Sources: White House orders review of SpaceX's US$22b in federal contracts after Trump-Musk clash
WASHINGTON, June 14 — The White House earlier this month directed the Defence Department and Nasa to gather details on billions of dollars in SpaceX contracts following the public blowout between President Donald Trump and billionaire Elon Musk, four people familiar with the order told Reuters.
Sparking an ongoing review, the administration ordered the agencies to scrutinise Musk's contracts to ready possible retaliation against the businessman and his companies, these people said. As Reuters reported on Thursday, Pentagon officials are simultaneously considering whether to reduce the role that SpaceX, Musk's space and satellite company, may win in an ambitious new US missile defence system.
Reuters couldn't determine whether the White House intends to cancel any of the approximately US$22 billion (RM93 billion) in federal contracts SpaceX now has. But the review shows the administration is following through on a threat by Trump during his spat with Musk last week to possibly terminate business and subsidies for Musk ventures. 'We'll take a look at everything,' the president said, speaking to reporters aboard Air Force One on June 6.
In an email to Reuters, a White House spokesperson didn't answer questions about Musk's business, saying the 'Trump administration is committed to a rigorous review process for all bids and contracts.' In a separate statement, a spokesperson at Nasa said the agency 'will continue to work with our industry partners to ensure the president's objectives in space are met.'
Neither SpaceX nor officials at the Defence Department responded to requests for comment.
The people familiar with the order said the contract scrutiny is intended to give the administration the ability to move fast if Trump decides to act against Musk, who until recently was a senior advisor to the president and the head of the cost-cutting Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE. The review is 'for political ammunition,' one of the people said.
Whether the US government could legally, or practically, cancel existing contracts is unclear. But the possibility underscores concerns among governance experts that politics and personal pique could improperly influence matters affecting government coffers, national security and the public interest.
'There's an irony here that Musk's contracts could be under the same type of subjective political scrutiny that he and his DOGE team have put on thousands of other contracts,' said Scott Amey, a contracting expert and general counsel at the Project on Government Oversight, a watchdog group based in Washington. 'Any decision shouldn't be based on the egos of two men but on the best interests of the public and national security.'
Musk's SpaceX in recent years has become a crucial partner of the US government in much of its aerospace and defence work — launching satellites and other space cargo and potentially managing a crucial element of the 'Golden Dome' missile shield planned by Trump.
Although Musk in recent days has sought to walk back some of his critiques of the president — such as calling for Trump's impeachment last week and linking him to a convicted sex offender — his outbursts nonetheless highlighted the government's reliance on SpaceX.
Before reversing course, Musk threatened to decommission the company's Dragon spacecraft. The spacecraft, as part of a roughly US$5 billion contract with Nasa, is the only US vessel currently capable of carrying astronauts to and from the International Space Station.
SpaceX is also building a network of hundreds of spy satellites under a classified contract with the National Reconnaissance Office, a US intelligence agency. The contract was a pivotal transaction for SpaceX, deepening its ties with US defence and intelligence services. — Reuters
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The grant programmes were established to help support institutions that recruit and train educators in a bid to address critical teacher shortages, especially in rural and underserved communities. Payment to foreign aid groups The court on March 5 declined to let Trump's administration withhold payment to foreign aid organisations for work they already performed for the government as he moves to pull the plug on American humanitarian projects around the world. The court upheld US District Judge Amir Ali's order that had called on the administration to promptly release funding to contractors and recipients of grants from the US Agency for International Development and the State Department for their past work. Aid organisations accused Trump in lawsuits of exceeding his authority under federal law and the US Constitution by effectively dismantling an independent federal agency in USAID and canceling spending authorised by Congress. Recently fired US Agency for International Development (USAID) staff carry boxes with a message as they leave work and are applauded by former USAID staffers and supporters during a sendoff outside USAID offices in Washington, D.C. February 21, 2025. — Reuters pic Fired federal employees The justices on April 8 blocked a judge's order for Trump's administration to rehire thousands of fired employees, acting in one dispute over his efforts to slash the federal workforce and dismantle parts of the government. The court put on hold US Judge William Alsup's March 13 injunction requiring six federal agencies to reinstate thousands of recently hired probationary employees while litigation challenging the legality of the dismissals continues. Alsup's ruling applied to probationary employees at the US Departments of Defence, Veterans Affairs, Agriculture, Energy, Interior and Treasury. Probationary workers typically have less than a year of service in their current roles, though some are longtime federal employees in serving new roles. Mass federal layoffs The administration on June 2 asked the court to halt a judicial order blocking mass federal job cuts and the restructuring of agencies. US District Judge Susan Illston blocked large-scale federal layoffs, known as 'reductions in force,' in a May 22 ruling siding with a group of unions, non-profit groups and local governments that challenged the administration. The case involves the US Departments of Agriculture, Commerce, Health and Human Services, State, Treasury and Veterans Affairs, among others. Controlling the personnel of federal agencies 'lies at the heartland' of the president's executive branch authority, the Justice Department said in a filing. Social security data The court on June 6 permitted the Department of Government Efficiency, a key player in Trump's drive to slash the federal workforce, broad access to personal information on millions of Americans in Social Security Administration data systems. At the request of the Justice Department, the justices put on hold US District Judge Ellen Hollander's order that had largely blocked DOGE's access to 'personally identifiable information' in data such as medical and financial records while a legal challenge plays out. DOGE had been spearheaded by Elon Musk before the billionaire left the government and had a falling out with Trump. Two labour unions and an advocacy group sued to stop DOGE members from accessing some of the Social