Questions about Mr. Musk’s continuing oversight of his companies are coming to a head as he spends more time in Washington on a major cost-cutting initiative known as the Department of Government Efficiency, trimming thousands of government jobs and contracts. But even there, he is facing questions about his role after a contentious cabinet meeting last week in which Mr. Trump limited Mr. Musk’s power to advising the departments.
The effects of Mr. Musk’s government involvement are particularly prominent at Tesla. The company, where Mr. Musk is chief executive, has faced protests and violence at some of its dealerships, including shots fired last week at a dealership in Oregon. In Boston, someone set fire to Tesla charging stations, and protesters were arrested at a nonviolent rally at a Tesla dealership in Lower Manhattan.
Also last week, a report found Tesla car sales in Germany, Europe’s largest market for electric vehicles, dived 76 percent in February compared with a year earlier, sounding alarm bells for the entire European market. Monday’s stock decline — more than 50 percent lower than a mid-December peak — was the biggest for Tesla stock since 2020.
X, which Mr. Musk purchased in 2022, experienced intermittent outages on Monday, mostly on its app, according to Downdetector, which tracks reports of problems from users on websites.
The first outages were reported before 6 a.m. Eastern time, after which the site and app seemed to resume functioning. But about 10 a.m. more problems arose, and there were 41,000 reports of outages on X, according to Downdetector. Shortly after 11 a.m., a third spike of reported outages emerged, and the site remained down for many users.
