What to know about Elon Musk's contracts with the federal government

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Elon Musk is easy the world’s wealthiest man, with a nett worthy topping $300 billion.

But adjacent helium stands to marque much wealth from his relation with the national authorities aft placing a winning stake connected Donald Trump’s predetermination to the presidency.

“It’s going to beryllium a aureate epoch for Musk with Trump successful the White House,” Wedbush Securities expert Dan Ives said.

Musk’s aerospace institution SpaceX has received billions of dollars successful national contracts, and could beryllium enactment for more, portion his 5 different businesses could summation from a lighter regulatory touch.

Trump has named Musk to co-head a caller Department of Government Efficiency,” oregon DOGE — a motion to the cryptocurrency Musk adores. However, national instrumentality bars enforcement subdivision employees, which tin see unpaid consultants from participating successful authorities matters that volition impact their fiscal interests, unless they divest of their interests oregon recuse themselves.

Trump’s modulation squad has sought a work-around, saying helium would “provide proposal and guidance from extracurricular of Government” with the enactment concluding by July 2026, according to a news release.

Richard Painter, a University of Minnesota Law School prof and erstwhile main White House morals lawyer, said that if Musk is genuinely moving extracurricular the authorities helium doesn’t person to merchantability his assets, but that limits his influence.

“He tin marque recommendations, but yet the decisions are made by authorities officials,” Painter said.

Trump’s run and Musk’s companies didn’t respond to requests for comment.

Here’s however Musk could payment from Trump’s presidency:

SpaceX

If there’s 1 Musk concern that could nett the astir from the incoming Trump administration, it’s SpaceX.

The company, which announced this twelvemonth it was moving its office from Hawthorne to Texas, already has received astatine slightest $21 cardinal successful national funds since its 2002 founding, according to authorities contracting probe steadfast The Pulse. That includes contracts for launching subject satellites, servicing the International Space Station and gathering a lunar lander.

However, that fig could beryllium dwarfed by a national inaugural to money a Mars mission, which is the stated extremity of SpaceX.

A rocket blasts disconnected astatine night.

“Elon Musk is wealthy, but he’s not affluent capable to wholly money humans to Mars. It needs to beryllium a public, backstage partnership, due to the fact that of the tens of billions of dollars that this would cost, oregon adjacent hundreds of billions dollars,” said Laura Forczyk, enforcement manager of abstraction manufacture consulting steadfast Astralytical.

SpaceX has already made large strides testing his Starship rocket, the astir almighty ever built. NASA envisions employing the rocket successful its Artemis programme to instrumentality humans to the moon, but it has been designed to person capable thrust to propel a spacecraft to Mars. What’s more, Trump, during his archetypal presidency, speculated connected Twitter astir wherefore the United States was focusing connected the satellite alternatively of Mars.

Still, determination are method challenges, with SpaceX yet to implicit the $4-billion Starship lunar lander, which would person to beryllium modified for Mars. And without a pressing geopolitical threat, Congress whitethorn beryllium unwilling to walk much connected abstraction exploration, arsenic it did during the 1960s with the Apollo program, Forczyk said.

Should a Mars task not materialize, SpaceX could inactive reap rewards successful the adjacent 4 years. For example, the Federal Communications Commission denied SpaceX astir $900 cardinal successful national subsidies to supply agrarian broadband entree done its Starlink outer network. Under caller FCC leadership, Forczyk sees that being reversed.

SpaceX besides has Starlink contracts with the military, including a $70-million grant from the U.S. Space Force past year, according to Space News.

Tesla

Trump’s policies could trim the income of electrical vehicles, but with Musk’s influence, his administration’s policies could boost Tesla — though not with national funding.

For example, Trump, who tempered disapproval of electrical vehicles aft Musk backed him, mightiness extremity a $7,500 taxation recognition for electrical vehicles. That would wounded Tesla’s unprofitable rivals that trust much connected the taxation credits to lure customers.

“Tesla is the lone automaker that has the standard and scope to terms vehicles successful a $30,000-to-$40,000 scope and marque important profits,” Ives said. “It would fundamentally instrumentality contention retired of the market.”

Trump’s Republican medication besides is considering imposing tariffs connected Mexico and China, which could marque cars much expensive. Ives said helium expects Trump to marque exceptions for Tesla and Apple truthful they’re not deed by a taxation connected imported goods.

Tesla receives lone a smattering of national contracts, according to USAspending.gov, a database that tracks U.S. authorities spending.

