How Elon Musk Won His No Good, Very Bad Year

What a weird clip to beryllium Elon Musk.

This twelvemonth opened with the businessman turned governmental relation throwing what appeared, to Nazis astatine least, to beryllium a Sieg heil.

This spring, activists often congregated extracurricular the showrooms of his automaker, Tesla, to protestation his foray into the US national authorities and cozy narration with President Trump. They argued that his alleged Department of Government Efficiency, a cost-slashing cognition named aft a much than decade-old net meme, didn’t slash overmuch beyond overseas aid. They cheered arsenic Tesla missed Wall Street’s fiscal expectations.

In May, Musk blew up his narration with the astir almighty antheral connected Earth with a fewer vicious posts connected X; the astir almighty antheral connected Earth called him a “TRAIN WRECK.” Tesla kept leaking money. DOGE fell unfortunate to Washington infighting; it is present reportedly decentralized and a shadiness of the Musk idiosyncratic fiefdom it erstwhile was.

And yet: It seems Elon Musk is getting retired of 2025 OK? Or, to enactment it succinctly: Elon Musk whitethorn not beryllium the king of the world, but Elon Musk is inactive very, precise powerful.

Money isn’t everything, but erstwhile it comes to the richest quality successful the known universe, it’s worthy looking astatine the numbers. Tesla did a spot of flailing this twelvemonth (more connected that successful a sec), and historically, overmuch of Musk’s wealthiness has been derived from the world’s astir invaluable automaker. That should beryllium atrocious quality for Musk. But it’s go progressively wide that the Tesla CEO’s other, backstage companies—SpaceX, xAI, Neuralink—have kept his portfolio diversified, shielding the aspiring trillionaire from immoderate of the whipsaws of the nationalist market.

Musk is worthy immoderate $462 cardinal according to Bloomberg, and his involvement successful Tesla is valued astatine $140 billion, according to fiscal filings—less than fractional of his fortune. Overall, Musk’s wealthiness is up $29 cardinal since past year.

So however did a feline who began the twelvemonth arsenic the president's “First Buddy” and ended it arsenic a governmental pariah propulsion it off? It was, mostly, a communicative of 2 companies: Tesla hitting immoderate achromatic h2o portion SpaceX changeable satellites into orbit and snapped up authorities contracts. Musk, meanwhile, cheered connected from X, a website that helium appears to person massively overpaid for successful 2022. But the concern worked; the level acceptable the gait for governmental and societal commentary amongst the planetary close helping for overmuch of 2025.

By each accounts, Tesla had a less-than-stellar year. The US electrical conveyance marketplace foundered arsenic Trump’s authorities chopped taxation subsidies and enactment for artillery and conveyance manufacturing plants. It levied, past pulled back, and past levied again planetary tariffs that person strained the full US car industry. Musk's institution wasn’t immune from the effects.