Minute by minute, publication after publication, The extremely public fight between Elon Musk and President Donald Trump has reduced his as boasting status as the richest person in the world.
The final damage to the closing of the day: US $ 34,000 million erased from its personal net worth, the second largest loss recorded in the history of the Bloomberg billionaire index of the richest 500 on the planet. The only superior loss was another of his, in November 2021.
The counterattack was surreal and, in a way, inevitable, considering that it is a president of the United States who has used the oval office to rebuke world leaders, and an executive director with a history of throwing himself from one crusade to another. The trigger was Musk’s sudden initiative – such days after leaving Washington – to gather enough support to “end” the emblematic “Big, Beautiful Bill” of Trump.
Musk, who is still the richest person in the world with a vast fortune of US $ 334,500 million, has supported numerous defeats before. But what is at stake is more important than ever in his confrontation with Trump, as the president made it made clear by putting an end to government contracts with Musk, which would represent a severe blow for the income of Tesla Inc. and Spacex.
Faithful to his style, the billionaire responded in X with five words pronounced by Clint Eastwood’s character in fulminant impact: “Go, let me have the day.” Then, he said without evidence that Trump’s name appears in files linked to the late New York financial Jeffrey Epstein, and announced that Spacex would begin to dismantle his Dragon ship, a crucial link with the space on which the United States depends to transport load and astronauts to the International Space Station.
The Word of Words marks a radical change with respect to the months after Trump’s electoral victory, when Musk’s net assets reached a record close to US $ 500,000 million. The valuations of their companies shot, driven by the expectation that they would benefit from their relationship with Trump and his role as head of the government efficiency department. Musk officially abandoned Washington last week.
