Trump, Tesla backlash and a trillion-dollar payday: This was 2025 for Elon Musk | EUROtoday

Elon Musk is never out of the highlight. But, even by his requirements, 2025 has been a full-on 12 months.

Over the previous 12 months, the entrepreneur-turned-government adviser has reached huge enterprise milestones and suffered critical setbacks. He was additionally knocked off the highest spot because the world’s richest man – and is now additional out in entrance than ever earlier than.

All that amid a backdrop of an more and more difficult financial surroundings, each throughout the US and globally – and with out factoring in personal life developments, which included the announcement of a reported thirteenth little one being born months earlier.

But enterprise sensible, Musk has been all-action, all 12 months – simply not all of it as easy as he may need wished. Here, The Independent takes a take a look at a 12 months within the lifetime of Elon Musk.

Doge – and Donald Trump

It feels a very long time in the past however the Department of Government Efficiency (Doge) solely got here into being in January 2025, with Musk appointed as a particular authorities worker, successfully giving him a 130-day stint overseeing cuts to the US federal finances, slashing public sector jobs and planning cuts to the US international help programme to the tune of virtually $10bn. Naturally, loads of this drew loads of ire, with Bill Gates a kind of to accuse “the world’s richest man [of] killing the world’s poorest children”.

While it may need been anticipated that he at the least had the backing of the one who appointed him to the position throughout that spell – President Trump – the connection proved to be fractious and risky, descending into all-out private assaults strewn over social media at one level.

In June, Musk referred to as Trump’s “Big Beautiful Bill” an “abomination” and shortly after advised on X that “the really big bomb [was] Trump is in the Epstein files”. For his half, the president lambasted Musk as a disappointment. The petty squabbles continued as Trump mentioned the administration can be trying on the subsidies paid to Musk’s firms, round doubtlessly ending them – although noting it had “to be fair” to the nation and to the entrepreneur alike. Suggesting he’d “take a look” at deporting Musk was hardly “first buddy” materials, both.

Musk formally ended his Doge tenure in May, weeks after telling Tesla shareholders that he can be spending “far more time” again to specializing in the EV agency, amid a falling share value and questions over product launches.

Business ups and downs

It would after all be remiss to not element the successes and milestones that Musk has seen throughout the 12 months round his many companies.

Though – as is usually the case in business and particularly the place pushing new boundaries is anxious – many ups could be adopted by a down, Musk’s firms do proceed to provide.

Tesla, for instance, launched their long-range Cybertruck variant partway by way of the 12 months to a lot acclaim from followers – however an enormous recall to tens of hundreds of earlier fashions over elements considerations was a misstep.

Neuralink, Musk’s agency which is growing mind implants to be positioned inside human skulls to help individuals with restricted motion to give you the chance management gadgets utilizing their ideas, has held a number of scientific trials. He says there’s a backlog of 10,000 people who find themselves signed up for it, with the potential for constructive attain right here simple, but there has additionally been criticism over potential animal remedy and for submitting as a “small disadvantaged business” within the US regardless of a valuation of $9bn.

Elsewhere Grok 4 was launched in July as a brand new AI mannequin, SpaceX carried out a profitable managed splashdown touchdown with one among its Starship rockets and The Boring Company confirmed progress with its ZPIT (Zero People In Tunnel) method: digging tunnels, shifting earth and putting in concrete wall segments with no people inside, enhancing security and effectivity alongside the way in which.

Tesla

But it’s unattainable to separate Musk from one firm particularly, and that one has had extra downs than ups throughout 2025: Tesla.

The share value, as ever, tells its personal story: from a excessive of round $480 close to Trump’s vote victory final winter, it sunk to about $220 by April, decimated by public notion of its CEO, falling gross sales, widespread financial uncertainty over tariffs and questions over the corporate’s valuation.

If investing in Tesla – and investing in particular person firms on the whole – has all the time been a little bit of a rollercoaster, 2025 has maybe marked the a part of the journey with loops, turnbacks and speedy accelerations, heading shortly in the direction of the best peak as we race towards the top of the calendar 12 months. Beyond it? As with any funfair journey, you by no means know till you get there – that’s the joys and the worry of it.

Tesla showrooms confronted vandalism, whereas Musk himself confronted protests aplenty – collections of individuals, bus cease posters, even a automobile smashed to items.

Some got here within the face of his Doge work, whereas others had been livid at a perceived insulting salute gesture at Trump’s inauguration. Yet extra got here as feedback emerged from the automobile maker’s chief government seemingly attempting to entangle himself in different nations’ politics or insurance policies.

The upshot was easy sufficient: falling gross sales.

In Europe particularly, the drop-off has been spectacular – summer time information confirmed Tesla gross sales fell by 40 per cent as competitors from Chinese producers, reputational injury and an absence of recent fashions all performed a component in BYD overtaking it because the dominant rising EV model on the continent. Tesla’s market share had fallen to under 1 per cent by that point, and gross sales are down year-on-year regardless of EV gross sales as an entire being up by greater than 1 / 4.

Weak gross sales in India, China and the US add additional worries, regardless of a pickup in September domestically, pushed by consumers beating the expiration of tax credit.

In Norway, an identical impact gave a current increase in Europe: Tesla broke information for gross sales by a single producer in a month in November, however slightly than this being a sustainable development, it seems to have been spurred on by deliberate will increase to taxes on shopping for EVs which come into impact subsequent 12 months.

But Musk has lengthy felt that automobile gross sales aren’t the one, or the most important, ace up Tesla’s long-term sleeves.

Self-driving automobiles, robotics, AI and information – all these components are what many traders level to as future income prospects for the agency. And these inside and outdoors the corporate appear to really feel the identical method, given the current occasions.

World’s richest particular person

Musk is already the world’s richest particular person and has been for a while – apart from a couple of hours when he very briefly misplaced high spot to Oracle’s Larry Ellison.

Since then, nonetheless, Musk has opened up an enormous hole once more and, at the beginning of December, had a web price of $450bn (£340bn) per Bloomberg’s Billionaires Index.

That locations him a full $180bn (£136bn) forward of now-second-placed Larry Page, of Alphabet. Musk’s web price has grown by virtually $17.5bn (£13.2bn) throughout the course of 2025 and he did change into the primary particular person to hit the $500bn mark for a brief interval. Yet it’s a determine method past even these riches the place Musk’s 12 months finishes within the highlight.

Close to a full trillion {dollars} is at stake in his new Tesla pay bundle, voted for and accredited by greater than three-quarters of shareholders simply final month. He’ll earn $878bn (£665bn) throughout a decade if he continues to guide the expansion of the corporate to vital manufacturing and valuation milestones, the final of which would go away Tesla price $8.5tn (£6.4tn) – the exact mixed market capitalisation worth of the world’s two greatest public firms proper now because it occurs, Nvidia and Apple.

The path to these riches isn’t just a “new chapter […] but a whole new book,” Musk declared after that pay packet was accredited.

Whatever pages 2026 writes for Musk and his many initiatives, he’s unlikely to ever be removed from dramatic progress, fervent criticism or eye-catching headlines – and the cash milestones maintain piling up too.