June 13, 2025 • 12 mins
Elon Musk is quietly shifting his tone on Donald Trump after weeks of backlash triggered a rare internal warning from Tesla’s board of directors. Public criticism surged following Musk’s prominent role in Trump’s second administration, and for the first time in years, Tesla’s leadership told Musk directly that his political behavior was damaging the company. Multiple people familiar with the matter said the board told Musk he would need to walk back his statements about Trump—and fast—or risk losing his position.
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Episode Transcript
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(00:03):
Your ultimate authority for daily Elon Musk news.
Exploring the world's biggest ideas with your host Will
Walden. There's something new every day.
Elon Musk is shifting his tone on Donald Trump after weeks of
backlash triggered a rare internal warning from Tesla's
(00:23):
board of directors. Public criticism surged
following Musk's prominent role in Trump's second
administration, and for the first time in years, Tesla's
leadership told Musk directly that his political behavior was
damaging the company. Multiple people familiar with
that matter said the board told Musk he would need to walk back
his statements about Trump and fast or risk losing his position
(00:44):
at Tesla now. The shift began in late spring,
shortly after Musk stood next toTrump at a White House press
event and doubled down on the federal layoffs driven by Doge.
The Department of Government Efficiency and Musk had
personally overseen the cuts, defended them publicly and
celebrated his success at the Oval Office.
But inside Tesla, those moments created a different kind of
(01:07):
panic. Key customers began cancelling
orders. Sentiment on investor calls
turned hostile. Tesla stock dipped sharply in
the two weeks following Musk's highest profile political
appearances. Board members took notice as
well. Two directors, including one who
has worked with Musk since Tesla's earliest years, warned
(01:28):
that public association with Trump was becoming an
existential threat to the brand.They argued that Musk's recent
political comments were alienating core Tesla buyers,
many of whom lean liberal or identify with climate activism.
When director reportedly told him you can't sell clean energy
cars while backing someone tearing up the EPA.
(01:50):
Now Tesla's internal data team had already flagged concerning
trends. Social media sentiment analysts
showed Tesla's brand approval had dropped by double digits in
key markets like California and New York.
Suburban buyers wants a stable Tesla demographic.
We're voicing concerns about Musk's comments on LGBTQ rights
(02:10):
in his dismissive tone toward climate policy.
Now Tesla's PR team, which Musk had famously dismantled,
struggled to mount any kind of response.
Privately, Elon Musk started softening his language.
At a June meeting, he was asked about his role in Trump's second
term, and for the first time, hedidn't answer with his usual
bravado. He said only that he believed in
(02:34):
efficiency and wanted what was best for the country.
He avoided using Trump's name entirely.
The silence wasn't random. Sources close to the board say
they told him that disassociating from Trump was
non negotiable if he wanted to maintain his leadership
position. The pressure came as Tesla faced
other vulnerabilities. Its market global share had
(02:55):
begun shrinking under intense competition from Chinese
electric vehicle makers, and thecompany also remained under
federal investigation for safetyviolations tied to Autopilot.
Any appearance of political favoritism risked drawing
unwanted attention to those cases, especially since Musk had
helped dismantle the regulatory agencies meant to oversee them.
(03:19):
That board members also raised concerns about brand consistency
for years. Test the market itself as a
clean tech leader, a climate first brand backed by
innovation. Musk's political rhetoric was
pulling the company into a completely different orbit.
When Musk echoed Trump's anti trans talking points and used
terms like woke mind virus, Tesla's legal and marketing
(03:40):
teams received a wave of emails from longtime customers
threatening to cancel orders. At the core of the board's
concern was shareholder trust, though.
After Musk's purchase of Twitter, Now X, many investors
question whether he could balance Tesla's needs with his
growing political ventures. The Trump alliance pushed those
concerns over the edge. Major institutional investors
(04:02):
warned that Musk's behavior was destabilizing the company's
value. Some quietly began trimming
their Tesla holdings. And the final breaking point
came when Tesla's customer satisfaction rating dropped
below 70% for the first time in the company's modern history.