Security Administration's most sensitive data systems. A special police member monitors a protest, while inside the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) building, the day after members of Elon Musk's Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) moved into the CFPB, in Washington February 8, 2025. — Reuters pic DOGE transparency The justices on June 6 extended their block on judicial orders requiring DOGE to turn over records to a government watchdog advocacy group that sought details on its operations. The court on May 23 had issued a temporary pause. The justices put on hold US District Judge Christopher Cooper's orders for DOGE to respond requests by Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington for information. The judge had concluded that DOGE likely is a government agency covered by the federal Freedom of Information Act, or FOIA. The administration contends DOGE is an advisory entity not subject to FOIA. The watchdog group said its intention was to shed light on what it called DOGE's secretive structure and operations. Fired watchdog agency head The court on February 21 declined to let Trump immediately fire the head of a federal watchdog agency after a judge's order had temporarily blocked the president from ousting the official. The court postponed action on the Justice Department's request to lift US District Judge Amy Berman Jackson's February 12 order that had temporarily blocked Trump's removal of Hampton Dellinger as head of the Office of Special Counsel while litigation continued in the dispute. Dellinger on March 6 ended his legal challenge to his firing after the US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit allowed Trump's action to stand. The independent agency protects government whistleblowers. — Reuters
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WASHINGTON (Reuters) -The U.S. Supreme Court's ruling tied to birthright citizenship prompted confusion and phone calls to lawyers as people who could be affected tried to process a convoluted legal decision with major humanitarian implications. The court's conservative majority on Friday granted President Donald Trump his request to curb federal judges' power but did not decide the legality of his bid to restrict birthright citizenship. That outcome has raised more questions than answers about a right long understood to be guaranteed under the U.S. Constitution: that anyone born in the United States is considered a citizen at birth, regardless of their parents' citizenship or legal status. Lorena, a 24-year-old Colombian asylum seeker who lives in Houston and is due to give birth in September, pored over media reports on Friday morning. She was looking for details about how her baby might be affected, but said she was left confused and worried. "There are not many specifics," said Lorena, who like others interviewed by Reuters asked to be identified by her first name out of fear for her safety. "I don't understand it well." She is concerned that her baby could end up with no nationality. "I don't know if I can give her mine," she said. "I also don't know how it would work, if I can add her to my asylum case. I don't want her to be adrift with no nationality." Trump, a Republican, issued an order after taking office in January that directed U.S. agencies to refuse to recognize the citizenship of children born in the U.S. who do not have at least one parent who is an American citizen or lawful permanent resident. The order was blocked by three separate U.S. district court judges, sending the case on a path to the Supreme Court. The resulting decision said Trump's policy could go into effect in 30 days but appeared to leave open the possibility of further proceedings in the lower courts that could keep the policy blocked. On Friday afternoon, plaintiffs filed an amended lawsuit in federal court in Maryland seeking to establish a nationwide class of people whose children could be denied citizenship. If they are not blocked nationwide, the restrictions could be applied in the 28 states that did not contest them in court, creating "an extremely confusing patchwork" across the country, according to Kathleen Bush-Joseph, a policy analyst for the non-partisan Migration Policy Institute. "Would individual doctors, individual hospitals be having to try to figure out how to determine the citizenship of babies and their parents?" she said. The drive to restrict birthright citizenship is part of Trump's broader immigration crackdown, and he has framed automatic citizenship as a magnet for people to come to give birth. "Hundreds of thousands of people are pouring into our country under birthright citizenship, and it wasn't meant for that reason," he said during a White House press briefing on Friday. WORRIED CALLS Immigration advocates and lawyers in some Republican-led states said they received calls from a wide range of pregnant immigrants and their partners following the ruling. They were grappling with how to explain it to clients who could be dramatically affected, given all the unknowns of how future litigation would play out or how the executive order would be implemented state by state. Lynn Tramonte, director of the Ohio Immigrant Alliance said she got a call on Friday from an East Asian temporary visa holder with a pregnant wife. He was anxious because Ohio is not one of the plaintiff states and wanted to know how he could protect his child's rights. "He kept stressing that he was very interested in the rights included in the Constitution," she said. Advocates underscored the gravity of Trump's restrictions, which would block an estimated 150,000 children born in the U.S. annually from receiving automatic citizenship. "It really creates different classes of people in the country with different types of rights," said Juliana Macedo do Nascimento, a spokesperson for the immigrant rights organization United We Dream. "That is really chaotic." Adding uncertainty, the Supreme Court ruled that members of two plaintiff groups in the litigation - CASA, an immigrant advocacy service in Maryland, and the Asylum Seeker Advocacy Project - would still be covered by lower court blocks on the policy. Whether someone in a state where Trump's policy could go into effect could join one of the organizations to avoid the restrictions or how state or federal officials would check for membership remained unclear. Betsy, a U.S. citizen who recently graduated from high school in Virginia and a CASA member, said both of her parents came to the U.S. from El Salvador two decades ago and lacked legal status when she was born. "I feel like it targets these innocent kids who haven't even been born," she said, declining to give her last name for concerns over her family's safety. Nivida, a Honduran asylum seeker in Louisiana, is a member of the Asylum Seeker Advocacy Project and recently gave birth. She heard on Friday from a friend without legal status who is pregnant and wondersabout the situation under Louisiana's Republican governor, since the state is not one of those fighting Trump's order. "She called me very worried and asked what's going to happen," she said. "If her child is born in Louisiana … is the baby going to be a citizen?" (Reporting by Ted Hesson in Washington and Kristina Cooke in San Francisco; Editing by Amy Stevens and Sam Holmes)
