Checking in on Elon and the Big Beautiful Bill

Don't worry—we're not going back to those massive tweet posts (for one thing, I frequently search the archives and realize what a pain it was scrolling through those).

The tweets—or whatever the hell you call them when they're on Bluesky—pretty much tell the story on their own, but here are a few quick framing notes.

People, having heard me spout off on the subject of Musk, sometimes ask if I think the feud is fake. My standard answer is no. First, because these are incredibly angry and vindictive men with no self-control. Second, because this is very much a lose-lose situation.

For Trump, Musk has very much become the son of a bitch outside the tent pissing in—and at the worst possible time.

For Musk, since this began, he has lost billions of dollars and stands to lose a great deal more if Trump follows through on any of his threats. It’s true that much of the drop in Tesla shares can probably be attributed to the steady stream of bad news coming out of the robotaxi mini-launch (and what we might see in the Q2 numbers), but that’s all the more reason their CEO should probably be keeping his mouth shut on this topic.

Musk started his Kill Bill beef back up over the weekend. Shares of Tesla have dropped 7% since Friday's close. But it's not just the co-presidential breakup weighing on investors' minds. It's also anticipation of a Q2 decline in vehicle deliveries for the EV maker... www.cnbc.com/2025/07/01/t...

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— Lora Kolodny (@lorak.bsky.social) July 1, 2025 at 5:33 PM

In just three minutes Xiaomi took 200,000 pre-orders for only its second ever EV—four times what Cybertruck has sold in its 18-month lifetime. But at $35,000, it's really gunning for Elon's family SUV. www.wired.com/story/xiaomi...

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— WIRED (@wired.com) July 1, 2025 at 5:48 AM

stock market is too stupid to understand the complexities of self-driving fraud, or even an obviously collapsing manufacturing business, but it can, in its collective wisdom, intuit the possibility that a social media feud with a notoriously combative sitting president might not be bullish for Tesla

— e.w. niedermeyer (@niedermeyer.online) July 1, 2025 at 5:21 AM

Elon Musk absolutely torches the Senate GOP budget bill

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— MeidasTouch (@meidastouch.com) June 28, 2025 at 1:23 PM

Elon Musk continues to warn against the GOP budget bill

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— MeidasTouch (@meidastouch.com) June 29, 2025 at 11:45 AM

this is just like the parable of the scorpion and the scorpion

— e.w. niedermeyer (@niedermeyer.online) June 5, 2025 at 1:02 PM

If Musk really cared, he'd be taking meetings with Republican senators and bribing them to vote no.

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— Mueller, She Wrote (@muellershewrote.com) June 30, 2025 at 12:19 PM

As Elon goes nuts on Republicans for their debt hypocrisy, Trump calls out Elon’s billions in government subsidies — Elon says “cut it all now” The breakup continues

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— The Tennessee Holler (@thetnholler.bsky.social) June 30, 2025 at 10:06 PM

Interesting

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— Thor Benson (@thorbenson.bsky.social) June 30, 2025 at 1:47 PM

Unfettered Thom Tillis aligning with off-the-TrumpTrain Elon Musk.

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— Steven T. Dennis (@steventdennis.bsky.social) June 30, 2025 at 11:47 AM

elon musk is going to destroy elon musk, and i'm here for it. bsky.app/profile/raws...

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— Leon Thomas (@renegadecut.bsky.social) June 30, 2025 at 3:54 PM

A bit off topic, but an important piece of context.

I am so tired to the "Biden not inviting Elon to the White House EV summit radicalized him" narrative. That EV summit was in 2021. Elon had already gone full COVID denialist, and called countermeasures "fascism." He was already violating environmental and labor laws rampantly. "Pedo guy" was 2018.

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— e.w. niedermeyer (@niedermeyer.online) June 30, 2025 at 12:14 PM

And the transphobia, don't forget the transphobia.