SpaceX posizionato per garantire miliardi in nuovi contratti federali sotto Trump

**Elon Musk’s role in the White House allows him to cancel contracts and influence policy, potentially benefiting his companies. Supporters say he has the best technology.**

Within the Trump administration’s Defense Department, Elon Musk’s SpaceX rocketry is being trumpeted as the nifty new way the Pentagon could move military cargo rapidly around the globe.

In the Commerce Department, SpaceX’s Starlink satellite internet service will now be fully eligible for the federal government’s $42 billion rural broadband push, after being largely shut out during the Biden era.

At NASA, after repeated nudges by Mr. Musk, the agency is being squeezed to turn its focus to Mars, allowing SpaceX to pursue federal contracts to deliver the first humans to the distant planet.

And at the Federal Aviation Administration and the White House itself, Starlink satellite dishes have recently been installed, to expand federal government internet access.

Mr. Musk, as the architect of a group he called the Department of Government Efficiency, has taken a chain saw to the apparatus of governing, spurring chaos and dread by pushing out some 100,000 federal workers and shutting down various agencies, though the government has not been consistent in explaining the expanse of his power.

But in selected spots across the government, SpaceX is positioning itself to see billions of dollars in new federal contracts or other support, a dozen current and former federal officials said in interviews with The New York Times.

The boost in federal spending for SpaceX will come in part as a result of actions by President Trump and Mr. Musk’s allies and employees who now hold government positions. The company will also benefit from policies under the current Trump administration that prioritize hiring commercial space vendors for everything from communications systems to satellite fabrication, areas in which SpaceX now dominates.

Already, some SpaceX employees, temporarily working at the F.A.A., were given official permission to take actions that might steer new work to Mr. Musk’s company.

The new contracts across government will come in addition to the billions of dollars in new business that SpaceX could rake in by securing permission from the Trump administration to expand its use of federally owned property.

SpaceX has at least four pending requests with the F.A.A. and the Pentagon to build new rocket launchpads or to launch more frequently from federal spaceports in Florida and California. The F.A.A. moved this month toward approving one of those deals, more than doubling the annual number of SpaceX launches for its Falcon 9 rocket allowed at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida, to 120.

And SpaceX is pushing the F.C.C. for more federal radio spectrum — its Starlink satellite service depends on radio spectrum to send signals back and forth to Earth, meaning if it gets more it can increase its profits — a move its cellular provider rivals see as a power grab. The first of those awards was approved this month, after Mr. Trump replaced the head of the F.C.C. with a new chairman, Brendan Carr, who has been supportive of Mr. Musk.

The potential new revenue stream for Mr. Musk’s company comes after he donated nearly $300 million to support the 2024 campaign of Mr. Trump as he sought a return to the White House.

Mr. Musk then persuaded President Trump to put him in charge of the cost-cutting effort. From there, as a White House employee and adviser, he can influence policy and eliminate contracts.

“The odds of Elon getting whatever Elon wants are much higher today,” said Blair Levin, a former F.C.C. official turned market analyst. “He is in the White House and Mar-a-Lago. No one ever anticipated that an industry competitor would have access to those kinds of levers of power.”

Executives at SpaceX did not respond to requests for comment.

Karoline Leavitt, the White House press secretary, said in a statement that Mr. Musk, as a so-called special government employee had received briefings on ethics limits including those related to conflicts of interest and would abide by all applicable federal laws.

SpaceX had built itself into one of the nation’s largest federal contractors before the start of the second Trump administration, securing $3.8 billion in commitments for fiscal year 2024 spread over 344 different contracts, according to a tally by The Times of a federal contracting database.

Even if Mr. Trump had never given Mr. Musk and his employees a government role — or if former President Joseph R. Biden Jr. had been elected to a second term — SpaceX would have continued to secure new government work. What has changed is the overall value of the work expected to be delivered to SpaceX.

Douglas Loverro, a former senior NASA and Pentagon official who also served as an adviser to the Trump transition team on space issues, said SpaceX deserved to win many of these additional contracts.

“He does have the best tech,” Mr. Loverro said of Mr. Musk. “All of this will lift the space industry as a whole, obviously — but it will certainly help SpaceX even more.”

Other government contracting experts say they remain concerned Mr. Musk is positioned to secure special favors, particularly after Mr. Trump fired officials charged with investigating ethics violations and potential conflicts of interest.

“We will never know if SpaceX would authentically win competitions for these awards because all of the offices in government intended to prevent corruption and conflicts of interest have been beheaded or defunded,” said Danielle Brian, the executive director of Project on Government Oversight, a nonprofit group that tracks federal contracts.

“The abuse of power and corruption that is spreading across federal agencies because of Musk’s dual roles is horrifying,” she said.

Musk a beaucoup plus d’actions chez SpaceX que chez Tesla (42% equity; 79% voting control, contre 13% chez Tesla), et ses parts chez SpaceX contribuent plus à sa richesse que celles de Tesla.

Vu que Tesla se casse la gueule, et perd la course des voitures électriques, il doit vouloir tout jouer sur SpaceX.

En plus SpaceX est pas côté en bourse, donc il peut faire affaire plus discrètement avec des pays comme la Chine, Russie etc