How much of Elon Musk's personal fortune is at stake in public feud with Trump?

Elon Musk is now in a direct financial battle with the most powerful man in the world — President Donald Trump — and the damage is already stacking up fast.

On Thursday, after Elon tore into Trump’s latest federal spending bill, Trump hit back hard by threatening to yank government contracts from every one of Elon’s companies.

Elon then escalated it. He said Trump never would’ve gotten re-elected if it weren’t for him and added that SpaceX would shut down the Dragon spacecraft immediately if the president cut their funding.

Within hours, Tesla’s stock dropped so sharply that $152 billion was wiped from the company’s value, the largest one-day loss Tesla has ever seen. Elon’s personal wealth already dropped $34 billion this week, making his total losses at nearly $200 billion.

Trump threatens contracts, Tesla tanks $152 billion

Just a few days ago, Elon and Trump were thick as thieves. Elon was given an advisory role in Trump’s administration and even had the president babysitting his kid on Air Force One and inside the Oval. That’s gone now.

After the dust settled, Tesla recovered 5% in pre-market hours on Friday, but the loss remains massive. Tesla’s current problems go way beyond this friendship-turned-feud. Sales are weak, Elon is juggling multiple companies at once, and investors are getting nervous.

Wall Street has been questioning his ability to lead for months, and this is only making it worse. Tom Hulick, the CEO of Strategy Asset Managers, said Friday on CNBC’s Squawk Box Europe that investors are right to worry when “two people are going at each other’s throats just like Trump and Musk are right now.”

Hulick also tried to push for calm, calling the situation a “schoolyard spat” and urging people to focus on the data coming out of Tesla — including earnings, cost-cutting, and infrastructure efforts in the US and overseas. “Whether there’s a spat between Trump and Musk or between two different nations,” he said, “I think people are going to settle down and cooler heads are going to prevail.”

But this isn’t just about stock prices. Trump has the power to cancel or delay billions of dollars’ worth of contracts. That includes defense and intelligence deals that don’t even appear on public records. And while Elon once said, “If I cared about subsidies, I would have entered the oil and gas industry,” his empire tells a different story.

Government cash fuels Elon’s empire

For two decades, Elon’s businesses have been built with help from the US government. Whether it was low-interest loans, tax incentives, or direct federal contracts, he’s collected tens of billions in support. The Washington Post put the number at $38 billion, although that number probably doesn’t include a good chunk of classified deals from defense agencies.

That’s a massive amount of taxpayer money propping up companies that Elon claims are self-made. Now, with Trump threatening to turn off the flow, Elon could be looking at a brutal loss in revenue across every one of his companies.

Paul Levinson, a communications professor at Fordham University, thinks Elon will survive it. “Musk has ample resources to sustain those losses, reshuffle and rebuild his companies and holdings, and come out ahead and on top,” Levinson said. “Bottom line: if all the Trump government does in its feud with Musk is attack his financial interests, Musk is very likely to not only survive but continue to thrive.”

Still, that doesn’t change what’s on the line. This is not a Twitter argument. This is the president of the United States threatening to pull billions in taxpayer-backed deals from the world’s richest man. And the financial bleeding has already begun.