As a SpaceX Starship rocket steered its way back to Earth Nov. 19 before ultimately landing in the Gulf of Mexico, President-elect Donald Trump watched from Texas alongside Elon Musk.
Musk is the founder of SpaceX, the space company that handles launches for NASA, the U.S. Space Force and the National Reconnaissance Office. Following Trump’s election he is also the co-chair of the cheekily named commission, Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, which is a dog-themed cryptocurrency.
And Musk is once again a central figure, if not the central figure, at the hub of a web of complicated, sometimes contradictory, positions surrounding the U.S. government’s spending and policy on space.
He leads a company that has more than $10 billion in government contracts, and is also the face of a new body aimed at getting rid of government waste. He wants to win new space launch and satellite contracts with the U.S. Space Force and intelligence community, but his reported calls to Russian President Vladimir Putin according to the Wall Street Journal, have raised questions about national security. And his company is now accused of having a near monopoly on some space technologies, a charge he levied against United Launch Alliance a decade ago when he was trying to break into the market to launch national security satellites.
All of this comes as he’s sparred with government agencies, such as the Federal Communication Commission and the Federal Aviation Administration and the National Labor Relations Board.
Two defense analysts contacted by The Space Project said it was still unclear how Musk’s relationships and new role with the Trump administration may play out. (Musk has made a practice of not following convention. Gen. William Shelton, the former head of Air Force Space Command, once said of Musk, “Generally, the person you are doing business with, you don’t sue.”)
On Nov. 13, the nonprofit Project for Government Oversight, used the Musk-owned social media outlet X to tweet: “If Elon Musk is running a Dept. of Government Efficiency AND his own companies—especially ones that work with the gov’t—there are clear avenues for serious conflicts of interest. Public servants need to be dedicated to serving the public above all else.”
On Nov. 15, two Democratic Senate leaders, Sen. Jeanne Shaheen of New Hampshire and Sen. Jack Reed of Rhode Island asked the Department of Defense’s Inspector General and Attorney General to review whether Musk’s security clearance was at risk following reports of calls to Putin.
In a separate letter, they also asked the Secretary of the Air Force, Frank Kendall, about concerns of overreliance on SpaceX as a single provider for global broadband connectivity in low Earth orbit.
“Mr. Musk’s reported behavior could pose serious risks to national security, and as CEO of a company with billions of dollars in sensitive defense and intelligence contracts, warrant reconsideration of SpaceX’s outsized role in DoD’s commercial space integration,” the letter to Kendall read.
The senators asked for a response and briefing no later than Dec. 1.
Todd Harrison, a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, a Washington, D.C.-based think tank, said from a contract perspective he did not expect much to change. He pointed to SpaceX’s record of “outperforming” other launch companies and said the company’s advantage “is so great that I don’t think any kind of political favoritism would come close to what they’ve won fair and square.”
Where there may be an advantage for Musk, Harrison said, is if Trump were to push for a human mission to Mars around fiscal year 2027.
“They’re in the best position to compete for that, not because of political favoritism, but just because of how they’ve innovated in their company,” he said.
However, he suggested “we could see a complete revamp and reorientation of NASA’s budget, slashing a lot of Earth science missions, slashing a lot of education-related funding, and reinvesting all of that and making sure we get back to the moon during Trump’s second term.
But changes at the FAA and the FCC for SpaceX’s launch licensing process and environmental review are already underway during the Biden administration, Harrison noted, as is a long-standing shift to fixed-price commercial contracts.
“Elon is going to push for that, but he’s pushing on an open door,” Harrison said.
