Are the billionaires already falling out of love with Trump as stock markets plunge? 1News US Correspondent Logan Church looks at what it means for the Republicans and MAGA.
Well, that didn’t last long.
Market volatility, threats of a domestic and global recession, and what many think could be a looming economic disaster have caused big rifts among America’s financial elite.
The US President enjoyed the support of some of the wealthiest Americans ahead of the election campaign, with some spending millions of dollars to help get him elected.
Perhaps the most famous of these is Elon Musk. He spent US$227 million (NZ$410.5 million) – to help Donald Trump win in 2024.
After the election, he was appointed to a senior role in the White House leading the new minted “DOGE”, or Department of Government Efficiency, which has taken a chainsaw to government departments like the United States Agency of International Development.
He also stayed in charge of his own companies, such as Tesla, one of the leading manufacturers of electric vehicles.
It’s a company whose share price has fallen off a cliff – in part, it seems, due to the tariffs that Trump has slapped on American’s trading partners. It relies a lot on China for manufacturing, parts, and sales.
Elon Musk appears to have broken ways with the president in the past few days, telling Italy’s right-wing League Party over the weekend he hoped that ultimately, Europe and the US could trade with no tariffs.
“I'm hopeful, for example, with the tariffs, that at the end of the day, I hope it is agreed that both Europe and the United States should move, ideally in my view, to a zero tariff situation, effectively creating a free trade zone between Europe and North America. That has certainly been my advice to the president," he said.
The Washington Post reported that Musk appealed to Trump directly to reverse the tariff policy, but that fell on deaf ears.
Instead, he took to his own social media platform, X, calling Trump’s trade advisor Peter Navarro a “moron”, over comments he made in an interview about Tesla’s manufacturing.
“Navarro is dumber than a sack of bricks,” Musk said.
Asked about the spat yesterday, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said: “These are obviously two individuals who have very different views on trade and on tariffs. Boys will be boys, and we will let their public sparring continue.”
But Musk isn’t the only billionaire who seems to have ruptures with the White House.
Ahead of the election, Trump earned the endorsement of billionaire hedge fund boss Bill Ackman.
Since Trump announced his tariff plan, Ackman changed his tune.
“If...we launch economic nuclear war on every country in the world, business investment will grind to a halt, consumers will close their wallets and pocket books, and we will severely damage our reputation with the rest of the world that will take years and potentially decades to rehabilitate,” he said on X.
“The president has an opportunity to call a 90-day time out, negotiate and resolve unfair asymmetric tariff deals, and induce trillions of dollars of new investment in our country.”
Trump initially ignored that and pressed ahead, before rolling back some of his announcements this morning.
Billionaire investor and philanthropist Stanley Druckenmiller is a personal mentor of Trump’s Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and had recently appeared in an interview with CNBC in January generally supportive of tariffs.
“The risk is retaliation, but as long as we stay in the 10% range ... I think the risks are overblown relative to the rewards. The rewards on high.”
Trump ignored him too. China was subject to a 104% tariff on certain goods, which has now become 125%. And dozens more countries – and the European Union – were subject to tariffs higher than the base 10%, though that now seems to be on pause.
After Trump’s tariff announcement, he also posted on X, saying he does not support tariffs exceeding 10%.
What does all this mean? Well, it means that the even the world’s wealthiest investors who backed Trump don’t support his tariff plan.
What sets Trump apart from almost every other modern politician though is that he doesn’t seem care when this sort of criticism comes his way.
Trump has swatted away any and all opposition to his tariffs, promising a ‘golden age’ for Americans if they just hang on. To quote – verbatim – a recent post on his own social media platform Truth Social: “The United States has a chance to do something that should have been done DECADES AGO. Don’t be Weak! Don’t be Stupid! Don’t be a PANICAN (A new party based on Weak and Stupid people!). Be Strong, Courageous, and Patient, and GREATNESS will be the result!”
Trump also doesn’t need to care about his popularity among voters – for now.
His party controls the House, the Senate, and there is a conservative majority on the Supreme Court.
He leads the world's most powerful country and economy.
But how long will the American voters put up with the inevitable higher prices in the grocery stores?
The avocados from Mexico?
Energy from Canada?
The thousands of extra dollars it will soon cost to buy a new car from overseas?
Roughly half of everything consumed by Americans is produced overseas, with almost all of it now subject to tariffs.
Even though Trump only recently won the presidency, some Republicans are already expressing concern about the midterm elections less than two years away. Voters tend to vote en masse when they are unhappy – and not usually for the party in power.
Trump is going to have to show some sort of positive result for America – billionaire and non-billionaire citizens alike – well before then.
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