USA: Elon Musk backs off from feud with Trump

Elon Musk stepped back from his explosive feud with U.S. President Donald Trump, writing on X that he regrets some of his posts about his onetime ally.

Early Wednesday morning, he posted “I regret some of my posts about President @realDonaldTrump last week. They went too far.”

Musk's break with a president whom he spent hundreds of millions of dollars to elect appeared to put an end to his influence in the White House and prompted concerns about effects on his companies. As a major government contractor, Musk’s businesses could be particularly vulnerable to retribution, and Trump has already threatened to cut Musk’s contracts.

Musk earlier deleted a post in which he claimed without evidence that the government was concealing information about the president’s association with infamous pedophile Jeffrey Epstein. Meanwhile, other posts that irritated Trump, including ones in which Musk called the spending bill an “abomination” and claimed credit for Trump’s election victory, remained live.

On Sunday, Trump told NBC’s Kristen Welker that he has no desire to repair their relationship and warned that Musk could face “ serious consequences ” if he tries to help Democrats in upcoming elections.

Shareholders of Tesla, Musk's electric vehicle company, have been closely watching his feud with Trump. In a separate post late Tuesday on X, Musk said Tesla's rollout of robotaxi service in Austin, Texas, is “tentatively” scheduled for June 22. Wall Street analysts have expressed concern that Trump could retaliate against Musk by having federal safety regulators impede a broad rollout of the service, which is seen as a key to Tesla's future.

Tesla shares rose almost 2% in early trading Wednesday and have regained all of the big loss from last Thursday when the Trump-Musk feud erupted.