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Elon Musk’s Wealth Rises By $13bn After Trump’s Win

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Elon Musk’s Wealth Rises By $13bn After Trump’s Win
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The wealth of billionaire Tesla and X owner, Elon Musk, has soared by about $13 billion hours after his ally, Donald Trump, won the United States presidential election.

Early Wednesday, investors said Trump’s win will also be a win for Musk’s major public holding, Tesla (TSLA), sending shares of his electric vehicle maker up 13% at the market open, CNN reports.

The development lifted the value of the 411 million shares of Tesla that Musk owns outright by more than $13 billion, which works out to a better than a 11,000% return on the $119 million he donated to Trump.

No single business leader did more to support former President Donald Trump’s candidacy than Musk.

Musk has donated nearly $119 million so far to a political action committee he set up to support Trump, according to Federal Election Commission filings. He has also appeared with Trump at rallies and hosted a fawning interview with him on X, his social media platform.

“He’s bet big here. He dove into the deep end of the pool on this election,” said Daniel Ives, tech analyst at Wedbush Securities.

Much of Musk’s massive net worth can be traced to the government support his companies, such as Tesla and SpaceX, have received over the years. Even if Vice President Kamala Harris had won, much of that money would have continued to flow.

But even if some of the government support for electric vehicles is now trimmed or cut off, as is likely with Trump’s victory, Musk’s wealth will remain firmly intact. In fact, Tesla could benefit if government support for EVs ends.

Musk posted numerous tweets on his social media platform X late Tuesday and early Wednesday celebrating Trump’s victory.

“The people of America gave @realDonaldTrump a crystal clear mandate for change tonight,” he wrote in one of them.

But Trump’s victory could be negative to Musk’s investment, too. Trump has been openly hostile to electric vehicles, saying they are too expensive, have limited range, and will destroy jobs and the American auto industry. But what might seem like the biggest blow to Tesla from another Trump presidency — a reduction, if not the end of federal support for EVs — might not be all that bad for Tesla and Musk.

Other policies that are the centre of Trump’s plans could cause major problems.

Trump has vowed to end something he calls “Biden’s EV mandate,” even though no such mandate exists, and it is unclear what he is referring to.

But under Biden there has been significant government support for building and buying EVs, including billions of dollars in loans to encourage automakers to invest in factories to build EVs and batteries in the United States, support for charging stations and a $7,500 tax credit to many electric car buyers.

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Naira depreciates against dollar across official, black markets after Easter holidays

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Nigeria’s currency, the naira, depreciated against the dollar at the official and parallel foreign exchange markets upon the resumption of work after Easter holidays.

The Central Bank of Nigeria’s data showed that it weakened to N1,602.63 per dollar on Tuesday from N1,599.93 exchanged on Thursday last week.

This means that it declined by N2.7 against the dollar on a day-to-day basis.

Similarly, the naira fell to N1620 per dollaron Tuesday from N1610 at the weekend.

The N1,620 dollar exchange rate at the black market is the same rate recorded on Thursday before the Easter holidays.

The development comes following the sustained slump in the dollar amid threats to US Federal Reserve independence and the tariff war.

 

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US: Tariffs on China will come down substantially – Trump announces

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President Donald Trump of the United States has said that high tariffs on goods from China will come down substantially.

He said the tariffs would crash but won’t go down to 0%.

The President stated this during a White House news conference on Tuesday.

Trump stated this in response to earlier comments same day by treasury secretary, Scott Bessent.

Bessent had made it clear that the high tariffs were unsustainable.

Recall that the US had placed import taxes of 145% on China and in response the Asian giants retaliated with 125% tariffs on US goods.

Trump had announced what he described as a reciprocal tariffs on nations across the globe, causing the stock market to stumble and interest rates to increase on US debt.

“We’re doing fine with China,” Trump said.

Despite his high tariffs, Trump said he would be “very nice” to China and not play hardball with Chinese President Xi Jinping.

He added, “We’re going to live together very happily and ideally work together.”

Trump said that the final tariff rate with China would come down “substantially” from the current 145%, saying “It won’t be that high, not going to be that high.”

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Nigeria’s electricity generation records steady drop – Report

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Nigeria’s electricity generation peak has recorded a steady drop to 4,742.20 megawatts in the past three days.

This is according to the National Grid performance report from Thursday, 17 to 19 April 2025.

The report showed that electricity generation dropped by 531 megawatts in the last three days.

Accordingly, the system performance data indicated that the electricity generation peak stood at 5,273.80 megawatts on Thursday but dropped to 5,131.20 megawatts and 4,742.80 megawatts on Friday and Saturday.

The development comes days after the Minister of Power, Adebayo Adelabu, announced that Nigeria hit its highest energy peak of 5,801.63 MW.

On Thursday, Adelabu reiterated that the government is doing everything to avert a collapse of the country’s power sector and plans to partly offset the N4 trillion owed to the electricity generation companies.

For more than a decade, Nigeria has continued to grapple with power sector challenges for a population of over 200 million.

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