Just as Trump is set to destroy Tesla with a slew of new legislation, Elon Musk declared last week that he “regrets” some of the things he said about the president.
Musk released a string of tweets last week criticising Trump and the Republican Party over the “Big Beautiful Bill”. The CEO even went so far as to say that Trump is not making the Epstein files public because he is in them.
Musk was aware of Trump’s long-standing relationship with Epstein when he provided funding for his candidacy.
In retaliation, the president threatened to revoke any contracts and subsidies given to Musk’s businesses.
Tesla’s stock plummeted as a result, but Musk immediately withdrew. In addition to tweeting the president a “heart emoji“, he deleted the majority of his posts that mentioned Trump.
Musk has now fully recanted and expressed regret on Twitter for some of his posts on Trump:
It is possible that the GOP will be able to pass the Big Beautiful Bill through the Senate with the Tesla CEO’s support.
We’ve already talked about how the law would probably have a big effect on the US market for electric vehicles, particularly Tesla. But that is only the first step. Trump is now getting ready to do further damage to Tesla.
According to Politico, Trump intends to sign three congressional resolutions on Thursday that will overturn California’s pollution regulations, which have been enacted by other states (CARB).
California’s right to enact its own more stringent auto emissions regulations would be essentially nullified by the signing.
California has already declared that, should Trump sign the new resolutions, it will challenge them in court.
Additionally, Tesla has a short window of time—June 19—to reply to the NHTSA’s request for details on the start of a robotaxi service in Austin.
Musk stated that Tesla is now targeting June 22 for the service’s launch, which was originally believed to be in the first half of the month.
Since the proposed service is based on Tesla’s “Supervised Full Self-Driving” system, which is presently the subject of an investigation by the federal agency, NHTSA might effectively terminate it before it even begins.
Musk’s conflict with Trump couldn’t have occurred at a worse moment for Tesla.
As of the most recent quarter, emission credits are the only source of revenue for Tesla. Therefore, if it goes against California’s waiver, this might lead to a large drop in Tesla’s credits and earnings, particularly beginning in 2028.
The Trump administration may have directly threatened the Austin launch.