The world’s richest man has poured money and time into the president-elect’s campaign, and now he’s calling for a friendlier regulatory environment.
Even before Donald J. Trump was re-elected, his most famous supporter, Elon Musk, made a request to the former president’s people. He wanted Trump to hire some employees of his rocket company, SpaceX, as senior government officials, including in the Defense Department. That request would bring SpaceX staff to an agency that has one of its biggest clients. It’s an indication of the benefits Musk can reap after pouring more than $100 million into Trump’s campaign, posting pro-Trump material almost constantly on his social media platform X, making public appearances on behalf of the candidate and fighting hard for an eventual victory very important in the state of Pennsylvania.
Contact with SpaceX employees shows that Musk wants to fill a possible Trump administration with his closest confidants, even if his multibillion-dollar government contracts would conflict with any government role. All six companies overseen by Musk are deeply intertwined with federal agencies. SpaceX makes billions from contracts to launch rockets, build satellites and provide space-based communications services. Tesla will receive hundreds of millions more from emissions trading credits created by the state. And at least 20 investigations are underway against Musk’s companies, including one against self-driving car technology, which Tesla considers key to its future.
Musk can now whisper directly into the ear of the executive who oversees these agencies. He may even end up overseeing them himself if Trump follows through on his promise to appoint him to head a government commission. Trump previously told Musk that he wanted him to take the same approach to the federal government as he did to Twitter after he bought the company and renamed it X. Musk has talked about wanting to cut at least $2 trillion from the federal budget. This could mean that one of the biggest checks on Musk’s power, the federal government, will be weakened.
Things that annoy the execution can disappear. Hal Singer, an economist who has advised parties in antitrust lawsuits against tech companies and is also a professor at the University of Utah, said Tesla and SpaceX could expect less scrutiny from the Justice Department. “They’re unlikely to go after Elon, Trump’s Justice Department won’t attack him,” he said. We have already seen this during the first Trump administration”.
On the campaign trail, Trump made it clear that Musk had already reshaped his views. He once spoke out against government efforts to promote electric cars, which are at the heart of Tesla’s business. Not now. “I’m for electric cars,” Trump said in August after Musk endorsed Trump’s re-election bid a month earlier. “I have to because Elon has been very adamant about supporting me.” Trump has also made it clear in recent interviews that he will use his executive power to help Musk. “We have to make a good life for our smart people,” Trump said at a rally in Michigan in July, adding, “and he’s as smart as it gets.”
As of Wednesday, Musk’s fortune had already increased by $20 billion as Tesla’s stock shot up after the election, bringing his net worth to $285 billion, according to Forbes estimates. Tesla enjoys a $7,500 tax credit for electric vehicle purchases, which reduces the cost of purchasing one of its cars. Tesla also earned $1.79 billion in carbon credits last year, according to its most recent annual report. It sells those credits to other automakers whose fleets do not meet emissions limits set by the federal government. A tax credit for new car buyers and changes in federal emissions standards for new cars could affect Tesla’s benefits, although economists and regulatory lawyers say rivals General Motors and Ford need help even more than Tesla.
Musk had a more contentious relationship with President Biden, who in 2021 didn’t hold back when he invited all the major automakers to an electric vehicle summit and didn’t invite Tesla, one of the biggest at the time. Musk has complained about this several times since then. Among its companies, SpaceX has the strongest ties to the federal government, which last year alone received $3 billion in new federal government commitments and a total of about $11 billion in contracts over five years. But Musk wants more than that.
Its allies in Congress and the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) have already challenged the commission’s decision to withdraw an $856 million grant to SpaceX to provide broadband Internet service to rural parts of the United States. The effort was led by Republican FCC Commissioner Brendan Carr. He has supported Musk and SpaceX on social media in recent months, even intervening in Musk’s battle with the Brazilian government over X, even though the social media company is outside of Carr’s purview. House Republicans recently opened an investigation into the FCC’s stance on rural Internet support, suggesting that if Republicans take control of the committee, they may revise the agency’s decision.
SpaceX has also secured huge contracts with the Department of Defense, so many that Pentagon officials are concerned that they are relying too heavily on Musk’s company for rocket launches. “A good friend in the White House could be a very good thing for Tesla and SpaceX,” said Scott Amey, senior counsel at the Project on Government Oversight, a group that monitors federal contracting. are the best for taxpayers.”
At NASA, which also has large contracts with SpaceX, Musk wants the agency to embrace its old obsession with going to Mars instead of its current ambitions to return to the moon. Trump has previously expressed support for such a move. “Hey, we’ve been to the moon,” Trump said back in 2019, during his first term as president. “It’s not that exciting.” NASA will spend a total of $93 billion on the Artemis moon mission between 2012 and 2025. It has already been called to reevaluate that commitment, which includes a contract with SpaceX worth up to $4.4 billion for two moon landings.
The most concrete evidence of Musk’s desire to transform the agencies he does business with is that he wants to deploy his people to the Department of Defense. Musk recommended two SpaceX employees — a retired Air Force general and a government relations executive — as possible hires. Among the SpaceX executives recommended by Musk are Gen. Terrence J. O’Shaughnessy, a retired Air Force consultant, and Tim Hughes, a government affairs executive, who are among Musk’s closest advisers.
The role Musk could play for Trump could be similar to the one another tech mogul, Peter Thiel, played for Trump eight years ago. Thiel placed many of his top allies on the transition team and eventually the administration, and Musk will likely have the same opportunity, given Trump’s admiration for him. What seems clear is that Musk will likely receive some form of compensation for his efforts to help Trump win a second term. The weeks and months ahead will clarify what this benefit will be.
Source: sg.hu
