Tesla, SpaceX Slide as Investors Price in Political Risk

0:00 Shares of Tesla falling on more worries that Democrats taking control of congress will stifle Elon Musk's efforts to expand his business empire. Joining us now is Bloomberg's Craig Trudell. We see Tesla down in the last two days about 13%, SpaceX down for a second day in a row. What is the concern that investors have? I think, chief among them is is probably the data centers that these companies are trying to stand up, you know, mostly on the part of of SpaceX, but also Tesla. You have, the TerraFab, project that they're working on with SpaceX that is at least AI adjacent working on, you know, doing semiconductors together. I think also just a sort of overarching... Elon's, you know, turned himself into kind of a target rich billionaire over the last few years.

0:45 He he has sort of given the Democrats a lot of reasons to kind of make him into the to the boogeyman. And so there's understandably a lot of, you know, consternation about, you know, with this very sweeping change in in power, does that incentivize the Democrats that are, you know, coming into into office both in Washington and in places like Texas where both of his companies are headquartered to to really come after him and his business?

1:08 Does it change the story of a potential Tesla SpaceX tie up? I think it it maybe sort of reinforces why we've been hearing that these, that there's a sort of push afoot, to get this deal, together early next year. These are two big companies. There's there's real potential for this to be a complicated transaction even though it's, you know, one hand working with the other, because of of things like, Tesla's, you know, major presence in China and, you know, how that conflicts with SpaceX being a major US, contractor and defense contractor. And and yet, you know, some some sort of, understanding or or, view that if you sort of, take your time with a a deal like this, if you wanna get it done, maybe that's not such a smart strategy if if, this is a deal that's gonna take some time, and there's some risk that, that the GOP not only gives up congress, but, also the White House.

2:04 I'm I'm glad you brought in the the SpaceX part of the business, defense contracting business, because that's all... That's what I'm thinking about right now. I mean, this is a company, that the US government relies on. It's a company that other governments rely on for Star Shield. Right. Doesn't Elon hold a lot of cards here? I think he absolutely does. And this... Especially, from a perspective of, you know, space launches, but but Starlink and and Star Shield has has, has really just, you know, become something where, you know, we've we've seen a lot of reporting around the idea of of attempts to stand up competitors, by, you know, governments to try and, not have all their eggs in one basket and sent... And and yet, we're a couple years into all of those efforts, and it's hard to sort of fathom that anyone's going to be able to stand up a meaningful competitor anytime soon, in part because nobody's getting to space at at the the rate that SpaceX is. So it's it's not just that the the satellites and and the the network itself is is impressive. It's also, you know, the ability to to sort of, you know, get those up into space that, you know, no one else possesses that ability either.