Internal polling attributed the decline directly to Musk's
political activity and public persona.
(04:24):
One director told colleagues that our product didn't get
worse, our CEO did. And after the internal push,
Musk began a slow retreat. He has not publicly apologized
for his role in Trump's administration, but insiders say
he issued a private statement totest the board members,
acknowledging that he had let personal convictions interfere
(04:44):
with company responsibilities. That message wasn't released
publicly but was seen as the first step toward more visible
damage control. And the Musk's recent tweets
have also reflected this change.In early May, he posted praise
for renewable energy initiativesin Europe, shared a photo of
Tesla solar installation in Puerto Rico, and promoted an
(05:05):
LGBTQ friendly hiring campaign at a Tesla plant in Nevada.
Those posts are part of what some inside the company to
describe as a coordinated effortto rebalance his image.
Still, Tesla employees remain skeptical.
Several said that unless Musk offers a direct public apology
or makes a clean break from Trump, the damage may already be
(05:26):
done. Others within the company fear
that Musk's political ambitions will resurface after the
immediate backlash fades. And at a June meeting, one
director proposed setting up a formal political conduct clause
in Musk's executive agreement, an unprecedented move at Tesla,
and that proposal has not yet been approved.
But its existence signals just how seriously the company now
(05:48):
views the situation. And for Elon Musk, the tension
between personal freedom and corporate leadership is becoming
harder to manage. Built Tesla on the back of a
progressive consumer base and that finds themselves at odds
with much of his user base. That same community that built
Tesla and made him so rich, theyfeel like he has turned his back
(06:12):
on them. And now he's on a public
campaign to wash away everythingthat he did with Donald Trump,
all the negative things that he said about the community,
everything he said about people.He's trying to wash that all
away. That's what these people think.
And it's public turn toward hardright politics alienated a
(06:34):
segment of the market that I made Tesla one of the most
admired brands in the entire world.
Now, if Musk doesn't make a moreexplicit public correction, the
company may face deeper problems.
Now, we all know if you've been following this, that Elon Musk
had broken ties with Trump on X,therefore he thinks that does
(06:59):
the company well. I'm sure the shareholders found
that good and people inside the company were impressed by that.
But he also just said I may havetaken things too far.
He didn't say he disagreed or he's completely cutting ties
with President Donald Trump. He's just said that he may have
taken his actions a little bit too far, which if you know the
(07:27):
policies in Tesla right now and what they're looking to put on
his executive contract in the future.
I think political leanings for Elon Musk or any CEO that may be
replacing him, which isn't the case at this point, But anybody
that may be replacing Elon Musk in the future, I think they
(07:48):
should be held accountable for any political damage that they
do to the brand. My own personal opinion, I think
Elon Musk went wild for a littlebit there on X and he's pulled
back, He's apologized and for most of the people that used to
support Elon Musk, they believe this is APR campaign.
(08:11):
He doesn't really feel this way.Elon Musk is just posting these
things on X. They even think the break from
Donald Trump. Some people think the break from
Donald Trump. Even internal people on the
board think the break from Donald Trump or know that the
break from Donald Trump is actually just APR stunt to
convince just enough people fromleft-leaning policies, those
(08:38):
kind of people to buy Teslas again.
The stock is dipping, the sales are going away, and if you could
get even a small margin of thosepeople back by pretending to be
done with Trump, because Trump, as was stated last week by
Donald Trump on True Social and on X, that the easiest way to
(09:01):
save money was to cut Elon Musk's contracts with Tesla and
SpaceX and Neuralink and all of his companies.
Donald Trump said that and then immediately Elon Musk blew up at
him and said they're going to stop doing the Dragon
spacecraft. That's the spacecraft that sends
(09:22):
humans to the International Space Station into space.
They're going to cut all of thatfunding and stop making new
versions of the Dragon. They plan that anyway.
