On September 3, 2020 near Gruenheide, Germany, Tesla CEO Elon Musk speaks to the press as he arrives to inspect the construction site of the new Tesla Gigafactory near Berlin.
Elon Musk has stated that he "would prefer to remain out of politics" to his tens of millions of social media followers.
Despite this, the multibillionaire magnate behind Tesla and SpaceX has become a political powerhouse through a combination of harsh language and huge expenditure.
Musk has made personal jabs at politicians and government officials, including digs at Vice President Joe Biden and a recent sexually tinged slur directed at a US senator. Musk and his two largest firms, SpaceX and Tesla, have been working behind the scenes to sway US policy for years.
Lobbying and political donations are two ways to influence the political environment. This year, SpaceX and Tesla have spent more than $2 million on lobbying.
Musk has also recently spoken out against Biden's backing for labour unions. He is particularly opposed to a proposed tax credit that would provide a $4,500 discount to people who purchase electric vehicles built by unionised autoworkers, providing the Big Three an advantage over Tesla, Toyota, and other automakers.
Musk has also railed against a planned billionaire's tax, accused federal auto safety regulators of anti-Tesla bias, and chastised the FAA for having a "fundamentally dysfunctional regulatory framework," in his opinion.
His businesses have used their cash to try to sway the government in different ways. According to recent reports, Tesla and SpaceX both lobbied Biden's White House and other elements of his administration during the third quarter, which ran from July to September.
According to data from the nonpartisan Center for Responsive Politics, Musk's aerospace company, SpaceX, has spent slightly under $1.8 million on lobbying this year, down from over $2 million last year.
Tesla, the electric car and renewable energy firm he founded, has already spent more money on government lobbying this year than it did last year through September.
Ford, for example, has spent $2.6 million on lobbying this year. (While the firm sells millions of automobiles each year, Tesla has yet to reach 1 million deliveries in a single year.) Blue Origin, Jeff Bezos' aerospace company, has spent roughly $1.4 million on lobbying so far this year.
For this storey, Musk, Tesla, SpaceX, and the White House did not respond to requests for comment.
Collaboration with both parties
Musk makes political ripples even when he avoids commenting on a hot topic, such as Texas' stringent abortion bill.
"In general, I believe that government should only force its will on the people on rare occasions, and that when it does, it should aim to maximise their cumulative happiness," says the author.
In response to a question on the Texas law, Musk informed CNBC in a September tweet. "Having said that, I'd rather stay out of politics." Musk's businesses and private charity are expanding their activities in Texas.
Musk hasn't been bashful about endorsing certain candidates.
Musk verbally backed Andrew Yang for president of the United States in 2020, citing Yang's support for a universal basic income. He also termed California's coronavirus stay-at-home orders "fascist," and famously defied the instructions by keeping Tesla's Fremont, California, factory running for weeks.
During this time, he tweeted "Take the red pill," accompanied by a red rose emoji. The "red pill" is a symbol from the film "The Matrix" that has been appropriated by right-wing extremists and others, whereas the red rose is a symbol of the Democratic Socialists of America.
According to data from the Center for Responsive Politics dating back to around 2002, Musk has contributed to politicians from both parties on a regular basis (see chart below). Longtime investors Nelson Peltz and Leon Cooperman, for example, use the same bipartisan donating technique.
Musk has donated to a number of political campaigns, according to the most current Federal Election Commission records, including the Republican National Committee. These individual contributions do not include the $210,000+ in campaign contributions made by the SpaceX political action committee to congressional candidates on both sides of the aisle in the first half of 2021.
According to data from the nonpartisan Center for Responsive Politics, Musk has historically contributed slightly more to Democrats and their causes. Musk donated to Senators Chris Coons, D-Del., Jeanne Shaheen, D-N.H., Jack Reed, D-R.I., and Gary Peters, D-Mich. during the preceding 2020 election cycle. He also contributed to Senators John Cornyn (R-Texas) and Thom Tillis (R-North Carolina).
Musk's businesses also hire lobbyists with ties to both major political parties.
Tesla and SpaceX just engaged at least two new lobbyists with prior experience on Capitol Hill.
