‘Loves Corporate Welfare for Himself’: Elon Musk Slashes Federal Contracts While Raking in Billions from U.S. Taxpayers—Dems Sound Alarm on ‘Blatant’ Conflict of Interest
He may be the world’s richest man, but Elon Musk is also one of the biggest recipients of government assistance.
While Musk has stuck a knife in the heart of foreign aid programs like Pepfar, which has been crucial in the fight against AIDS in Africa, SpaceX and Tesla, owned by the South Africa native, were awarded at least $18 billion in federal contracts, with SpaceX winning more than $17 billion worth of contracts since 2015, ABC News reports.
Federal contracts to SpaceX tripled during the Biden administration, going from $1.1 billion in the 2020 fiscal year to nearly $3.7 billion during the 2024 fiscal year.
Musk, who leads the Department of Government Efficiency, has taken a chainsaw to the federal bureaucracy, slashing hundreds of federal contracts across multiple agencies and offering take-it-or-leave-it buyouts to two million government employees in the form of deferred resignation offers.
“It’s ILLEGAL for special gov’t employees to do gov’t work that affects their own financial interests! Musk’s companies got $3.3 billion in US gov’t contracts in 2024, and now he’s deciding who gets federal funding,” said Democratic. Rep. Jasmine Crockett of Texas, a member of the House Judiciary Committee.
On Friday, Democrats on the committee sent a letter to Attorney General Pam Bondi, expressing concerns that Musk’s role at DOGE creates “conflicts of interest” due to what they said are his “sprawling financial interests” in federal contracts and subsidies.
The Judiciary Democrats argue that Musk’s companies’ routine engagement with federal agencies on defense contracts, telecommunications regulations and energy policy is in conflict with his participation in governmental matters impacting those sectors. That’s a potential violation of the law because Musk’s financial interests could be directly implicated.
“Mr. Musk’s position as an SGE demands heightened scrutiny,” the lawmakers wrote in their letter to Bondi that was obtained by ABC News. “The law’s criminal and civil enforcement mechanisms, which fall solely under the DOJ’s authority, must be rigorously applied to prevent actual or perceived conflicts of interest.”
DOGE’s X account claims it terminated $1 billion worth of DEI-related contracts across 30 federal agencies — though the figure is impossible to verify as Musk, dubbed “Sir Grift A Lot” by one critic on the tech billionaire’s social media platform, X, has refused to discuss specifics regarding the cuts.
The DOGE account claims it saved more than $270 million in federal spending by terminating more than a hundred contracts. That includes canceled subscriptions to POLITICO, The New York Times, and the Associated Press that Musk and his allies say have cost the State Department, the Treasury Department, and NASA up to millions of dollars.
White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt, asked last week about Musk’s financial interests with the federal government and his disclosure requirements, suggested that the tech billionaire would police himself.
“The president was already asked and answered this question this week, and he said if Elon Musk comes across a conflict of interest with the contracts and the funding that DOGE is overseeing, then Elon will excuse himself from those contracts,” Leavitt told a reporter. “And he has again abided by all applicable laws.”
On Monday, Trump said he would have the final say over any possible conflicts.
“Elon can’t do and won’t do anything without our approval, and we’ll give him the approval where appropriate; where not appropriate, we won’t,” the president said.
One of the agencies targeted by Musk for its wasteful spending is NASA. SpaceX, founded by Musk, is the agency’s second biggest contractor. Over the past decade, SpaceX has earned more than $13 billion in contracts from NASA, second only to the amount awarded to the California Institute of Technology.
In 2021, SpaceX netted a major multibillion-dollar contract under the Biden administration to send the first woman and the first person of color to the moon as part of NASA’s Artemis program.
SpaceX is also a Defense Department contractor, having received hundreds of millions of dollars worth of defense contracts to provide launch services for the Air Force during Trump’s first term.