Elon Musk spent close to $300 million in the 2024 election — working to send Donald Trump back to the White House. His companies, especially SpaceX, stand to gain much more than that in the form of lucrative government contracts.
Truth Be Told by Scripps News reviewed public government spending data to measure the amount of federal dollars going to SpaceX, where Musk serves as CEO.
Since January, SpaceX has received over $560 million in government contracts, including $100 million from NASA to launch a telescope on a mission to search for asteroids and comets that might one day threaten Earth.
The federal government has a history of awarding contracts to SpaceX that predates President Donald Trump's return to office. The company has received more than $20 billion over the years, mostly from NASA and the Department of Defense, as the U.S. relies on SpaceX and a handful of other companies to ferry crews and cargo into space, including spy satellites.
What's different is Elon Musk's top role in the Trump administration.
"He stands to make billions of dollars for his company from those very agencies and departments that he is wielding such power over," said Danielle Brian, executive director and president of the Project On Government Oversight. "These are massive contracts and massive conflicts of interest, real impact on what the taxpayer dollar is going toward."
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Trump has said Musk will not be allowed to go near anything that poses a conflict of interest. Trump disputed media reports that the Defense Department initially planned to share hypothetical China war plans with Musk.
"Certainly you wouldn't show it to a businessman who is helping us so much," Trump said. "Elon has businesses in China and he'd be susceptible, perhaps, to that."
The White House has also said it will be up to Musk to identify any possible ethics issues. Unlike Cabinet secretaries, Musk is a senior government employee and not required by law to publicly disclose and remedy conflicts of interest.
The Commerce Department under President Trump made Starlink, a subsidiary of SpaceX, eligible to apply for $42 billion worth of grants to provide rural broadband satellite internet service.
The White House is using Starlink now and the Federal Aviation Administration is exploring whether to make a deal with Starlink to help modernize air traffic control.
Secrecy also shrouds how agencies decide to award projects to SpaceX.
"There's no question (Space X) could possibly authentically win these contracts, but how will we know unless we have better transparency into what was the competition all about?" Brian said.
Musk isn't just getting dollars. In the halls of power, he may also now have access to inside information that could help his companies and hurt his competitors.
