US billionaire and South African antagonist Elon Musk has been grappling with some bad news of late capped by a dramatic slide in his car company Tesla’s stock price yesterday and a massive cyberattack against his social media company X.
The electric vehicle maker’s stock price plunged a whopping 15% and has lost almost half its value in just the last three months.
Anti-Musk protests largely due to his involvement in President Donald Trump’s Department of Government Efficiency have escalated around the country, often targeting Tesla showrooms.
While just last week his other company SpaceX’s Starship exploded minutes after lifting off from Texas, the second straight failure for Musk’s rocket programme this year alone.
Starship’s exploded fiery debris was seen across the night sky in the Bahamas after lifting off from Texas last Thursday… dooming an attempt to deploy mock satellites in SpaceX’s second consecutive failure this year.
His social media company X, formerly twitter suffered a massive cyberattack yesterday creating intermittent outages for hours.
Cue Monday’s Stock market rout that followed a seventh straight losing week for the electric car maker – in January Tesla’s sales plunged close to 50% in Europe year on year while EV rivals saw a surge in demand… in December its stock price was above $479, today a shadow of itself at $232.
In an interview on the Fox Business Network’s Larry Kudlow show this week, Musk was pressed on whether he was stretched too thinly.
Kudlow: “I mean, how are you running your other businesses?”
Musk: “With great difficulty. Yeah, I mean.”
Kudlow “But there’s no turning back, you’re saying?”
Musk: “I’m just here trying to make government more efficient. I mean, just, I said the goal, the goal here is let’s not have America go bankrupt with waste and fraud. So, that’s what I’m here for.”
Anti-Musk protests with reports of vandalized Tesla vehicles and dealerships have spread across the country from the US west coast to the east coast – part of an emerging grassroots movement to protest
Musk’s role in sweeping cuts to the federal workforce and federal funding at the behest of President Trump.
Keith Rakow is a California protestor.
“I decided that I wanted to join the protest here and send a message to Elon Musk in a way that I think is very direct. We can adversely impact sales and inflict financial pain on him similar to the financial pain that he’s inflicting on our veterans, our seniors, and a lot of less fortunate people in the US, along with our federal workers.”
Susan Poisson protested in Austin, Texas.
“Congress need to step in and protect the power of the purse. I don’t think that’s DOGE has the right to have our personal information, our personal data. I don’t think that DOGE has the right to cut programs. I think they’re calling programs that they don’t like fraudulent, and they are not fraudulent. They just don’t like them, they want to remake the government into something that doesn’t work for the people, but works for them.”
While Julia Hook also protested in Texas.
“I am here because I feel like I have to do something to push back against all that this administration is doing, especially of the illegal unconstitutional power grabs by Elon Musk and Donald Trump.”
Prompting President Trump to weigh in on social media – praising Musk for doing a fantastic job, calling the protestors radical left lunatics who are “illegally and collusively boycotting Tesla”; adding that he would be purchasing a Tesla today as a show of confidence and support for Elon Musk, whom he called a truly great American.
And after Musk and Trump’s misinformed attacks against South Africa of late, President Ramaphosa pressed in parliament on his engagements with Musk including a meeting in New York last September and a subsequent call to Musk in February.
“This we do because we continue to engage with a variety of people through diplomatic channels as well as we engage with them through various constituencies and countries that we have relations with. And as I’ve indicated through this conversation that I had we were able to have a discussion on what was a mischaracterization of what was being said about our country. And he being a person who is quite, I would say, influential, whether one likes it or not.”
Musk’s net worth has reportedly dropped by a staggering $120 billion in a matter of weeks.
But for now, he remains one of the most powerful people in America if not the world and has wielded that power to shape political thought and perspectives not only in the United States but around the world including in Europe and South Africa. But what is clear is that Musk’s greater public role is now experiencing some pushback that will divide those who have emboldened him and those who feel he’s simply gone too far.
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