According to his LinkedIn page, Jonathan Carter, a legislative staffer to Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., joined Tesla as a policy advisor in April. According to Carter's LinkedIn, he was a "key staff member to Senator Blumenthal on Auto Safety, Census, Small Business, Sports, and Trade matters."
Blumenthal sits on the Commerce, Science, and Transportation Committee, which oversees highway safety, transportation, and nonmilitary aeronautical and space science, among other issues that affect Tesla.
Tesla's driver assistance systems, known as Autopilot and Full Self-Driving software, have been the target of Blumenthal's public criticism. Blumenthal stated utilising this technology was like playing "Russian Roulette" for drivers in a tweet in September.
Tesla lobbyists lobbied Biden's White House, the Departments of Energy and Transportation, the Environmental Protection Agency, the Office of Management and Budget, and the Department of Commerce in the third quarter. Last quarter, Carter's team met with members of the House and Senate.
Tesla's lobbying effort was focused on a range of subjects, including solar permits, autonomous car related policies, infrastructure, the Highway Trust Fund, and EV charging, according to a disclosure form.
During the same time frame, Musk said at a conference in late September that he and Tesla had been treated unfairly since they were not invited to the White House for an electric vehicle summit.
"Does this come out as a little slanted or something?" And, you know, it's not the most welcoming administration. "As far as I can tell, it appears to be controlled by unions," Musk stated at the time. The White House meeting took place in August.
His space company hired at least one former assistant to a senior senator in the third quarter and has communicated directly with Biden's government, including the White House.
According to his LinkedIn page, Joseph Petrzelka, a former staffer to Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., became a worldwide government affairs manager for SpaceX in September. Feinstein is a member of the Senate Appropriations Committee's transportation, housing, and urban development subcommittee. The Department of Transportation is under their jurisdiction.
SpaceX spent $590,000 directly lobbying lawmakers, including Biden's Executive Office of the President, the Department of Defense, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, the Department of Transportation, the National Security Council, and the Federal Aviation Administration, according to the company's third quarter report. NASA approved SpaceX to transport passengers to and into space in November 2020. Members of Congress were also lobbied by SpaceX.
Since 2003, SpaceX has racked up a total of $10.5 billion in federal contracts, the majority of which stem from its involvement with NASA. According to data monitored by GovWin and viewed by CNBC, those contracts totaled roughly $2 billion in 2021, with NASA accounting for $1.6 billion of that.
SpaceX is through a tight environmental review process to determine whether they may begin construction and launch of their Starship vehicle from a location in Boca Chica, Texas, or if they must perform a more official examination that might take years.
SpaceX paid over $500,000 in lobbying fees last quarter, which does not include money paid to outside government influencers.
According to the most recent disclosure form, SpaceX paid $90,000 to Invariant, which was founded by longtime lobbyist Heather Podesta, to lobby the Executive Office of the President, the Department of Transportation, and the Department of the Interior. One of the Invariant lobbyists engaging politicians for SpaceX is Podesta, who has raised campaign funds for Democrats for more than a decade.
The corporation attempted to persuade the Biden administration to "promote commercial launch provisions in NASA programmes, appropriations, reconciliation, and S.1260, United States Innovation and Competition Act of 2021," according to the lobbying report.
Miller Strategies, which is managed by Jeff Miller, a close supporter of House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., and former President Donald Trump, was also employed by SpaceX. According to the latest lobbying report, SpaceX paid the company $30,000 in the third quarter to influence the House and Senate on "issues as they relate to space transportation and space transportation expenses." Last quarter, Miller was one of the SpaceX lobbyists seeking to sway Congress.
Regulatory Battles
Musk's legal confrontations with regulators are frequently public and acrimonious.
Musk accused the National Transportation Safety Board and the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration of bias when they examined Tesla for vehicle safety problems this year.
Tesla's Autopilot driver assistance software is being investigated by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration to see if it was partly or entirely to blame in collisions involving Tesla cars crashing into parked first responder vehicles on the side of the road.
Following the launch of that investigation, the White House announced the appointment of Steven Cliff as the new head of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, as well as the hiring of Missy Cummings, a former Navy fighter pilot and Duke University engineering and computer science professor, as a senior advisor for safety.
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