Elon Musk’s relationship with Donald Trump has quickly shifted from cooperation to conflict, as the two exchanged comments earlier today.
Musk’s companies operate in sectors that are either heavily regulated—or, in his view, not regulated enough. His political involvement makes more sense when seen through the lens of shaping policy: he’s pushed for looser regulations around SpaceX, more consistent standards for autonomous vehicles, and more oversight of artificial intelligence.
But after today’s back and forth, Trump is now threatening to eliminate all EV subsidies and cancel SpaceX contracts.
While we don’t usually cover politics, Musk’s recent criticism of Trump’s new spending bill could and likely will negatively affect both Tesla and SpaceX.
The fallout is already impacting Tesla stock, which fell 14.26% today and has dropped another 2% in after hours trading.
Below is a thread outlining the public exchange between Musk and Trump.
On June 3rd, Musk posted a comment to X criticizing Trump’s new bill due to it drastically increasing the nation’s debt.
Not a Tesla App
Today Trump responded on Truth Social saying the bill is necessary to prevent tax increases.
Not a Tesla App
Trump says in an interview that Musk knew the inner workings of the bill, while Musk denies being shown the bill at all.
🚨TRUMP: "I'm very disappointed with Elon. I've helped him a lot. He knew the inner workings of the bill better than anybody sitting here. He had no problem with it. All of a sudden he had a problem & he only developed the problem when he found out we're going to cut EV mandate" pic.twitter.com/aeCcmCAODQ
Trump turns on Musk, and goes back to his anti-EV campaign.
Not a Tesla App
Trump is now threatening to end government contracts for SpaceX, which Musk is calling his bluff on, saying that SpaceX can start decommissioning the Dragon spacecraft immediately.
Not a Tesla App
While we thought this would be the end of political involvement for Musk, he still appears to want to have a larger voice in politics.
It’ll be interesting to see how the Tesla stock reacts tomorrow. We may be in for another rough ride as Trump looks for additional ways to make Musk’s life more difficult. As we saw in the NJ Turnpike case, where Tesla is being forced to decommission all of their Superchargers along the popular route, politics can trump even the best product.
Is it time to create a new political party in America that actually represents the 80% in the middle?
Tesla recently shared statistics on its Supercharger expansion in the first quarter of 2025. The numbers highlight the work that Tesla’s teams are doing to expand the network and keep up with the growing demand from Tesla and non-Tesla vehicles.
Q1 2025 By the Numbers
Here’s how the Tesla Supercharger network performed in the first quarter of 2025.
Tesla brought online approximately 2,200 new Supercharger stalls worldwide, representing a 17% year-over-year growth for the quarter. That’s impressive growth, especially since Tesla is simultaneously working to transition older V2 stalls to V4 stalls.
Overall, Tesla delivered 1.4 TWh (that’s terawatt-hours) of energy to vehicles, representing a 26% year-over-year growth. More people than ever are using the Supercharger network - and with 42 million charging sessions in Q1 2025 (27% annual growth), Tesla is the de-facto standard for EV charging — even if the NJ Turnpike authorities don’t want to believe it.
That 1.4 TWh accounts for approximately 173 million gallons (657 liters) of gasoline being saved, which offsets 1.5B kilograms of CO2. While that may pale in comparison to the billions of metric tons of CO2 emitted by passenger vehicles every year in the US, it is still a significant amount of carbon being offset.
More Changes Coming
With such a strong start to the year, we can expect Tesla to continue posting impressive numbers throughout Q2 and likely throughout the remainder of 2025. Tesla’s pace of opening over 2,000 stalls (equivalent to 250 8-stall sites) per quarter seems to be well established, which means more density, faster charging, and more range for more parts of the world.
Tesla’s charging cables include a button on the handle that lets you easily stop charging and unlock the connector—but most third-party chargers don’t. If you’re using a non-Tesla charger, stopping a charge and releasing the cable or adapter typically means opening the Tesla app or using the in-car controls.
Now, Tesla is making that process a bit easier for Model 3 and Model Y owners.
How to Quickly Release Adapter or Charging Cable
As of update 2025.20, Tesla is introducing a shortcut that will stop the charging session and unlock the charging cable or adapter that is locked in place with a pin while the vehicle is charging.
By simply pulling and holding the rear left door handle, located next to the charge port on the Model 3 or Model Y, for three seconds will now cause the vehicle to stop charging.
Since Tesla locks the charging cable or adapter in place while the vehicle is charging or the vehicle is locked, this new feature can only be used if the vehicle is unlocked or if a key, such as your phone, is nearby.
The primary benefit of this method is for those using charging cables that don’t have an unlatch button or for owners using adapters, like the J1772 or CCS to NACS adapters, which may not unlatch if you press the button on the cable.
This is a nice little feature that'll go unnoticed by the vast majority of owners, but it’ll greatly benefit a few individuals who may not need to reach into their pocket or car to unlatch a third-party cable every day.
Availability
This feature is only available on the Model 3 and Model Y. It appears to be primarily available in Europe, while North America is not receiving this update in version 2025.20.
This feature is included in Tesla’s latest software update, 2025.20, which just started rolling out to customers in certain regions. The update isn’t as big as we were hoping for, likely due to Tesla’s engineers being focused on Robotaxi-specific features.