Tesla Shares Rise Over 4% as Trump-Musk Feud Appears Softening

TMTPOST -- Tesla Inc. shares rose 4.55% on Monday, outperforming the U.S. stock market as the S&P 500 eked out a gain of 0.08%. Shares of Tesla extended their rally last Friday as more signs that the feud between CEO Elon Musk and U.S. President Donald Trump is softening emerged.

Credit：Xinhua News Agency

"We had a great relationship and I wish him well — very well, actually," Trump said in a clip posed by conservative influencer ALX on social media platform X on Monday. Musk responded the post with a heart emoji late that day. That is the latest signal that Musk is softening tone toward Trump following the public clash last week.

Musk over the weekend in a series of posts and re-share on his social media X expressed his support for Trump’s attempts to squelch protests in Los Angeles by deploying the National Guard.

Musk shared a post showing Trump accused California Governor Gavin Newscum and Los Angeles mayor Karen Bass of failing to rein in immigration protests in the city following ICE raids. "Governor Gavin Newscum and Mayor Bass should apologize to the people of Los Angeles for the absolutely horrible job that they have done, and this now includes the ongoing LA riots,”Trump posted on his social media Truth Social. “These are not protesters; they are troublemakers and insurrectionists. Remember, No Masks!"

“This is not ok,” Musk said in a post on X, attaching a picture of a man in face paint standing on top of a burning car waving a Mexican flag, hours after Trump’s decision to deploy California National Guard troops to respond to anti-ICE protests in Los Angeles.

Musk also reposted one of U.S. Vice President JD Vance’s posts sharing Trump’s determination to crack down on Los Angeles protests. "This moment calls for decisive leadership," Vance said, sharing a screenshot of a Social Truth post from Trump about how his administration would address the riots. "The president will not tolerate rioting and violence."

It’s unclear why Musk shifted his tone days following his feud with Trump. The Tesla CEO had deleted some of his explosive posts attacking the president last week.

Trump said on Thursday that he was “very disappointed” in Musk and was “very surprised” about the tech mogul’s public bashing the Republican tax-and-spending “Big Beautiful Bill”, which was attacked by him as an “abomination” earlier this week. Musk only opposes the bill because they eliminated electric vehicle tax credits from it, according to Trump.

Trump claimed Musk had known the tax-policy bill very well but suddenly launched campaign against the bill. "Elon knew the inner workings of this bill better than almost anybody sitting here," said the president. "All of a sudden, he had a problem, and he only developed the problem when he found out that we're going to have to cut the EV mandate."

Musk quickly rejected Trump’s claim Thursday on his social media X. "Whatever," he replied in a post. "Keep the EV/solar incentive cuts in the bill, even though no oil & gas subsidies are touched (very unfair!!), but ditch the MOUNTAIN of DISGUSTING PORK in the bill. In the entire history of civilization, there has never been legislation that both big and beautiful. Everyone knows this!"

In a separate post responding to Trump’s remarks that Musk is very familiar with the bill’s details, the billionaire said:"False, this bill was never shown to me even once and was passed in the dead of night so fast that almost no one in Congress could even read it!"

Trump then fired back at Musk on his social media platform Truth Social, stating Musk "went crazy." Trump also threatened to end Musk’s government contracts. “The easiest way to save money in our Budget, Billions and Billions of Dollars, is to terminate Elon’s Governmental Subsidies and Contracts. I was always surprised that Biden didn’t do it!” said the president.

Musk hit with a claiming on X that Trump "in the Epstein files," adding that “that is the real reason they have not been made public.” He also said his company SpaceX will “immediately” begin decommissioning its Dragon spacecraft in light of Trump’s threat. Hours later, Musk said he will no decommisson Dragon, after a X user urged him to cool off and take a step back for a couple days.

In less than 48 hours, Musk’s post alleging Trump’s involvement in the case of the late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein was deleted. Another post that Musk responded “yes” to a user’s post that called for Trump to be impeached and replaced with JD Vance was also no longer available.