Tesla shares fell sharply Thursday as President Donald Trump and Elon Musk publicly clashed over Trump’s signature tax bill.

The car company’s stock had dropped nearly nine points as of 1:30 p.m. ET Thursday to $303.03 per share.

The decline came as investors reacted to the volatile war of words between the president and Tesla’s CEO, who opened up his checkbook during the campaign and worked alongside Trump in the White House until a week ago.

The clash between the two billionaires began on social media with Musk ripping Trump’s bill. In the Oval Office on Thursday, Trump was asked by reporters about Musk’s criticism of the administration’s “big beautiful bill.”

While seated alongside German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, Trump fired back.

Trump downplayed Musk’s influence on his 2024 victory from the Oval Office, saying the billionaire was not a major factor in his 2024 election win.

“I would have won easily anyway.” The president also added that Musk had become “very disappointing.”

Musk responded quickly on social media, taking credit for the election result.

“Without me, Trump would have lost the election, Dems would control the House and the Republicans would be 51-49 in the Senate,” Musk wrote. “Such ingratitude.”

Musk also again trashed the bill:

On Musk’s campaigning for him in Pennsylvania, Trump said on Thursday:

Susie [Wiles] would say I would’ve won Pennsylvania easily anyway, even if the governor ran, the real governor, not the governor from Minnesota, who’s a, I mean, he’s a sick puppy, that guy, that poor guy, I feel sorry for him.

But they made a bad choice with him. But if you pick Shapiro or anybody else, I spoke to him recently about his, you know, his house being set on fire, which was terrible. But if they picked him, I would have won Pennsylvania, I’d have won it by a lot.

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