By Adam Clark

The feud between Elon Musk and President Donald Trump is entering a new phase after the Tesla CEO said he would form a new political party. That looks to be giving a helping hand to at least one rival to Musk's corporate empire.

Rocket Lab was gaining 4.1% in premarket trading Monday. The space launch service provider is hoping to position itself as an alternative to Musk's much larger SpaceX. Investors look to be betting that it will be a beneficiary from the fallout after Musk claimed he will found the "America Party" to take on the Republicans and Democrats.

Rocket Lab was one of five stocks which Barron's identified last month as potential beneficiaries of Musk's fallout with Trump, and has risen more than 20% since then. However, it was a mixed bag for the basket on Monday.

AST SpaceMobile is another competitor to SpaceX, aiming to launch a commercial direct-to-cell satellite network service, competing with its bigger peer's Starlink operation. The stock was up 2.1% in premarket training, having gained 46% over the past month.

It was shaping up to be a bad day for Tesla, which was down 6.5% in premarket trading. But it's not clear how much of a boost that can provide to the electric-vehicle maker's rivals.

Rivian Automotive is an alternative U.S. play on EVs but it was down 0.3% in premarket trading, looking set to continue a downward trend that has pushed the stock down 6.6% in the past month. Trump's tax bill -- which was signed into law on Friday -- does away with major portions of former President Joe Biden's Inflation Reduction Act, known as the IRA, which includes tax credits of up to $7,500 for EV purchases.

Serve Robotics is a small start-up building food-delivery robots, powered by artificial intelligence. That makes it a would-be competitor to Tesla's own robotics ambitions, but the stock was down 1.5% in premarket trading, following a 17% fall over the past month. With a market value of just $615 million, Serve is being driven more by speculation over its role in the automation and AI boom than the actions of Musk.

Finally, Google-parent Alphabet is Tesla's chief competitor in robo-taxis via its Waymo business but was down 0.6% in premarket trading. While there'll be plenty of attention on how Musk's political ambitions affect the launch of Tesla's self-driving taxis, Alphabet's direction is still largely decided by its core search business.

Write to Adam Clark at adam.clark@barrons.com

This content was created by Barron's, which is operated by Dow Jones & Co. Barron's is published independently from Dow Jones Newswires and The Wall Street Journal.

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

July 07, 2025 06:21 ET (10:21 GMT)

Copyright (c) 2025 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.