainable. “We actually have not modified our view the place we’d begin [buying Tesla stock] once more,” he mentioned. Gerber mentioned that there’s not a variety of hope for the EV firm, until it might probably massively flip issues round with the Robotaxi service launch in Austin subsequent month. “This might be an especially tough time for them,” he mentioned, including “if they do not pull off or at the very least persuade folks that they’ve an actual robotaxi enterprise on the best way.”
“I feel the subsequent six months will actually be make or break for them,” Gerber mentioned, “and we’ll see how they do.” Gerber’s remarks come days after Musk reaffirmed his dedication to Tesla, stating that he’ll proceed to be the corporate’s CEO for the subsequent 5 years.
Tesla is about to start a check of its long-promised robotaxi service on schedule in Austin, Texas, by the top of June, Musk mentioned on Tuesday, whilst the corporate faces security questions from a US regulator. Tesla will roll out about 10 self-driving vehicles in some elements of town, and scale as much as a couple of thousand inside a couple of months, Musk instructed CNBC in an interview. A profitable robotaxi trial is essential for Tesla as Musk has shifted the corporate’s focus away from constructing a brand new, cheaper EV platform to launching the robotaxi service and its Optimus humanoid robots. A lot of Tesla’s valuation hangs on that guess.
In the meantime, Chinese language automaker BYD bought extra electrical autos in Europe than Tesla for the primary time, in keeping with a report by JATO Dynamics, as an getting old mannequin lineup and Musk’s politics damage demand for Tesla’s vehicles. Tesla reported its first drop in annual deliveries final yr, and analysts anticipate one other fall this yr after a 13% decline within the first quarter. Musk mentioned earlier this week that Tesla had already circled gross sales, and demand was sturdy in areas other than Europe.
Musk mentioned that he expects a whole bunch of 1000’s of self-driving Teslas can be on the highway requiring no human intervention by the top of subsequent yr and that he’s dedicated to staying as CEO of the corporate for at the very least one other 5 years. He additionally mentioned in a pair of interviews on Tuesday that he has no regrets about main the DOGE underneath the Trump administration. He downplayed any harm to the Tesla model from that position, saying demand for Teslas has skilled a “main rebound.”
After a steep fall this yr, Tesla inventory is up greater than 50% in little over a month as buyers have cheered Musk’s choice to reduce his time in Washington and spend extra time operating the corporate.
“We’re sturdy in all places else [except Europe]. So gross sales are… doing properly at this level,” Musk instructed the 2025 Qatar Financial Discussion board a couple of days in the past. “We’re now again over a trillion {dollars} in market cap, so clearly, the market is conscious of the scenario, so it is already circled.”
(With inputs from companies)
