Elon Musk Refocuses on Tech Empire Amid X Outage and Political Backlash

Elon Musk to step back from politics, refocus on Tesla, SpaceX, X and xAI

The billionaire entrepreneur, who backed former US president Donald Trump with nearly $300 million according to Reuters, has faced mounting scrutiny over conflicts of interest and the impact of his political persona on his companies' performance. Soon after a wide X outage on Saturday, Musk signalled a shift in priorities.Elon Musk is stepping back from his high-profile political activities -- including his controversial leadership of the US government's Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) -- to refocus on his business empire: Tesla, SpaceX, X, and xAI. The billionaire entrepreneur, who backed former US president Donald Trump with nearly $300 million according to Reuters, has faced mounting scrutiny over conflicts of interest and the impact of his political persona on his companies' performance. On Saturday, Musk's social media platform X suffered a major outage, impacting tens of thousands of users in the US. Soon after, Musk signalled a shift in priorities. "Back to spending 24/7 at work and sleeping in conference/server/factory rooms. I must be super focused on X/xAI and Tesla (plus Starship launch next week)," he posted on X. Tesla takes the biggest hit Tesla, more than any other Musk-led company, has borne the brunt of his political alignment. His vocal, often polarising, political posts and public support for Trump triggered protests and boycotts, especially in parts of Europe, which Musk has called Tesla's weakest market. Vandalism of Tesla vehicles surged, with some owners putting up stickers reading: "I bought this before I knew Elon was crazy." In its Q1 FY25 earnings, Tesla reported its first annual decline in vehicle deliveries, along with a steep drop in revenue and net income. The company cited weakening demand, shifting political sentiment, and "rapidly evolving trade policy" as key challenges. Investor concerns about Musk's divided attention reached a peak earlier this year. As Chinese EV players like BYD scaled up aggressively, Tesla faced pressure to defend market share in key global markets. In May, Musk said he had reduced his time at DOGE to just one or two days per week but added that he would stay "as long as the president would like me to do so." Conflict of interest concerns Musk's leadership of DOGE -- a federal body created to streamline government processes -- sparked widespread concern over conflicts of interest, especially given his ongoing control over multiple high-stakes technology firms. In April, reports emerged that DOGE was encouraging federal agencies, including the Social Security Administration, to migrate communications to X -- raising data privacy and monopoly concerns. There were also internal memos suggesting DOGE was promoting the use of Musk's AI chatbot, Grok, for government data analysis. While Musk maintained that DOGE aimed to eliminate bureaucratic inefficiencies, critics argued it gave him unparalleled access to sensitive government data and the ability to influence regulatory outcomes in favour of his companies. SpaceX setbacks, Starship relaunch SpaceX has also faced a bumpy ride. On March 6, the company conducted the eighth integrated flight test of its Starship system. While the Super Heavy booster landed successfully -- caught by the Mechazilla arms at the launch site -- the Starship upper stage failed during its ascent burn. During the previous launch, the upper stage suffered a propellant leak and caught fire in its "attic" section shortly after stage separation. Despite these issues, Musk struck an optimistic tone at the Qatar Economic Forum last week, saying Tesla sales were already rebounding and that the company's market capitalisation had again crossed $1 trillion. He also warned those who attacked Tesla dealerships, stating: "We are coming for you." As Musk refocuses on his core ventures, investors and industry observers will be watching closely to see whether the pivot from politics to product can help him regain momentum across his sprawling tech empire.

Musk Back to '24/7' Work at His Companies Amid X Outage | PYMNTS.com

After months of government work, Elon Musk says he is "super focused" on his companies. The multibillionaire made that comment Saturday (May 24) on his X social media platform, following an outage impacting tens of thousands of customers. "Back to spending 24/7 at work and sleeping in conference/server/factory rooms. I must be super focused on X/xAI and Tesla (plus Starship launch next week), as we have critical technologies rolling out," Musk wrote. The outage lasted a little more than three hours, with more than 25,800 instances of American people reporting issues, Reuters reported, citing data from Downdetector. Thousands of X users in countries such as the U.K., Canada, Australia, India, France, Germany and Spain experienced issues as well, the report said. "As evidenced by the X uptime issues this week, major operational improvements need to be made," Musk added. "The failover redundancy should have worked, but did not." Musk's remark about "X/xAI" refers to the recent merging of the social platform with his artificial intelligence (AI) company. xAI acquired X in March, in a deal that values the former company at $80 billion and X, formerly known as Twitter, at $33 billion ($45 billion minus $12 billion in debt). "xAI and X's futures are intertwined," Musk said at the time. "Today, we officially take the step to combine the data, models, compute, distribution and talent. This combination will unlock immense potential by blending xAI's advanced AI capability and expertise with X's massive reach." Musk spent last summer and fall campaigning for President Donald Trump, donating nearly $300 million to him and other Republicans. As Reuters noted, he said this week that he is due to massively scale back his political spending, a sign he is focusing on his businesses as investors grow worried.