Will Musks explosive row with Trump help or harm his businesses?

When Elon Musk recently announced that he was stepping back from politics, investors hoped that would mean he would step up his involvement in the many tech firms he runs.

His explosive row with US President Donald Trump - and the very public airing of his dirty White House laundry - suggests Musks changing priorities might not quite be the salve they had been hoping for.

Instead of Musk retreating somewhat from the public eye and focusing on boosting the fortunes of Tesla and his other enterprises, he now finds himself being threatened with a boycott from one of his main customers - Trumps federal government.

Tesla shares were sent into freefall on Thursday - falling 14% - as he sounded off about Trump on social media.

They rebounded a little on Friday following some indications tempers were cooling.

Even so, for the investors and analysts who, for months, had made clear they wanted Musk off his phone and back at work, the situation is far from ideal.

Some argue, though, that the problems for Musks businesses run much deeper than this spat - and the controversial role in the Trump administration it has brought a spectacular end to.

For veteran tech journalist Kara Swisher, this is especially so for Tesla.

"Teslas finished," she told the BBC on the sidelines of the San Francisco Media Summit early this week.

"It was a great car company. They could compete in the autonomous taxi space but theyre way behind."

Tesla has long attempted to play catch-up against rival Waymo, owned by Googles parent, Alphabet, whose driverless taxis have traversed the streets of San Francisco for years - and now operate in several more cities.

This month, Musk is supposed to be overseeing Teslas launch of a batch of autonomous robo-taxis in Austin, Texas.

He posted on X last week that the electric vehicle maker had been testing the Model Y with no drivers on board.

"I believe 90% of the future value of Tesla is going to be autonomous and robotics," Wedbush Securities analyst Dan Ives told the BBC this week, adding that the Austin launch would be "a watershed moment".

"The first task at hand is ensuring the autonomous vision gets off to a phenomenal start," he added.

But with Musks attention divided, the projects odds of success would appear to have lengthened.

And theres something else to factor in too: Musks own motivation.

The talk in Silicon Valley lately centres less on whether Musk can turn things around and more on whether he even cares.

"Hes a really powerful person when hes focused on something," said Ross Gerber, President and CEO of Gerber Kawasaki Wealth and Investment Management.

"Before, it was about proving to the world that he would make EVs - the tech that nobody else could do. It was about proving he could make rockets. He had a lot to prove."

A longtime Tesla investor, Mr Gerber has soured on the stock and has been paring back his holdings since Musks foray into right-wing politics. He called Thursday an "extremely painful day".

"Its the dumbest thing you could possibly do to think that you have more power than the president of the United States," Mr Gerber said, referring to Musks social media tirade against Trump.

The BBC contacted X, Tesla, and SpaceX seeking comment but did not receive a response.

A particular problem for Musk is that, before he seemingly created an enemy in Trump, he already had one in the grassroots social media campaign against his car-maker.

Protests, collectively dubbed #TeslaTakedown, have played out across the country every weekend since Trump took office.

In April, Tesla reported a 20% drop in car sales for the first three months of the year. Profits plunged more than 70%, and the share price went down with it.

"He should not be deciding the fate of our democracy by disassembling our government piece by piece. Its not right," protestor Linda Koistinen told me at a demonstration outside a Berkeley, California Tesla dealership in February.

Ms Koistinen said she wanted to make a "visible stand" against Musk personally.

"Ultimately its not about the tech or the Tesla corporation," said Joan Donovan, a prominent disinformation researcher who co-organised the #TeslaTakedown protests on social media.

"Its about the way in which the stock of Tesla has been able to be weaponised against the people and it has put Musk in such a position to have an incredible amount of power with no transparency."

Another aspect of Musks empire that has raised the ire of his detractors is X, the social media platform once known as Twitter.

"He bought Twitter so that he had clout and would be able to - at the drop of a hat - reach hundreds of millions of people," Ms Donovan said.

There is another possibility here though.

Could Musks high-profile falling out with Trump help rehabilitate him in the eyes of people who turned against him because of his previous closeness to the president?

Patrick Moorhead, chief analyst at Moor Insights & Strategy, thinks it could.

"Were a very forgiving country," he said.

"These things take time," Mr Moorhead acknowledged, but "its not unprecedented".

Ms Swisher likened Musks personal brand to that of Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates more than two decades ago.

She said Gates was once regarded as "the Darth Vader of Silicon Valley" because of his "arrogant and rude" personality.

Today, despite his flaws, Gates has largely rehabilitated his image.

"He learned. He grew up. People can change," Ms Swisher said, even though Musk is "clearly troubled".

The problem for Musk is the future for him and his companies is not just about what he does - but what Trump decides too.

And while Trump needed Musk in the past, not least to help fund his presidential race, its not so clear he does now.

Noah Smith, writer of the Noahpinion Substack, said Trumps highly lucrative foray into cryptocurrencies - as unseemly as it has been - may have freed him from depending on Musk to carry out his will.

"My guess is that this was so he could get out from under Elon," he said.

In Trumps most menacing comment of the day, he suggested cutting Musks government contracts, which have an estimated value of $38bn (£28bn).

A significant chunk of that goes to Musks rocket company SpaceX - seemingly threatening its future.

However, despite the bluster, Trumps warning may be a little more hollow than it seems.

Thats because SpaceXs Dragon spacecraft ferries people and cargo to the International Space Station where three Nasa astronauts are currently posted.

It demonstrates that SpaceX has so entrenched itself in the US space and national security apparatus, that Trumps threat could be difficult to carry out.

You could make a similar argument about Musks internet satellite company, Starlink. Finding an alternative could be easier said than done.

But, if there are limits on what Trump can do, the same is also true of Musk.

In the middle of his row with Trump, he threatened to decommission the Dragon - but it wasnt long before he was rowing back.

Responding to an X users suggestion he that he "cool down", he wrote: "Good advice. Ok, we won’t decommission Dragon."

Its clear Musk and Trumps friendship is over. Its less certain their reliance on each other is.

Whatever the future for Musks businesses is then, it seems Trump - and his administrations actions - will continue to have a big say in them.

Sign up for our Tech Decoded newsletter to follow the worlds top tech stories and trends. Outside the UK? Sign up here.