Written by Marisa Taylor, Rachael Levy and Chris Kirkham
(Reuters) – Elon Musk’s support for Donald Trump’s decisive second-term presidential victory gives the billionaire businessman incredible leverage to help his companies get favorable treatment from the government.
Musk contributed at least $119 million to the pro-Trump campaign, federal records show, and relentlessly praised the former president at a critical stage of his campaign.
Musk’s political involvement reflects a broader strategy to include his companies in regulation or enforcement and increase their support for the government, according to Reuters interviews with six Musk company sources familiar with his political and business dealings and two government officials who work closely with Musk’s companies. The sources offered a rare glimpse into the strategies within Musk’s companies to take full advantage of his deep relationship with Trump.
Musk’s business interests — from Tesla (NASDAQ: ) electric cars to SpaceX rockets and Neuralink brain chips — depend heavily on government regulation, funding or policy.
“Elon Musk sees all the regulations as interfering with his business and innovation,” said one former SpaceX executive who spoke on condition of anonymity. “He sees the Trump administration as a way to remove as many regulations as possible, so he can do whatever he wants, as fast as he wants.”
Musk endorsed Trump on July 13, the day he was shot in the ear in the Pennsylvania assassination attempt. Musk’s donations have funded a major get-out-the-vote effort as Trump faces a tough challenge after Vice President Kamala Harris replaced President Joe Biden in July as the Democratic presidential nominee. Musk spent the night of the election with the president-elect at his Mar-a-Lago club in Florida, and Trump said he would name Musk a “good working king” for the administration.
Tesla, SpaceX, Neuralink and Musk did not respond to requests for comment. Trump’s campaign called Musk a “born industry leader” in a statement to Reuters, adding that “the organization’s fractured bureaucracy will certainly benefit from his ideas and efficiency.”
Musk once made his image primarily about fighting climate change by building electric cars to reduce emissions and rockets that could one day help humans escape to Mars from a dying Earth. Now he’s at the forefront of a growing group of Silicon Valley billionaires who champion the liberal movement as a throwback to California’s libertarian ideals — which Musk now derides as an “awakened mental virus.”
His increased political involvement may put his industrial empire in a situation that current and former workers liken to the Age of Prosperity, when industrial bosses like JP Morgan and John D. Rockefeller held enormous sway over government policy affecting their businesses and their wealth.
Musk’s growing power has pleased supporters who see government as an obstacle to his high-tech ventures, including Shervin Pishevar, a financier who invested in SpaceX and advocated for Silicon Valley to turn to Trump. Cutting the rule, he said, would speed up SpaceX’s efforts to land on Mars.
“He’s going to make America work like a startup,” Pishevar said of Musk. “There is no greater entrepreneur in American history than Elon Musk.”
AUTOMATIC DRIVING POLICY
Musk’s political rise comes after little visibility under the Biden administration has accelerated Musk’s embrace of Trump’s populism. For example, Tesla was not invited to the August 2021 EV conference at the White House that only included Detroit-based automakers that produce half of Tesla’s EVs.
Tesla’s fortunes could rise or fall depending on how Trump handles various subsidies, policies and programs to regulate electric and autonomous vehicles. Democratic administrations have since championed many such pro-EV policies, with support from Tesla. Musk is now defending them despite the Republican party’s refusal to reject EVs — and Trump’s mockery of Biden’s EV policy on the campaign trail.
For Tesla, Musk’s goals include getting the US National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), its main federal safety regulator, to hold potential enforcement actions involving the safety of Tesla’s current assistance systems, called “Autopilot” and “Full Self.” . -Driving,” according to a person familiar with the matter.
“Musk’s main focus for the next four years,” the person said, “will be ‘legislation.’
Musk, the source said, could also push for better regulation of autonomous vehicles and robotics planned by Tesla. With his new xAI artificial intelligence startup, Musk could shape new laws or a new agency, the person said.
Musk said last month that he expects to roll out self-driving Teslas in California and Texas next year and begin production in 2026 of a fully autonomous “Cybercab” with no wheels or pedals. Tesla would need a waiver from the NHTSA to produce such a vehicle.
There are no national laws governing how autonomous vehicles can be deployed. That means operators have to deal with different regulations in each state. Musk lamented the challenges of international regulation on Tesla’s earnings call last month and advocated for a single federal approval process.
Brian Mulberry, client portfolio manager at Zacks Investment Management, which is a Tesla investor, said a streamlined, uniform set of rules for autonomous driving could give Tesla the biggest boost of any policy Musk could have. “A lower-level Department of Transportation that provides reasonable guidelines” would give Tesla “a place to prove their case” for the technology’s safety, he said.
Despite Musk’s complaints about job cuts, SpaceX currently leads the world in government-sponsored rocket launches and Tesla sells nearly two million subsidized EVs a year.
Tesla shares closed up nearly 15% on Wednesday.
In his brain implant startup Neuralink, Musk has long complained that the US Food and Drug Administration’s approval process has delayed the company from getting the device into people. Musk could use his growing influence in the Trump administration to cut some of the security-related concessions in that process, according to a source familiar with the company’s operations.
Musk has long expressed frustration about the FDA’s pace. Some Neuralink employees are considering the prospect that Musk, if he becomes Trump’s “effective” manager, can find FDA officials he sees as dysfunctional, a person familiar with the matter said.
POWER GROWS
Musk’s plans to set up a looser regulatory environment come as his companies already face fewer regulatory requirements and lax enforcement of current federal rules, according to six Musk company sources familiar with his regulatory dealings and political strategy. Some government agencies are already struggling to muster the political will to go after Musk’s companies for alleged policy violations or safety issues, they said, in part because Musk is a dominant player in highly regulated and politicized industries like electric cars and rockets.
NASA, for example, relies on SpaceX’s expertise for missions such as rescuing Boeing’s Starliner astronauts still trapped in space.
NASA and other agencies often try to avoid alienating the company, said a government official familiar with the company’s government dealings who spoke on condition of anonymity. “NASA needs SpaceX more than SpaceX needs NASA,” the official said.
NASA has invested more than 15 billion dollars in SpaceX. SpaceX is also separately developing a network of hundreds of spy satellites with the US intelligence agency, Reuters reported.
A Reuters investigation last year documented at least 600 worker injuries at SpaceX facilities across the country and found that Musk’s rocket company was ignoring safety rules and standard practices. Employee injury rates at SpaceX facilities also continued to exceed the industry average last year, according to a Reuters review of safety data.
Neither NASA nor OSHA, which regulates worker safety, has taken any significant action against SpaceX for worker injuries and related reporting violations. NASA declined to comment on Musk’s potential influence after Trump’s election.
Musk, however, praised the government for trying to implement the rules as his company moved faster than its competitors. In an interview before the election, he described the application of the law as excessively brutal and said he intended to abolish the “contrary” laws.
“In the end, you won’t be able to do anything,” Musk said during an appearance at the All-in Summit, a gathering connected to the tech podcast of the same name.
However, the US government does not regulate the safety of autonomous spaceflight participants in orbit due to a temporary federal ban on agency oversight, to encourage innovation in the industry. The Trump administration, influenced by Musk, is expected to push for softer regulations this time around, according to four SpaceX sources familiar with its regulatory strategy.
Musk and SpaceX see the company’s dominance as evidence that it can handle less oversight, the sources said, just as an unrestrained Musk could have unintended consequences for the industry.
One former SpaceX executive warned that taking a laissez-faire attitude in a dangerous sector like rocket building “could blow up in everyone’s face and set the industry back a decade.”
