A hot potato: Elon Musk is more than $15 billion poorer today, a result of Tesla's shares taking another dive following the launch of his America Party. But there's no need to set up a GoFundMe; Musk is still the world's richest person – by a considerable margin.
Tesla's shares have been suffering as a result of Musk's ongoing feud with one-time ally Donald Trump. After fulfilling his pledge to launch a new political party over the weekend, Tesla shares dropped 7% yesterday morning, losing around $21 per share.
As a result of the fall, Musk saw another $15 billion wiped off his personal fortune. However, he still tops Bloomberg's Billionaires Index with a total net worth of $346 billion. Second place Mark Zuckerberg is at $253 billion – $93 billion less than Musk.
Tesla's shares hit $436 on January 20, the day of Trump's inauguration. Today, the price is $297, marking a 31.8% decrease. The change is reflected in Musk's net worth, which is down $86.7 billion this year so far.
Musk's initial spat with Trump in June saw the President threaten to terminate Musk's governmental subsidies and contracts as a way to slash billions of dollars from the budget. This wiped $152 billion off Tesla's market cap.
The feud was reignited last week following the signing of Trump's Big Beautiful Bill, which will end the $7,500 federal EV tax credit incentive in September. Trump once again threatened to stop the billions of dollars in subsidies Musk's companies receive from the government, and even suggested that DOGE, the budget-slashing organization that Musk until recently headed, investigate the CEO's firms. Tesla's shares fell again.
Musk says his objection to the Big Beautiful bill is over the amount it will add to the US national debt, estimated to be at least $3 trillion, and not the ending of the EV incentive.
It's not just Tesla's shares that are suffering. The EV maker just reported a drop in vehicle deliveries for the second quarter in a row, and it was even worse than what most analysts were expecting.
Musk said on Sunday that the America Party may back a presidential candidate at some point, but "the focus for the next 12 months is on the House and the Senate."
"I think it's ridiculous to start a third party," Trump told reporters. On his Truth Social network, he wrote, "I am saddened to watch Elon Musk go completely 'off the rails,' essentially becoming a train wreck over the past five weeks."
elon's response to trump pic.twitter.com/aYzOC9d9i6
– $TSLA Hodler (@TSLAshareholder) July 7, 2025
According to recent polling by Silver Bulletin, 36.7 percent of Americans have a favorable view of Musk and 55 percent view him unfavorably. At the end of last year, just 45% of Americans held an unfavorable view of the billionaire.