2 Stocks To Avoid With Musk Out Of Trump's Favor

There's never a dull moment in the Elon Musk Cinematic Universe. Still, the story took an even more dramatic turn last week when the Tesla CEO engaged in a high-profile social media spat with the President of the United States.

While Trump and Musk’s relationship always seemed destined for a turbulent end, both men took to their respective social media networks to burn bridges and reduce them to smoldering embers.

Lots was said, and many threats were made. Musk has since deleted his most inflammatory accusations, but Trump has shown no sign of wanting to forgive and forget.

We won't get into the personal attacks except to say that during the peak of the fight, Trump threatened to cut funding to SpaceX and Musk's other companies. At the same time, Musk threatened to decommission the vital Dragon spacecraft. Musk has ramped up attacks on Trump's signature tax bill, which is currently floating through Congress, calling it (amongst other things) bloated and pork-riddled for adding more than $2 trillion to the deficit. 

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Caught in the middle of this high-profile feud are thousands of employees and investors who now have no idea which way the wind is blowing. How legitimate are the threats to cut Musk's funding? How many of the unfriendly clean energy provisions in the new tax bill will make it into the final version? With the broader market strong, plenty of stocks are not at risk of losing 10% on a social media post, so there's no need to pick a side in this fight. Here are two securities with ties to Elon Musk to avoid until this grudge blows over.

Tesla Inc. 

Tesla TSLA is finally moving forward with the release of its RoboTaxi. Still, despite the hype surrounding this, Tesla will be playing catch-up to Google's Waymo for the foreseeable future. In the here and now, TSLA stock faces significant headwinds from the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, which Trump is eager to get through Congress. The bill would significantly alter the EV landscape by adding or eliminating the following:

• The $7,500 tax credit for new EVs under Internal Revenue Code Section 30D would be phased out, as would the $4,000 tax credit for used EVs under Section 25E. The phaseout could begin as early as next year.
• A new annual registration tax of $250 on EVs and $100 on hybrids for the Highway Trust Fund. This provision is seen as making EV owners pay their fair share for road use as they use less gas and, therefore, pay less in taxes for highway maintenance.
• Cancellation of provisions in the Zero-Emissions Vehicle (ZEV) program allowing the sale or transfer of clean energy tax credits. Tesla earns approximately $2 billion annually from selling tax credits and has generated revenue from clean energy tax credit transfers since 2014.
• Repeal of Section 30C tax credits for charging and alternative fuel infrastructure. This provision could significantly hinder the rollout of Tesla charging stations, which enable the company to generate revenue from non-Tesla electric vehicles.
• Repeal of Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) subsidies for battery production and clean energy infrastructure, which could affect Tesla products like the Powerwall and Megapack batteries, as well as its solar panels

Musk is right to be concerned about the bill's additions to the deficit, but dismantling EV incentives likely rankles him the most. Tesla sales have been plummeting across Europe due to Musk's political meddling. Chinese automakers like BYD have now eclipsed Tesla's EV market share in China. The daily stock chart doesn't look too enticing either.

The stock's May rally appeared to be hitting a wall in June before the jousting with Trump entered the public eye as shares declined for eight consecutive sessions before breaking the streak on Monday. However, Monday's close puts the stock at the 200-day moving average, which could serve as resistance, given that the 50-day is still trading below the 200-day. The MACD also shows crumbling momentum, indicating that traders are starting to look for greener pastures. A successful RoboTaxi rollout (or the survival of some EV tax credits) could trigger another round of upward momentum. Still, the short-term prognosis for TSLA shares doesn't look promising.

Destiny Tech 100 ETF 

The Destiny Tech 100 DYYZ sounds like an Elon Musk venture, but he has no hand in running this one. Instead, the Destiny Tech 100 is an innovative new closed-end ETF that seeks to provide private startup access to non-accredited investors. Usually, to invest in pre-IPO firms (like Musk's SpaceX), you need to be an accredited investor. This leaves private shares primarily in the hands of venture capital firms and high-net-worth individuals. The DXYZ fund allows anyone with a brokerage account to gain exposure to private startups like SpaceX, OpenAI, Stripe, Klarna, Discord, and more. The fund aims to hold shares in 100 private companies eventually but currently owns shares in just 22. As of this writing, over 54% of the fund's assets are tied up in SpaceX shares, including Class A, Class C, and Preferred Stock share classes. The fund being heavily invested in SpaceX presents a significant risk to investors, as Trump threatens the $15 billion in federal contracts currently on the books with Musk's space exploration firm.

DYXZ has a market cap of just over $465 million and trades about 700,000 shares daily on average. It also charges a 2.5% management fee, which reduces investors’ profits more than a typical thematic ETF. The fund debuted on the New York Stock Exchange in March 2024 at $25 per share and quickly reached $60 before plummeting to under $10 by October. Volatility has been the name of the game since, with shares rallying to new all-time highs and then taking a 50% haircut within the span of a few months. The current trend appears to be breaking down, as the price took out a multi-week support level the day Trump and Musk began fighting; the MACD shows momentum continuing to erode.

Another potential headwind here is the revival of the IPO market, as one of the key appeals of DXYZ is its ability to provide access to companies that are not available to retail investors. That advantage could fade if more exciting private firms begin to move forward with public offerings.

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