Big Trump Bet Pays Off For Elon Musk

Elon Musk spent more than $100 million to send Donald Trump back to the White House. Now that he has won, the billionaire industrialist and top executive of Tesla and SpaceX could reap enormous financial rewards—potentially presenting an unprecedented conflict of interest at the highest levels of government. 

The Wall Street Journal reports billions of dollars in revenue for Musk’s companies hang on government decisions: which rocket to use for a space launch, how many satellites to allow in low-Earth-orbit, whether to permit driverless cars on the highways.

Musk, who has been promised a role auditing federal expenditures and regulations in a Trump administration through a proposed Department of Government Efficiency, will likely have a seat at the table where many of those decisions are made, giving him the opportunity to tailor policy to suit his own financial interests.

Musk oversees six companies—including electric-vehicle maker Tesla and rocket launcher SpaceX—with more than $1 trillion in assets held by investors.

He and his companies have been repeatedly probed by government agencies, including the Federal Trade Commission, Securities and Exchange Commission and Justice Department, over concerns about user-data protection at X, formerly Twitter, the safety of his cars and his super political-action committee’s activities in the election.