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White House Senior Advisor Elon Musk walks to the White House after landing in Marine One on the South Lawn with U.S. President Donald Trump (not pictured) on March 9, 2025 in Washington, DC.

Samuel Corum | Getty Images News | Getty Images

Tesla shares fell in premarket trade on Monday after CEO Elon Musk announced plans to form a new political party.

The stock was down 7.13% by 4:27 a.m. E.T.

Musk said over the weekend that the party would be called the “America Party” and could focus “on just 2 or 3 Senate seats and 8 to 10 House districts.” He suggested this would be “enough to serve as the deciding vote on contentious laws, ensuring that they serve the true will of the people.”

The billionaire’s involvement in politics has been a point of contention for investors. Musk earlier this year was part of the so-called Department of Government Efficiency and worked closely with President Donald Trump — a move seen as potentially hurting Tesla’s brand.

Musk left DOGE in May, which helped Tesla’s stock.

Now tech billionaire’s reinvolvement in the political arena is making investors nervous.

“Very simply Musk diving deeper into politics and now trying to take on the Beltway establishment is exactly the opposite direction that Tesla investors/shareholders want him to take during this crucial period for the Tesla story,” Dan Ives, global head of technology research at Wedbush Securities, said in a note on Sunday.

“While the core Musk supporters will back Musk at every turn no matter what, there is broader sense of exhaustion from many Tesla investors that Musk keeps heading down the political track.”

Musk’s previous political foray earned him Trump’s praise in the early days, but he has since drawn the ire of the U.S. president.

The two have clashed over various areas of policy, including Trump’s spending bill which Musk has said would increase America’s debt burden. Musk has taken issue to particular cuts to tax credits and support for solar and wind energy and electric vehicles.

Trump on Sunday called Musk’s move to form a political party “ridiculous,” adding that the Tesla boss had gone “completely off the rails.”

Musk is contending with more than just political turmoil. Tesla reported a 14% year-on-year decline in car deliveries in the second quarter, missing expectations. The company is facing rising competition, especially in its key market, China.

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Trump to host Jensen Huang at White House as Nvidia tops $4 trillion market cap

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Trump to host Jensen Huang at White House as Nvidia tops  trillion market cap

Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang delivers remarks next to U.S. President Donald Trump at an ‘Investing in America’ event in Washington, D.C., on April 30, 2025.

Leah Millis | Reuters

Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang will meet with President Donald Trump at the White House on Thursday, CNBC’s Megan Cassella reported.

The meeting comes as Nvidia rose slightly on Thursday, becoming the first company to close a trading day with a market cap over $4 trillion, beating Apple and Microsoft to the symbolic milestone. Nvidia touched the mark briefly on Wednesday during trading.

Trump praised Nvidia stock in a social media post Thursday morning.

“NVIDIA IS UP 47% SINCE TRUMP TARIFFS. USA is taking in Hundreds of Billions of Dollars in Tariffs,” Trump posted on Truth Social. “COUNTRY IS NOW ‘BACK.'”

An Nvidia representative declined to comment, and it was unclear what the meeting is about, but Nvidia has been grappling with export controls on its artificial intelligence chips implemented by the Trump administration in April for national security reasons.

At the time, the U.S. government told Nvidia that its previously-approved H20 processor — intended exclusively for the Chinese market — would require an export license. Huang previously told investors that requirement effectively cut off Nvidia’s sales to China with “no grace period.” The AI chipmaker said that it would miss $8 billion in planned orders for the chip in the company’s July quarter.

“The $50 billion China market is effectively closed to U.S. industry,” Huang told investors on an earnings call in May.

Nvidia also faces another potential restriction on AI chip exports after the Trump administration cancelled a planned rule by former President Joe Biden called the “AI diffusion rule.” The Trump administration promised newer, simpler restrictions later this year on which countries could receive Nvidia’s technology.

WATCH: Fundstrat’s Tom Lee: Nvidia being the most valuable company in the S&P makes a lot of sense

Fundstrat's Tom Lee: Nvidia being the most valuable company in the S&P makes a lot of sense

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Musk, X to face trial in Don Lemon lawsuit alleging breach of contract

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Musk, X to face trial in Don Lemon lawsuit alleging breach of contract

Elon Musk (L) & Don Lemon

Reuters (L) | Getty Images (R)

Ex-CNN anchor Don Lemon‘s lawsuit against tech billionaire Elon Musk and his social network X over the cancellation of their partnership can proceed to trial, a San Francisco judge ruled this week.

Musk’s team had tried to get the case moved to a Texas court and tried to convince the judge to strike the complaint altogether.

Attorneys for Musk and X didn’t respond to a request for comment.

In an order Tuesday, Judge Harold Kahn said Lemon and his attorneys plausibly alleged, among other claims, that X and Musk had committed “fraud by false promise” and that there was “an implied contract” between them.

Lemon filed the suit in August 2024 after X canceled a partnership with the broadcast journalist a few hours after he taped a tense interview with Musk, who owns X. The interview preceded a planned premiere of Lemon’s new show on Musk’s social network.

During the interview, Lemon pressed Musk on several contentious topics he had posted about or amplified on X. Musk had boosted the so-called “great replacement theory,” and other bigoted tropes and falsehoods, including posts that claimed there was a “Hispanic invasion” of immigrants to the U.S.

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Lemon also pressed Musk about content moderation on X, and a reported surge in antisemitic content on the platform that occurred after Musk acquired it as Twitter in a $44 billion leveraged buyout in late 2022.

Musk made sweeping changes after taking over the site, firing huge numbers of personnel and reversing account bans for users who had been booted from the platform after posting hate speech or inciting violence.

Musk, who characterized himself as a free speech “absolutist” also restored the account of President Donald Trump. The site had permanently banned Trump from the platform in January 2021 following the attack by his supporters on the U.S. Capitol.

Lemon’s case against Musk and X Corp. is in San Francisco Superior Court. A date has not been set for the trial.

Musk and X have faced a litany of other lawsuits over non-payment to vendors and over failure to provide severance as promised to laid-off employees from Twitter.

Lemon was fired from CNN in 2023 following reports that he mistreated coworkers and made sexist remarks on-air, including about politician Nikki Haley. Lemon later apologized for the Haley comments.

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Bitcoin sets another record above $113,000 as investors jump into risk assets, liquidate shorts

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Bitcoin sets another record above 3,000 as investors jump into risk assets, liquidate shorts

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Bitcoin climbed to new all-time high on Thursday, building on its previous record reached just a day earlier, as investors jumped into risk assets and liquidated short positions.

The price of the flagship cryptocurrency was last higher by about 2% at $113,459.16. Earlier, it rose as high as $113,863.18.

On Thursday afternoon, bitcoin saw about $318 million in short liquidations across centralized exchanges in a 24 hour period, according to CoinGlass. When traders use leverage to short bitcoin and the cryptocurrency’s price rises, they buy bitcoin back from the market to close their positions, which pushes the price up and causes more positions to be liquidated.

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