Wall Street closed lower Thursday as a spat between President Donald Trump and his billionaire former aide Elon Musk spilled into the public eye, but global markets were mixed while investors assessed trade talks between Washington and Beijing.

Major US indexes fell, with shares in Musk's electric vehicle company Tesla tanking more than 14 percent as the US leader threatened to tear up the tycoon's government contracts.

Trump expressed disappointment Thursday with his top donor's criticisms of a "big, beautiful" spending bill before Congress, prompting Musk to hit back in real time.

But markets were "holding up reasonably well" otherwise, said Patrick O'Hare of Briefing.com .

Earlier Thursday, Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping held a long-awaited call focused almost entirely on

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