The White House recently directed the Defence Department and NASA to gather details on billions of dollars in SpaceX contracts following the public blowout between President Donald Trump and billionaire Elon Musk. Sparking an ongoing review, the administration ordered a scrutinization of Musk’s contracts to ready possible retaliation against the businessman and his companies.
The review shows the administration is following through on a threat by Trump during his spat with Musk to possibly terminate business and subsidies for Musk ventures. “We’ll take a look at everything,” the president said, speaking to reporters aboard Air Force One on June 6.
The people familiar with the order said the contract scrutiny is intended to give the administration the ability to move fast if Trump decides to act against Musk, who until recently was a senior advisor to the president and the head of the cost-cutting Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE. The review is “for political ammunition,” one of the people said.
Whether the U.S. government could legally, or practically, cancel existing contracts is unclear. But the possibility underscores concerns among governance experts that politics and personal pique could improperly influence matters affecting government coffers, national security and the public interest.
“There’s an irony here that Musk’s contracts could be under the same type of subjective political scrutiny that he and his DOGE team have put on thousands of other contracts”, said Scott Amey, a contracting expert and general counsel at the Project on Government Oversight, a watchdog group based in Washington. “Any decision shouldn’t be based on the egos of two men but on the best interests of the public and national security”.
Source: Reuters
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