Elon Musk in SpaceX has been planning that for years.
They were going to decommission the older Dragon spacecrafts and
(09:43):
just use the new versions. They can't get rid of the Dragon
spacecraft. They have contracts with NASA,
they have contracts with the government, they have private
contracts that sends people to space.
They can't decommission the whole thing right away, but they
are planning to decommission theDragon spacecraft when Starship
comes fully online, when they can send people to space, to low
(10:07):
Earth orbit and to the Moon and Mars, etcetera.
With Starship, they're going to decommission that anyway.
So the plan was there to decommission it.
Elon Musk's didn't state a time frame.
He said immediately, but who knows what crafts he was talking
about. And this is because I have
covered SpaceX for the last fiveyears and know the insurance and
(10:30):
outs of the company. And you know what they're what
they're briefing briefings are and what has been talked about
the Dragon spacecraft, the newerversions will stick around.
The older versions decommissioned.
So maybe Elon Musk was talking about that.
And maybe this was what some people feel internally at Tesla.
They feel that this was all smoke and mirrors to get Elon's
(10:54):
companies back on track. Let me know what you think in
the comments. If you have comments on your
podcast platform, I'd greatly appreciate the community that
we're building here and the family that we're building
around these new stories. So please hit a hit the
subscribe button or the follow button on your podcast platform
right now on your app because that really helps us out too.
(11:15):
That's all I'm going to ask for you.
Just one second of your time to hit follow.
I'm going to give you 5 more years of this podcast.
I've already given you 5, I've given you 800 plus almost 900
episodes now, something like that, almost 1000 episodes.
We're coming up on 1000 soon. So I want to say thank you so
much for being here today and take care of yourselves.
(11:38):
Hey, thank you so much for listening today.
I really do appreciate your support.
If you could take a second and hit the subscribe or the follow
button on whatever podcast platform that you're listening
on right now, I greatly appreciate it.
It helps out the show tremendously and you'll never
miss an episode. And each episode is about 10
minutes or less to get you caught up quickly.
(11:58):
And please, if you want to support the show even more, go
to patreon.com/stage Zero. And please take care of
yourselves and each other. And I'll see you tomorrow.
Your ultimate authority for daily Elon Musk news.
Exploring the world's biggest ideas with your host Will
Walden. There's something new every day.
Elon Musk is shifting his tone on Donald Trump after weeks of
backlash triggered a rare internal warning from Tesla's
(00:23):
board of directors. Public criticism surged
following Musk's prominent role in Trump's second
administration, and for the first time in years, Tesla's
leadership told Musk directly that his political behavior was
damaging the company. Multiple people familiar with
that matter said the board told Musk he would need to walk back
his statements about Trump and fast or risk losing his position
(00:44):
at Tesla now. The shift began in late spring,
shortly after Musk stood next toTrump at a White House press
event and doubled down on the federal layoffs driven by Doge.
The Department of Government Efficiency and Musk had
personally overseen the cuts, defended them publicly and
celebrated his success at the Oval Office.
But inside Tesla, those moments created a different kind of
(01:07):
panic. Key customers began cancelling
orders. Sentiment on investor calls
turned hostile. Tesla stock dipped sharply in
the two weeks following Musk's highest profile political
appearances. Board members took notice as
well. Two directors, including one who
has worked with Musk since Tesla's earliest years, warned
(01:28):
that public association with Trump was becoming an
existential threat to the brand.They argued that Musk's recent
political comments were alienating core Tesla buyers,
many of whom lean liberal or identify with climate activism.
When director reportedly told him you can't sell clean energy
cars while backing someone tearing up the EPA.
(01:50):
Now Tesla's internal data team had already flagged concerning
trends. Social media sentiment analysts
showed Tesla's brand approval had dropped by double digits in
key markets like California and New York.
Suburban buyers wants a stable Tesla demographic.
