Elon Musk

Through DOGE, Musk reviews government staffing, coordinates budget reviews of government agencies, and initiates the cutting of funding of government programs deemed “fraudulent or wasteful.” Musk states he uses reports from the United States Government Accountability Office and government officials to identify problematic funding. ²

Musk was a major supporter of President Donald Trump’s 2024 presidential campaign through the America PAC independent expenditure committee, which raised $263 million in support of Trump, border security, fiscal responsibility, and free speech. ^{3 4}

Musk is the chief executive officer, chairman, or a board member of a number of prominent firms across various industries, including SpaceX, a commercial spacecraft developer; The Boring Company, a logistics solutions firm; SolarCity, the largest producer of solar panels in the world; Tesla, an electric vehicle producer; X.com (formerly known as Twitter); and others. ⁵

Musk is the richest person in the world, according to CNN Business, as of February 2025 ⁶, and was a regular donor to both Democratic and Republican Party candidates. ⁷ Musk has previously supported policy-related causes and organizations through personal donations and grants from his private philanthropy, the Musk Foundation. ⁸

Business Ventures

Early Career

Elon Reeve Musk was born on June 28, 1971, in Pretoria, South Africa to a South African father and Canadian mother. He graduated from the University of Pennsylvania in 1992 before beginning a Ph.D. program at Stanford that he dropped. ⁹

In 1995, Musk co-founded a web software firm called Zip2 with his brother, Kimbal. The brothers sold the company to Compaq in 1999, and Musk used the profits from the sale to found email payment company X.com (not to be confused with the contemporary X, the Musk-directed rebranding of the Twitter social media platform) the same year. ¹⁰ X.com merged in 2000 with another online financial services firm, changing its name to PayPal in 2001. ¹¹ Although Musk left his role as CEO of the growing company, he retained board membership and was the firm’s largest shareholder when PayPal was sold to eBay in 2002.¹²

SpaceX

In May 2002, Musk founded Space Exploration Technologies (more commonly known as SpaceX) in Hawthorne, California, with the goal of spurring human colonization of Mars and ultimately creating a “true spacefaring civilization.”¹³ The firm has since grown to become the largest private manufacturer of rocket engines in the world.¹⁴

Tesla and SolarCity

In 2004, Musk joined the board of directors as chairman of the fledgling electric car manufacturer Tesla, Inc. ¹⁵ In late 2008, he became CEO of the company. ¹⁶

Tesla, Inc. acquired the solar power provider SolarCity, which was co-founded by two of Musk’s cousins in 2006, in 2016. Musk stated in 2006 that the creation of an electric car (and later, the acquisition of a major solar panel supplier) was partly spurred by his desire to address global warming as “a very serious issue. ¹⁷

Twitter

In October 2022, Elon Musk acquired Twitter, which he later renamed X, for $44 billion. Amongst his first decisions following the acquisition included firing executives, laying off large numbers of staff, and overhauling its content moderation and censorship policies. ¹⁸

A few months after the acquisition, Musk authorized a gradual release of internal communications at Twitter regarding the censorship of accounts and posts largely supporting conservatives, Donald Trump’s 2020 presidential campaign, and posts about Covid-19 that did not align with Twitter’s policies. The release is commonly referred to as the “Twitter Files” and revealed that government agencies instructed Twitter employees to engage in censorship. ^{19 20}

Political Activity

Musk has been at various times a donor to candidates and political action committees from the Democratic and Republican parties. He has described his political views as “half Democrat, half Republican.”  ⁸

Following the 2020 presidential election, Musk has become increasingly aligned with the Republican Party and President Donald Trump, later spending hundreds of millions in support of Trump’s 2024 campaign through his America PAC and serving in the Trump White House as an advisor. ^{1 3 4}

In May 2025, at the annual Qatar Economic Forum, Musk announced that he would plan to spend less on political donations, stating, “I think, in terms of political spending, I’m going to do a lot less in the future…I think I’ve done enough…if I see a reason to do political spending in the future, I will do it…I do not currently see a reason.” ²¹

Political Donations to Democrats

Between 2003 and 2018, Musk donated nearly $139,000 to numerous Democratic candidates for U.S. Congress and the Presidency, including former President Barack Obama, former U.S. Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA), former U.S. Sen. Harry Reid (D-NV), and U.S. Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-FL). ²²

Political Donations to Republicans

Musk has also supported Republican candidates for U.S. Congress and the Presidency. Between 2003 and 2018, he had given $57,600 to Republicans including former President George W. Bush, U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC), former U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL), and former U.S. Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-CA). Between 2004 and 2018, Musk had donated $29,800 to Republican political action committees and nearly $213,000 to the National Republican Congressional Committee (NRCC). ²²

