<div class="css-s99gbd StoryBodyCompanionColumn" data-testid="companionColumn-0"><div class="css-53u6y8"><p class="css-at9mc1 evys1bk0">The stock market today was full of bad news for both President Trump and Elon Musk.</p><p class="css-at9mc1 evys1bk0">Markets around the world had their <a class="css-yywogo" href="https://www.nytimes.com/live/2025/03/10/us/president-trump-news" title="">worst day of the year</a> one day after Trump <a class="css-yywogo" href="https://www.nytimes.com/2025/03/09/us/politics/trump-recession-lutnick.html" title="">declined</a> to rule out the possibility that his trade policies, including the aggressive tariffs he wants to put on trading partners like Canada and Mexico, could cause a recession. That could be a foreboding political sign for a president who campaigned on improving the economy — not on tanking it.</p><p class="css-at9mc1 evys1bk0">For Musk, the bad news centered on Tesla: Amid falling sales and growing protests over his role in the White House, the company’s shares <a class="css-yywogo" href="https://www.nytimes.com/live/2025/03/10/us/president-trump-news#tesla-stock-market-elon-musk" title="">slid</a> to their lowest point since before Election Day. By the afternoon, they had fallen more than 15 percent for the day.</p><p class="css-at9mc1 evys1bk0">Musk is no stranger to white-knuckling his way through adversity. After he paid $44 billion to buy Twitter, the company’s value slid dramatically as <a class="css-yywogo" href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/11/24/business/x-elon-musk-advertisers.html" title="">advertisers</a> and users fled the platform (it has <a class="css-yywogo" href="https://www.nytimes.com/2025/02/13/technology/elon-musk-x-debt-sale.html" title="">ticked up</a> somewhat because of his association with Trump). Tesla nearly went bankrupt earlier in its history, and Musk thought SpaceX might go under after a series of failed launches between 2006 and 2008. He considers high-profile mistakes, like failed rocket launches, to be part of the process. Reward requires risk.</p><p class="css-at9mc1 evys1bk0">“We don’t want to design to eliminate every risk,” he said, according to Walter Isaacson, who wrote a biography about Musk. “Otherwise we will never get anywhere.”</p></div><aside aria-label="companion column" class="css-ew4tgv"></aside></div><div data-testid="Dropzone-1"></div><div class="css-s99gbd StoryBodyCompanionColumn" data-testid="companionColumn-1"><div class="css-53u6y8"><p class="css-at9mc1 evys1bk0">In recent days, Trump has sounded a little bit as if he were trying to assume Musk’s tolerance for pain. He has said that tariffs could cause a “little disturbance” to the economy, and acknowledged the possibility of a “period of transition because what we’re doing is very big.”</p><p class="css-at9mc1 evys1bk0">To put it in Muskian terms, Trump seemed to be suggesting that he might have to blow up a rocket or two before getting the economy to take off the way he insists it will.</p><div class="css-1336jj"><div class="css-121kum4"><div class="css-171quhb"></div><div class="css-asuuk5"><noscript><div class="css-7axq9l" data-testid="optimistic-truncator-noscript"><svg aria-hidden="true" class="css-1b5b8u1" height="24" viewbox="0 0 24 24" width="24"><path clip-rule="evenodd" d="M2.5 12a9.5 9.5 0 1 1 19 0 9.5 9.5 0 0 1-19 0Zm8.5 1.75v-7.5h2v7.5h-2Zm0 2v2h2v-2h-2Z" fill="currentColor" fill-rule="evenodd"></path></svg><div class="css-6yo1no" data-testid="optimistic-truncator-noscript-message"><p class="css-3kpklk">We are having trouble retrieving the article content.</p><p class="css-3kpklk">Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.</p></div></div></noscript><div class="css-1dv1kvn" id="optimistic-truncator-a11y" tabindex="-1"><hr/><p>Thank you for your patience while we verify access. 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