U.S. Agencies Fund, and Fight With, Elon Musk. A Trump Presidency Could Give Him Power Over Them.

Elon Musk’s influence over the federal government is extraordinary, and extraordinarily lucrative. His companies were promised $3 billion across nearly 100 different contracts with 17 federal agencies in 2023. Musk’s rocket company, SpaceX, effectively dictates NASA’s rocket launch schedule. The Defense Department relies on him to get most of its satellites to orbit. His entanglements with federal regulators are also numerous and adversarial. His companies have been targeted in at least 20 recent investigations or reviews. Musk’s immense business footprint, he will be a major player no matter who wins the election. But he has thrown his fortune and power behind former President Donald J. Trump and, in return, Trump has vowed to make Musk head of a new “government efficiency commission” with the power to recommend wide-ranging cuts at federal agencies and changes to federal rules. That would essentially give the world’s richest man and a major government contractor the power to regulate the regulators who hold sway over his companies, amounting to a potentially enormous conflict of interest. Musk attacked the Federal Communications Commission, which oversees the internet satellites that SpaceX launches. He suggested on X that if the commission hadn’t “illegally revoked” more than $886 million worth of federal funding the company had sought to deliver internet access to rural areas, satellite kits would “probably have saved lives in North Carolina” after a hurricane devastated parts of the state. A spokesman for the commission said it didn’t award the money because the company was proposing to provide services in some areas that weren’t actually rural, including the Newark Liberty International Airport.