Musk used his informal position in Trump’s admin to both cut funding to NASA and to direct contracts to SpaceX, and to squash federal investigations into his companies including SpaceX.

Trump authored policy that was favorable to SpaceX and he and his family heavily invested in SpaceX right before announcing the policy.

https://www.epi.org/blog/corruption-in-plain-sight-how-elon-musk-has-benefited-from-the-first-100-days-of-the-trump-administration/

https://www.cnn.com/2026/10/08/investing/trump-5-million-dollars-spacex-bonds

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2025/mar/25/doge-musk-spacex-starlink-contracts