April 2 (UPI) — Stock shares in Tesla jumped Wednesday after reports suggesting Elon Musk could leave the White House and his Department of Government Efficiency role.
Tesla stock was up about 5% at one point during the day amid the reports that the White House called “garbage.”
It was reported, first by Politico, that Trump said during a Cabinet meeting that Musk could leave in coming months in order for Musk to return to work at his businesses, some of which like SpaceX is on the receiving-end of billions of dollars in taxpayer-funded government contracts.
Meanwhile, a senior Trump administration official told NBC that Musk likely would leave at the end of his 130-day stint as a “special government employee.”
Musk’s controversial White House role has lead to global “Tesla Takedown” protests against the company and a visible dip in its worth.
The stock jump arrived despite Tesla’s more than 5% drop over the past month which year-to-date tumbled over 31% and 36% just in the first quarter, marking its biggest quarterly drop since 2022.
On Wednesday, the auto maker said its vehicle delivery numbers were down nearly 13% in the first three months of this year as demand continued to drop and as Musk invested and lost millions of dollars in Wisconsin’s supreme court race in what became the most expensive judicial race in U.S. history
Tesla officials confirmed it shipped about 336,681 vehicles in the first quarter which was down from its 386,810 from the same period a year prior.
“Elon Musk and President Trump have both *publicly* stated that Elon will depart from public service as a special government employee when his incredible work at DOGE is complete,” White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said Wednesday in a post on Musk’s social media platform X.