Elon Musk’s embrace of President Donald Trump and de facto direction of the Department of Government Efficiency was initially greeted with rapture.

Tesla’s stock soared almost 80 per cent in six weeks after the election, taking it to a new record market cap of $US1.54 trillion ($2.44 trillion).

Elon Musk’s First Buddy status with Donald Trump is increasingly hurting Tesla sales.Credit: nna\advidler

That Trump bump has since almost completely evaporated, with Tesla shedding about $US660 billion ($1 trillion) in value. To put that amount in perspective, it is bigger than what the entire market cap was only about six months ago.

This roundtrip was fuelled in large part by nonsense. Musk’s political elevation was pitched by bulls as a means to get government off Tesla’s back, especially when it comes to launching robotaxis.

The argument elided the salient points that (a) existing US laws aren’t a big impediment to autonomous driving and (b) Tesla still doesn’t have a functioning commercial robotaxi anyway. Another of Musk’s companies, Space Exploration Technologies, or SpaceX, with its big government contracts and national defence dimension, was always better positioned to — how to put this delicately — leverage its chairman’s high-level contacts.

Tesla’s brand seems to be sustaining collateral damage from its chief executive’s public service. There are the more visceral signs........

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