Elon Musk’s Fight With Trump Threatens $48 Billion in Government Contracts | EUROtoday
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The knowledge present the US can be on the hook for about $14 billion for SpaceX’s Starlink web service at quite a few workplaces, resembling a Department of Interior facility in Nevada.
The knowledge might be outdated or embrace errors, however most of the listed figures line up with press releases from businesses such because the US Space Force. Some of the funding is topic to Congressional approval, and a portion might find yourself going to SpaceX’s rivals.
But SpaceX’s opponents have confronted quite a few technical setbacks, and Musk’s firm stays the dominant market chief. The billionaire stated this week that SpaceX would earn about $15.5 billion in income this yr, almost double estimates from two years in the past. SpaceX has accounted for 134 of the 166 orbital launches within the US up to now this yr, in response to monitoring by Jonathan McDowell, an astrophysicist on the Center for Astrophysics | Harvard & Smithsonian.
WIRED did not evaluation detailed contracts or seek for offers the federal government might have struck with Musk’s corporations by way of intermediaries. For occasion, some authorities businesses could also be shopping for adverts on Musk’s X social media platform by way of promoting businesses.
The authorities’s car fleet consists of Tesla electrical autos, in response to paperwork on-line, and the General Services Administration lately paid the corporate for upkeep.
But the GSA’s annual Federal Fleet Report doesn’t break down the variety of autos by producer or supply particulars on future spending. The report lists 7,706 battery electrical autos within the authorities fleet. Earlier this yr, the Trump administration paused orders of recent zero-emissions autos, dealing a blow to corporations resembling Tesla.
DOGE Pinching
Musk’s corporations have benefitted from authorities assist for years. In February, an evaluation by the Washington Post discovered Musk companies had obtained a minimum of $38 billion since 2003 in authorities contracts, loans, subsidies and tax credit throughout the US, together with on the state and native ranges. A New York Times evaluation from October recognized a minimum of $15.4 billion in federal authorities contracts over the previous decade for Tesla and SpaceX.
But Musk himself has tried to take a chainsaw to federal spending by way of his work main the Trump administration’s Department of Government Efficiency which claims to have saved $180 billion since January, together with by canceling contracts, although that determine stays extremely disputed.
Some of DOGE’s efforts had been quickly blocked by the federal courts and in addition drew protests from federal labor unions, public activists, Congress, states, and even Trump’s personal aides and cupboard secretaries. Last month, Musk stated he was stepping away from DOGE work to concentrate on his corporations.
Trump’s cost-cutting initiatives haven’t stopped, although. Hiring freezes stay in impact, and the significance of stretching every greenback additional is being emphasised greater than ever at many federal businesses, in response to representatives at two corporations with main authorities contracts. They declined to be named out of concern of retribution from Trump.
https://www.wired.com/story/elon-musk-federal-contracts-government/