In 2018, a spokesperson for Musk announced that Musk had donated $6 million to the environmental group the Sierra Club, and wanted the donation to be made public by the environmentalist organization. The announcement was made in response to criticism by some Democrats after Musk donated $40,000 to a PAC supporting House Republicans.²³

Through the 2020 and 2024 election cycles, Musk donated $67,290 to Republican political action committees and $247,800 to the NRCC in 2024. During that same time frame, Musk made $11,200 in contributions to Democratic candidates, all of which came in 2020, and $8,400 to Republican candidates, which also were all made in 2020. ²⁴

America PAC

America PAC is a political action committee founded by Elon Musk in August 2024 with the support of other tech industry executives to support Donald Trump’s 2024 presidential campaign. On October 25, 2024, OpenSecrets reported that Musk had contributed over $118 million to the PAC, and through September, Musk was listed as the only funder, having contributed $74.9 million during that time frame. It also reports that America PAC’s platform resembled Trump’s and promoted ideas such as “secure borders, sensible spending, safe cities, fair justice, free speech, and self-protection.” ⁴ It raised a total of $263 million by the end of the 2024 election and spent $261 million in support of Trump’s campaign. ³

Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE)

In November 2024, following the victory of his 2024 presidential campaign, then-President-elect Donald Trump announced that Musk, alongside Vivek Ramaswamy, would lead the then-to-be-created U.S. Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE). President Trump’s announcement stated that while overseeing DOGE, Musk is tasked with “dismantling” bureaucracy, “slash(ing) excess regulations,” and efforts to “restructure” federal agencies deemed essential. ²⁵

On January 25, 2025, President Trump signed an executive order that renamed the existing United States Digital Service to the United States DOGE Service (USDS), making it an agency within the Executive Office of the President and setting it to expire on July 4, 2026. ²⁶

The Hill reported that in a March 2025 interview with former Trump administration economic advisor Larry Kudlow, Musk stated that DOGE had hired over 100 private sector staffers to review government spending, staffing, and budgets of “all” government departments. He responded to pushback from within the Trump administration as Cabinet members had reportedly grown critical of his engagement in budget cuts as Musk had overseen DOGE cutting the funding of the agencies they head. ²

Musk responded to criticisms of DOGE overseeing the budget cuts of various government agencies by saying that their cuts are “in consultation with the Cabinet secretaries and their departments,” and he argued, “I know we’re doing the right thing here. There’s a tremendous amount of waste and fraud in the government.” The Hill also reported that Musk pointed to reports from the United States Government Accountability Office showing billions of dollars of “fraud.” ²

The DOGE website documents and publishes each individual item of government spending that it has blocked as well as regulations and approved government spending so that it can be subjected to approval or criticism by the public. ²⁷

In a March 2025 Joint Address to Congress by President Trump, Elon Musk and DOGE made headlines after President Trump listed some of the government spending cuts under DOGE as President Trump mocked the programs, calling them “scams.” Amongst the list of mentioned cuts included $22 billion from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services to provide free housing and cars for illegal aliens, $40 million to improve the social and economic inclusion of sedentary migrants, $8 million to promote LGBT interests in the African nation of Lesotho, and $8 million for research on gender transitions for mice. ²⁸

Government Contracts and Subsidies

Elon Musk’s enterprises had received roughly $5 billion in subsidies from federal, state, and municipal governments as of 2015. Tax credits, grants, tax breaks, factory construction, discounted loans, and environmental credits are among the types of incentives Musk’s companies have collected. ²⁹

In a 2025 analysis of government funding of Musk’s enterprises, the Washington Post reported that the businesses had received over $38 billion in subsidies, nearly $25 billion of which had come since 2020, including $6.3 billion in 2024. Not included in that amount is the value of over a dozen grants identified by the Post that did not disclose the amount of the funding. In addition to existing funding, the analysis also found that existing contracts included over $11.8 billion in future funding. ³⁰

Tesla

Under certain subsidies programs, customers were eligible to earn a $7,500 federal income tax credit for purchasing electric car. Customers purchasing electric cars in the state of California could earn an additional $2,500 rebate. ²⁹ By 2015, Tesla buyers claimed an estimated $284 million in these subsidies. After the 2009 financial crisis, Tesla received a tax-payer funded loan of $465 million from the U.S. Department of Energy, which it used to build an electric car factory. ²⁹

