Elon Musk said Wednesday that he regrets some of his recent social media posts about President Donald Trump. Professor of government at the University of Essex Natasha Lindstaedt joins CNN Early Start to weigh in.

Washington

Elon Musk has publicly stated regret for some of his recent social media comments about former President Donald Trump. According to Professor Natasha Lindstaedt, Musk's apology came as a surprise given his reputation as a risk-taker and disruptor. Lindstaedt noted that Musk faced significant financial and political pressures, including a sharp decline in Tesla's share value and threats to government contracts, which may have influenced his decision to apologize. The professor also highlighted that such capitulation is common among those who become entangled in disputes with Trump, citing similar actions by other political figures. While Musk has criticized pending legislation supported by Trump, he has also found other ways to express support for the former president on social media.

Professor of government has theory why Musk expressed ‘regret’

I mean, can we just go straight to your reaction? How surprised are you? Is this a groveling apology, clearly? I was really surprised. I was surprised at the speed with which Elon Musk folded, because, you know, he has a lot of power. He's the richest man in the world. And I thought that he was going to be more of a risk taker and he was going to be a disruptor and a chaos agent and would try to bankroll an opposition party or support anti-Trump Republican candidates in the 2026 midterms. Or he even threatened that he was going to decommission his Dragon spacecraft, but then he rescinded on that. But ultimately, all the threats that Musk poses to Trump are going to take a lot longer to bear fruit, because it would be really not until the 2026 midterms where they may start to feel this. But on the other hand, Trump could do a lot of damage to Elon Musk. You had the immediate damage or fallout from the Tesla shares falling by 15 percent, losing 150 billion in value. You also have the fact that Trump was threatening to cancel these government contracts that Elon Musk has across 17 different agencies, almost 100 different contracts worth $3 billion. And Steve Bannon was saying that Trump should investigate him, have him deported. So Trump was waving a lot of power, wielding a lot of power, and ultimately Musk decided to apologize, which is basically what happens every time someone who is interdependent with Trump within the Republican Party gets in a feud with Trump. They always capitulate at the end. Ron DeSantis did, Marco Rubio did, and Musk is doing the same. I almost get a sense that this was a showdown, the power of social media versus the power of the U.S. presidency here, to your earlier point. You also spoke about the potential impact on the markets as well. What about the impact on the pending legislation, the so-called, as Trump describes it, his big, beautiful bill? We know Elon has spoken out against it. Do you think his tone will change, given what he just tweeted this morning when it comes to that legislation? I mean, it's a good point. I think Elon Musk doesn't like this bill in its current form. And I don't think he's going to start tweeting things supporting the bill in the form that it is. He's already done some damage by talking about the bill, negatively saying that it's going to add trillions to the debt, which it will. And he basically said on X that it was going to bankrupt the U.S. There are already Republicans within the Senate that don't like the bill the way it is, that are worried about how irresponsible it would be to keep the bill in its current form. So I don't know if this is going to be another arena of war of words going on. And I don't see Elon Musk doing a 180. But where he had done or had made an interesting tweet was he tweeted in support of Trump's handling of the riots or the protests, I should say, in Los Angeles and said that he's doing a good job handling this. So he's tweeting other ways. He's finding other ways to support Trump, even if it is not on this big, beautiful bill.

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