We're voicing concerns about Musk's comments on LGBTQ rights
(02:10):
in his dismissive tone toward climate policy.
Now Tesla's PR team, which Musk had famously dismantled,
struggled to mount any kind of response.
Privately, Elon Musk started softening his language.
At a June meeting, he was asked about his role in Trump's second
term, and for the first time, hedidn't answer with his usual
bravado. He said only that he believed in
(02:34):
efficiency and wanted what was best for the country.
He avoided using Trump's name entirely.
The silence wasn't random. Sources close to the board say
they told him that disassociating from Trump was
non negotiable if he wanted to maintain his leadership
position. The pressure came as Tesla faced
other vulnerabilities. Its market global share had
(02:55):
begun shrinking under intense competition from Chinese
electric vehicle makers, and thecompany also remained under
federal investigation for safetyviolations tied to Autopilot.
Any appearance of political favoritism risked drawing
unwanted attention to those cases, especially since Musk had
helped dismantle the regulatory agencies meant to oversee them.
(03:19):
That board members also raised concerns about brand consistency
for years. Test the market itself as a
clean tech leader, a climate first brand backed by
innovation. Musk's political rhetoric was
pulling the company into a completely different orbit.
When Musk echoed Trump's anti trans talking points and used
terms like woke mind virus, Tesla's legal and marketing
(03:40):
teams received a wave of emails from longtime customers
threatening to cancel orders. At the core of the board's
concern was shareholder trust, though.
After Musk's purchase of Twitter, Now X, many investors
question whether he could balance Tesla's needs with his
growing political ventures. The Trump alliance pushed those
concerns over the edge. Major institutional investors
(04:02):
warned that Musk's behavior was destabilizing the company's
value. Some quietly began trimming
their Tesla holdings. And the final breaking point
came when Tesla's customer satisfaction rating dropped
below 70% for the first time in the company's modern history.
Internal polling attributed the decline directly to Musk's
political activity and public persona.
(04:24):
One director told colleagues that our product didn't get
worse, our CEO did. And after the internal push,
Musk began a slow retreat. He has not publicly apologized
for his role in Trump's administration, but insiders say
he issued a private statement totest the board members,
acknowledging that he had let personal convictions interfere
(04:44):
with company responsibilities. That message wasn't released
publicly but was seen as the first step toward more visible
damage control. And the Musk's recent tweets
have also reflected this change.In early May, he posted praise
for renewable energy initiativesin Europe, shared a photo of
Tesla solar installation in Puerto Rico, and promoted an
(05:05):
LGBTQ friendly hiring campaign at a Tesla plant in Nevada.
Those posts are part of what some inside the company to
describe as a coordinated effortto rebalance his image.
Still, Tesla employees remain skeptical.
Several said that unless Musk offers a direct public apology
or makes a clean break from Trump, the damage may already be
(05:26):
done. Others within the company fear
that Musk's political ambitions will resurface after the
immediate backlash fades. And at a June meeting, one
director proposed setting up a formal political conduct clause
in Musk's executive agreement, an unprecedented move at Tesla,
and that proposal has not yet been approved.
But its existence signals just how seriously the company now
(05:48):
views the situation. And for Elon Musk, the tension
between personal freedom and corporate leadership is becoming
harder to manage. Built Tesla on the back of a
progressive consumer base and that finds themselves at odds
with much of his user base. That same community that built
Tesla and made him so rich, theyfeel like he has turned his back
(06:12):
on them. And now he's on a public
campaign to wash away everythingthat he did with Donald Trump,
all the negative things that he said about the community,
everything he said about people.He's trying to wash that all
away. That's what these people think.
And it's public turn toward hardright politics alienated a
(06:34):
segment of the market that I made Tesla one of the most
admired brands in the entire world.
Now, if Musk doesn't make a moreexplicit public correction, the
company may face deeper problems.
Now, we all know if you've been following this, that Elon Musk
had broken ties with Trump on X,therefore he thinks that does
(06:59):
the company well. I'm sure the shareholders found
that good and people inside the company were impressed by that.
