Elon Musk is about to sign a $400 million contract from the State Department to supply Tesla electric armored cars to the federal government. The billionaire, who has long been one of the federal government’s largest contractors with his company SpaceX, now heads the Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, which he is setting up by acting through mass layoffs of public employees and imposing other dramatic cuts to various federal grants and services with the goal of acting on the “balanced budget.” Moreover, the multimillion-dollar contract comes as Musk is encouraging the closure of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, to the outrage and concern of many Americans.
Kamala Harris’ former strategist, Democrat Mike Nellis pointed out worriedly, how Musk has deliberately cut off grants for scientific research on people’s health by prioritizing his own interests, writing, “Musk has cut off funds on several things like cancer research so that the government can pay him $400 million to make an ‘armored Tesla.’ Good grief!”
But the $400 million contract also outraged Jared Holt of the Institute for Strategic Dialogue: “Musk has convinced MAGA that he is fighting to save their precious taxpayer dollars,” he wrote in X. “Meanwhile, he is preparing to win a $400 million contract to produce Tesla armored cars for the State Department. No talk of cutting it, strangely enough!”
Social media commentator and artist Candee Corliss also wrote, “Trump is quietly handing Elon huge government contracts hoping no one will notice.” According to Tristan Snell, a lawyer who led the Trump University fraud case, “Musk’s plan is to shut down parts of the government investigating him, claim he is stopping government spending and ‘award himself all the money,’” he wrote in X.
