Donald Trump is openly bragging about just how much money his billionaire buddies made off of his dangerous tariff gambit.

After announcing a 90-day pause Wednesday on his sweeping “reciprocal tariff” policy on nearly every country—with the exception of China—Trump was excited to take credit for making a buck for his guests at the Oval Office.

“He made $2.5 million today, and he made $900 million! That’s not bad,” Trump said, pointing to financial investor Charles Schwab and Roger Penske, a Nascar team owner, respectively.

Schwab’s estimated net worth is $12.6 billion, while Penske’s is $5.6 billion.

Bloomberg reported that Wednesday was the “best day ever” for billionaires, as the world’s wealthiest people raked in a heaping $304 billion as the markets shot back up.

The day’s biggest individual winner should come as no surprise: Elon Musk made a whopping $36 billion as Tesla stock soared up 23 percent. Trump’s surprising decision to temporarily back off his steep tariffs has sparked major concerns of obvious market manipulation, and even potential insider trading.

Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and other Democrats are accusing Donald Trump and his administration of manipulating the market to their benefit. 

Just days after Trump announced his”Liberation Day” tariffs that sparked global financial chaos and tanked markets, Trump at the last minute paused most of the tariffs for 90 days, despite previous vehement claims that he would not back down on his plan.

Following the pause, stock performances across the board surged drastically—the Nasdaq jumped by 12.2 percent and the Dow Jones Industrial average increased by 3,000 points, the largest single-session increase ever recorded. Anyone who knew about the pause in advance would’ve made a killing.

“Any member of Congress who purchased stocks in the last 48 hours should probably disclose that now,” AOC wrote in a post on X on Wednesday. “I’ve been hearing some interesting chatter on the floor. Disclosure deadline is May 15th. We’re about to learn a few things. It’s time to ban insider trading in Congress.”

Her post was accompanied by a screenshot that showed a drastic spike in Nasdaq call volume right before Trump announced the pause, indicating the president may have leaked the information to his allies, who could have invested knowing stocks would soar. Just hours before his shocking flip went public, Trump also published a series of suspicious posts on Truth Social.

“BE COOL! Everything is going to work out well. The USA will be bigger and better than ever before!” he wrote Wednesday morning. “THIS IS A GREAT TIME TO BUY,” Trump posted minutes later.

AOC isn’t the only Democrat suspicious of the GOP’s brinkmanship. In a floor speech Wednesday, Senator Elizabeth Warren called for an investigation into Trump’s volatile change of course.

“We need an independent investigation into market manipulation because Americans need to know whether President Trump or anyone in his administration manipulated the market to benefit their donors, all while they are working for the American people, and while small businesses and those working families are paying the price,” Warren said.

Senator Adam Schiff warned the president’s “constant gyrations in policy provide dangerous opportunities for insider trading.”

“Who in the administration knew about Trump’s latest tariff flip flop ahead of time? Did anyone buy or sell  stocks, and profit at the public’s expense?” the California Democrat wrote in a Bluesky post. “I’m writing to the White House—the public has a right to know.”

The GOP is now left scrambling to defend Trump’s seemingly unjustifiable decision, as the fear of recession looms and U.S. legitimacy continues to dwindle.

Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency fired car safety experts in the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration who directly regulated Tesla.

The Financial Times reports that DOGE fired 30 employees from the agency back in February, including several from the office of vehicle automation safety, which is in charge of regulating self-driving vehicles, a key part of Musk’s car company.

The layoffs made up 4 percent of the agency’s 800-person staff, including employees who were due for promotions and workers who had just been hired. The automation safety staff were disproportionately affected because the office had only been formed in 2023 and was predominately made up of probationary hires.

In a Valentine’s Day email announcing the firings, poor performance was cited as the reason, although this was rejected by an unnamed senior employee still at NHTSA who spoke to the Times.

The NHTSA has eight active investigations against Tesla, including five focusing on Musk’s claims about the company’s Autopilot system and Full Self-Driving software, and has published over 10,000 complaints about the company from the public. The agency has also ordered multiple recalls of Tesla cars and delayed the rollout of the company’s self-driving and driver-assistance software.

Musk has promised to launch a driverless ride-hailing service in Austin, Texas, in June, and to start building a fleet of autonomous “cybercabs” next year, which would require an NHTSA exception because the cybercabs don’t have a steering wheel or pedals.

“Letting DOGE fire those in the autonomous division is sheer madness—we should be lobbying to add people to NHTSA,” one Tesla manager told the Times. They “need to be developing a national framework for [autonomous vehicles], otherwise Tesla doesn’t have a prayer for scale in FSD or robotaxis.”

And, much like DOGE’s other firings at agencies across the government that regulate or deal with Musk’s companies, the NHTSA layoffs have major

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