Elon Musk and Spacex are great winners in Donald J. Trump’s Expenditure Plan.
President Trump is delivering the list of desires of Mr. Musk both in NASA and in the Pentagon to reorient federal expenditure in space in a way that can generate billions of dollars in new businesses to the Space Technology Company of Mr. Musk, if the Congress signs the budget plan.
In the Pentagon, Trump is asking for a massive leap in spending, an extraordinary increase of 13 percent, almost completely through assignments in a budget reconciliation plan of Congress under consideration.
The jump would occur, while many other federal agencies would be cut, partly to overheat federal expenditure in two areas where Spacex is positioned to obtain profits: a fixed missile defense system and space missions for Mars and the Moon.
Trump has proposed a golden dome defense system to track and kill missiles directed towards US objectives, possibly sent by China, Russia, North Korea or other rivals.
Pentagon officials say that Spacex is considered that it is the main receiver of this explosion of new expenses, which could generate billions of dollars in new contracts for the company.
This is because Spacex manufactures both rockets that can launch military useful loads in orbit and satellite systems that can deliver surveillance and guidance tools necessary for the project, which breaches require that states have spooky investments.
Mr. Trump’s budget plan also requires a large amount of money not revealed but a large amount of money for “dominance of the US space to strengthen the national security of the United States.”
The giant load of the new expected businesses for Spacex, which had already begun to clarify based on the policy changes that Trump has asked since January, has generated questions from the Democrats in Washington, who have questioned if Musk is taking advantage of his enormous contributions towards the re -election of Mr. Trump and his position as an advisor to the White House.
Spacex is already, with much, the largest receiver of pentagon spending in the military communications systems of low -existence in the military land, and obtains the largest cut of pentagon rocket launch contracts. Congress approval for the plan to significantly expand this expense would be a giant victory for Mr. Musk and Spacex.
The budget proposed by Trump requires that pentagon spending for 2026 be $ 113 billion more than for this year. But that increase comes completely from the assignment of Congress is considering through its reconciliation plan for fiscal year 2025, according to Todd Harrison, senior member of the American Enterprise Institute and a Formernote in the Executive, Executive Executive of Executive Executive of the OMS Pootnote, WHO Pootnote, WHO Pootnote. Pootnote Executive, who Pootnote Executive, who Pootnote Executive, Executive, Executive, Executive, Executive, Executive, Trump Plan.
NASA’s budget faces general cuts in Mr. Trump’s plan, but there are increases that largely coincide with the Spacex Corporation’s own priorities.
The expenses plan chases Mr. Musk’s commercial rivals, asking NASA to eliminate the financing of the space launch system, a rocket program led by Boeing and also the Astronaut de Orion capsule, built by Lockheed Martin, which was part of three planned flights back to the moon.
Instead, Mr. Trump’s budget demands “more profitable commercial systems that support more ambitious posterior lunar missions”, an industry that Spacex now dominates now. The blue origin of Jeff Bezos, who has developed his own new rocket, could also be a great beneficiary of this change, industry executives said on Friday.
Both Blue Origin and Spacex have moon landing systems that NASA is hired to use and that have not been, at least so far, the leg addressed to the cuts.
“Its design is easier to make Spacex,” said Doug Loverro, a former NASA associate administrator for human exploration and operations that also has an advisor to the Trump administration, referring to the Blue Origin Luna landing plan.
NASA’s budget also requires $ 1 billion in new expenses to focus on a mission on Mars, which has been the main driving force for Mr. Musk since Spacex began. You are already building a new rocket, called Starship, to try to meet this plan.
“Spacex’s manual impressions have to do with this,” said Mo Islam, a pay -load co -founder, a commercial space news site. “I don’t see that there is another way of seeing it. Spacex is positioned to be the main beneficiary of most of these budgetary movements.”
There are some elements in the NASA budget that could lead to decreases in Spacex spending, as less expense at the International Space Station, where Spacex offers Bothho and Astronauts.
But Spacex will still emerge the winner. Recently he won a $ 843 million contract to “extend” the space station when it is withdrawn in 2030. And Musk has pressed Mr. Trump to accelerate that retirement date.
“The decision depends on the president, but my recommendation is as soon as possible,” Musk wrote on his social media platform, X, in February.
In fiscal year 2024, Spacex obtained $ 3.8 billion in federal contracts, most NASA and Pentagon. The company has tasks of a total of $ 18 billion in federal contracts in general in the last decade, according to an analysis of the New York Times of federal contracting data.
Experts such as Mr. Lover have argued for a long time that NASA is too focused on an excessive moon program and behind the release called Artemis, particularly the parts of the effort that depend on Boeing and Lockheed. That said, Mr. Lover said that the new expenses plan “impacts Spacex in many very positive ways.”
But Harrison, the former industry executive, said it also opens Spacex and the Trump administration to possible criticism.
“This now contains everything with a suspicion of inadequate influence,” said Harrison. “Even if the thesis are legitimate questions.”