But he also just said I may havetaken things too far.
He didn't say he disagreed or he's completely cutting ties
with President Donald Trump. He's just said that he may have
taken his actions a little bit too far, which if you know the
(07:27):
policies in Tesla right now and what they're looking to put on
his executive contract in the future.
I think political leanings for Elon Musk or any CEO that may be
replacing him, which isn't the case at this point, But anybody
that may be replacing Elon Musk in the future, I think they
(07:48):
should be held accountable for any political damage that they
do to the brand. My own personal opinion, I think
Elon Musk went wild for a littlebit there on X and he's pulled
back, He's apologized and for most of the people that used to
support Elon Musk, they believe this is APR campaign.
(08:11):
He doesn't really feel this way.Elon Musk is just posting these
things on X. They even think the break from
Donald Trump. Some people think the break from
Donald Trump. Even internal people on the
board think the break from Donald Trump or know that the
break from Donald Trump is actually just APR stunt to
convince just enough people fromleft-leaning policies, those
(08:38):
kind of people to buy Teslas again.
The stock is dipping, the sales are going away, and if you could
get even a small margin of thosepeople back by pretending to be
done with Trump, because Trump, as was stated last week by
Donald Trump on True Social and on X, that the easiest way to
(09:01):
save money was to cut Elon Musk's contracts with Tesla and
SpaceX and Neuralink and all of his companies.
Donald Trump said that and then immediately Elon Musk blew up at
him and said they're going to stop doing the Dragon
spacecraft. That's the spacecraft that sends
(09:22):
humans to the International Space Station into space.
They're going to cut all of thatfunding and stop making new
versions of the Dragon. They plan that anyway.
Elon Musk in SpaceX has been planning that for years.
They were going to decommission the older Dragon spacecrafts and
(09:43):
just use the new versions. They can't get rid of the Dragon
spacecraft. They have contracts with NASA,
they have contracts with the government, they have private
contracts that sends people to space.
They can't decommission the whole thing right away, but they
are planning to decommission theDragon spacecraft when Starship
comes fully online, when they can send people to space, to low
(10:07):
Earth orbit and to the Moon and Mars, etcetera.
With Starship, they're going to decommission that anyway.
So the plan was there to decommission it.
Elon Musk's didn't state a time frame.
He said immediately, but who knows what crafts he was talking
about. And this is because I have
covered SpaceX for the last fiveyears and know the insurance and
(10:30):
outs of the company. And you know what they're what
they're briefing briefings are and what has been talked about
the Dragon spacecraft, the newerversions will stick around.
The older versions decommissioned.
So maybe Elon Musk was talking about that.
And maybe this was what some people feel internally at Tesla.
They feel that this was all smoke and mirrors to get Elon's
(10:54):
companies back on track. Let me know what you think in
the comments. If you have comments on your
podcast platform, I'd greatly appreciate the community that
we're building here and the family that we're building
around these new stories. So please hit a hit the
subscribe button or the follow button on your podcast platform
right now on your app because that really helps us out too.
(11:15):
That's all I'm going to ask for you.
Just one second of your time to hit follow.
I'm going to give you 5 more years of this podcast.
I've already given you 5, I've given you 800 plus almost 900
episodes now, something like that, almost 1000 episodes.
We're coming up on 1000 soon. So I want to say thank you so
much for being here today and take care of yourselves.
(11:38):
Hey, thank you so much for listening today.
I really do appreciate your support.
If you could take a second and hit the subscribe or the follow
button on whatever podcast platform that you're listening
on right now, I greatly appreciate it.
It helps out the show tremendously and you'll never
miss an episode. And each episode is about 10
minutes or less to get you caught up quickly.
(11:58):
And please, if you want to support the show even more, go
to patreon.com/stage Zero. And please take care of
yourselves and each other. And I'll see you tomorrow.
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