Tesla’s $5 billion Nevada-based battery plant was supported by about $1.3 billion in state government subsidies, with sales tax, property tax, and business tax all waived for 10 or 20 years.³¹ To afford this budget expenditure, the state of Nevada eliminated a tax break for insurance companies. According to the Zero Emission Vehicle Regulation, auto companies must earn a certain number of credits by manufacturing and selling zero-emission vehicles. California’s cap and tax program allows Tesla to sell their vehicle credits to other auto companies that do not meet their mandated credit quotas. Tesla has earned over $517 million by selling these environmental credits to competitors. ³¹

Since 2007, Tesla has received $15.6 billion in contracts, loans, subsidies, and tax credits from the federal, state, and local governments, according to an analysis published in February 2025 by the Washington Post. The largest portion of the public funding it received was through the sale of over $11.4 billion of automotive regulatory credits that it sold to other car manufacturers that were not in compliance with environmentalist, zero-emission, and other vehicle standards created by both the federal and state governments so that they can avoid penalties for not meeting the standards. ³⁰

SpaceX

Space X received about $20 million in subsidies from the state of Texas to build a launch facility. The company also signed $5.5 billion worth of government contracts with the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) and the United States Air Force. The State of New York spent $750 million on a Solar City solar panel factory in Buffalo. Solar City claims to have received $497.5 million in direct grants from the U.S. Treasury Department. ²⁹

Since 2003, SpaceX has received over $22.5 billion in contracts, loans, subsidies, and tax credits from the federal, state, and local governments, according to an analysis published in February 2025 by the Washington Post. Its top funders include $15 billion from the NASA and $7.6 billion from the United States Department of Defense (DOD). Making up a minute portion of subsidies received, SpaceX has also received $3.6 million from the United States Agency for International Development (USAID). ³⁰

Criticisms

Following Elon Musk’s role with the Department of Government Efficiency, he faced criticisms for leading cuts in public spending and advocating for cutting subsidies while having been a major recipient himself. While Musk has shown appreciation for receiving subsidies, expressing gratitude to “the American taxpayer from whom these funds originate,” Musk has also criticized the same subsidies he has received. ³⁰

In a 2021 interview with the Wall Street Journal, Musk criticized the Biden administration-backed Inflation Reduction Act, advocating for eliminating “all of the subsidies” across all industries even though the bill extended the $7,500 electric vehicle tax credit. Musk responded by saying that Tesla does not need the subsidies, especially since it had produced twice as many electric vehicles as the rest of the industry. ³²

Unionization Campaign

Tesla

Also see United Auto Workers (Labor Union)

In April 2018, it was announced that the United Auto Workers (UAW) had spent approximately $422,000 in 2017 to unionize Tesla’s factory in Fremont, California.³³

In September 2017, the National Labor Relations Board filed a complaint against Tesla charging that the company had impeded attempts to promote unionization by the UAW. Tesla called the charges “baseless.”³⁴

Private Philanthropy

Musk Foundation

Also see Musk Foundation (nonprofit)

The Musk Foundation is a private 501(c)(3) non-operating foundation founded in 2002 by Elon Musk and his brother, Kimbal.⁵ The brothers are the foundation’s sole officers; Elon Musk is president and board director and Kimbal Musk is secretary, treasurer, and board director.³⁵

Elon Musk is the sole funder of the Musk Foundation, and has donated at least $257 million to the organization. ³⁶

According to its website, the Musk Foundation makes grants in support of four areas: “renewable energy research and advocacy;” “human space exploration research and advocacy;” “pediatric research;” and “science and engineering education.”³⁷ Recipients of Musk Foundation grants include international aid nonprofits such as Doctors Without Borders; healthcare organizations such as World Spine Care; and the co-educational Mirman School for Gifted Children.³⁸

The Musk Foundation also funds politically active left-of-center organizations, particularly environmentalist organizations. Recipients of Musk Foundation grants include the National Wildlife Federation; Sierra Club Foundation; the grantmaking New Venture Fund; Global Green USA; Energy Foundation; the Clinton Foundation; People for the American Way Foundation; Oxfam America; Oceana; the BlueGreen Alliance Foundation; the Tides Center; and Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC). ^{39 38}

The Musk Foundation has also contributed to at least one right-of-center nonprofit, the libertarian-aligned Cato Institute.³⁸

Board Membership

Musk is board president of the Ad Astra School, a Los Angeles, California-based tuition-free, “by-invitation-only” private school created in 2014. He is also a “substantial contributor to the school,” paying the “fair market value of the school’s tuition” for his five children who attend Ad Astra ($28,000 per child for a total of $140,000 in 2015).⁴⁰

Musk is also a board member of World Spine Care, a multinational chiropractic service nonprofit; and World Space Week Association, the governing nonprofit which chooses the theme of the annual World Space Week holiday in October.^{41 42}