Here's your Forbes Daily Briefing for Tuesday, June 10th.

Today on Forbes, Tesla's newest nightmare is Donald Trump.

Things were already bad at Tesla, but the spectacular collapse of CEO Elon Musk's relationship

with Donald Trump into a smog of threats and insults at the end of last week, promises to do far

more damage to the company than declining sales, a lack of new car models, and a badly

tarnished brand, setting it up for federal retaliation from a grievance-giddy administration.

With the full power of the federal government at his disposal, Trump can turn up the heat

on multiple investigations into Tesla.

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, or NHTSA, has a long-running probe of Tesla's

autopilot and full self-driving features, which are linked to multiple fatal accidents.

Trump could push the Securities and Exchange Commission to review the

veracity of some of Musk's public Tesla comments, and even scrutinize the company's heavy

reliance on manufacturing in China. NHTSA is also seeking information from Tesla about its

robotaxy plans ahead of Musk's intention to kick off a pilot program in Austin this month.

There are no federal rules for autonomous vehicles and robotaxies,

which are instead regulated at the state level.

But depending on NHTSA's review,

Trump could pressure Texas Governor Greg Abbott to block Tesla's robot taxi launch.

A veteran automotive executive, who asked for anonymity in order to speak freely, said,

quote, his surface area for attack is remarkable.

The easiest lever to pull would be to resume investigations, things Elon thought had been

swept under the rug could come back to life.

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