This really looks like another one of those times that Elon's big stupid mouth is going to get him in trouble just because he doesn't know when to shut the actual fuck up.
On one hand he's still rich enough to drive 5 golden Tesla's tied together and when they run out of juice call 5 golden helicopters tied together to come pick him up.
On the other, its definitely been a PR nightmare for him and I think a significant amount of trust has been lost in his magic touch, which money can't buy back. Tesla stock can be seen as faith in Elon himself, and its been on a downward trend since this Twitter stuff started. Alltime high of 407 in November 2021. 328 by the time the sale went through in April 2022... 175 right now.
I'm hopeful if it crashes into the ground we get EV's that don't suck ass and are cheap enough to compete with dino juice cars. My cynical ass is of the opinion that Tesla falling apart will just mean EV's as a whole will fall apart, as they're practically synonymous.
TSLA was massively over-inflated before the Twitter deal. I guess part of that was because of the hype he had surrounding his image. But Tesla was due for a correction, especially with other manufacturers bringing more EVs into the market. I think Musk continuing to make very public idiotic statements has hurt his reputation among regular people and investors more than his stupid Twitter deal did, and he was going to continue doing that regardless. I admit that I could be wrong, but I think his mouth and his ego have cost him a lot more than the Twitter deal did.
Biden ain't keen on letting us have them cheap and lord knows it ticks all the wrong boxes for Trump so I don't see him changing course... Then there's the whole multiple fires thing which would absolutely be hopped on by anyone with an axe to grind (presuming those 10 were all just random fires and not the cars being tinderboxes)
Considering BYD is a Chinese EV, and Trump hates China with a burning passion (And was promising Big Oil concessions for cash), I gotta imagine he'd just double down on the tariffs or otherwise claim credit for them, rather then reverse course.