This year, Tesla received astatine slightest $2.8 cardinal from the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation done a federally funded programme to deploy EV charging stations.

From 2022 to 2024, Tesla and its subsidiaries were awarded astatine slightest $631,800 successful national contracts chiefly to supply vehicles for the U.S. embassies successful Singapore, Iceland and Thailand, the information showed.

The pioneering electrical conveyance maker, which saw its banal surge aft Trump’s win, has clashed with regulators implicit information concerns astir its self-driving software. Musk, who has vowed to chopped astatine slightest $2 trillion successful national spending, could unit regulators looking into his companies.

xAI

Musk’s startup xAI doesn’t look to person national authorities contracts, but artificial quality companies could payment successful different ways nether Trump.

Republicans and Musk person expressed enactment for cutting regularisation to substance AI innovation, a important portion of the aboriginal of tech companies.

But Musk has besides warned that AI could airs a threat to humanity, and it’s unclear however Trump plans to code imaginable information risks that travel with exertion including fraud, bias and disinformation.

Trump plans to repeal President Biden’s AI enforcement order that partially aimed to code AI information concerns by directing the national authorities to instrumentality steps specified arsenic enforcing user extortion laws, according to the GOP’s MAGA platform.

Americans for Responsible Innovation, an advocacy group, wants Musk to go a strategical AI advisor to Trump, saying, “As artificial quality races ahead, the U.S. should pb the satellite successful advancing AI safely and securely.”

A gathering with an "X" sculpture connected top.

X, formerly known arsenic Twitter, served arsenic an online megaphone for Musk, who perpetually shared his enactment for Trump during the predetermination season.

The societal media site, which precocious relocated its San Francisco office to Texas, doesn’t look to person immoderate national authorities contracts, but X could payment from argumentation changes that impact its rivals specified arsenic Meta and TikTok.

Musk, who has declared himself a “free code absolutist,” precocious shared an aged Trump video with the words “YES!” In the video from 2022, Trump says helium would alteration Section 230, a instrumentality that shields platforms from liability for user-generated content.

Platforms would suffice for immunity lone if the companies “meet precocious standards of neutrality, transparency, fairness and nondiscrimination,” Trump said.

The Boring Co.

Fed up with Los Angeles traffic, Elon Musk launched The Boring Co. with 2 tweets successful 2016, promising “to physique a passageway boring instrumentality and conscionable commencement digging.”

The Bastrop, Texas, company, formerly headquartered successful Hawthorne, has completed a 1.7-mile loop nether the Las Vegas Convention Center and is gathering a larger citywide loop — some without national funding. Projects successful immoderate different cities didn’t get past the connection stages.

However, astatine Trump’s urging, legislature representatives could earmark section proscription projects to the payment of Boring Co., though the institution would inactive person to vie to triumph them, said Greg Griffin, a erstwhile municipality readying prof astatine the University of Texas astatine San Antonio, who studied that city’s projected Boring Co. project.

“There could beryllium immoderate alignment betwixt the circumstantial firm’s abilities and a [congressional] delegation that could enactment projects that lucifer those abilities,” helium said. “The conception they were offering was not without merit.”

Local projects are typically paid for with 20% section backing and 80% national money.

Neuralink

Controlling robotic limbs. Seeing without eyes. Those are the kinds of miraculous advances Musk’s Neuralink startup has been trying to achieve.

The Fremont, Calif., company helium co-founded successful 2016 doesn’t person national money, but its exertion and objective trails are regulated by the Food and Drug Administration. The much hands-off attack favored by Trump could assistance specified aesculapian instrumentality developers.

“We’re acrophobic that regularisation successful wide successful the FDA volition beryllium weakened nether the 2nd Trump administration, and peculiarly acrophobic astir aesculapian devices,” said Dr. Robert Steinbrook, wellness probe radical manager for the user rights radical Public Citizen.

Neuralink, which has raised much than $600 cardinal successful task capital, has developed an implant the size of a coin with tiny wires that grounds encephalon activity. A paralyzed Arizona antheral became the archetypal human to person the implant successful January and has since moved a cursor, browsed the net and played video games with this thoughts. A 2nd diligent was implanted with the instrumentality successful July.

Although the institution is presently targeting radical with disabilities, Musk has said the implants could beryllium wedded with artificial quality to greatly magnify the quality of each humans — presenting its ain acceptable of thorny technological and ethical issues.

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