The Democrats just swept in the midterm elections and will regain the majority in Congress come January. President Trump’s close ally Elon Musk, who coughed up a pretty penny this election cycle to ensure Republican wins, says he is not afraid of a crackdown on SpaceX’s multibillion-dollar deals with the federal government.
Government contracts will account for less than 10% of SpaceX’s revenue this upcoming quarter, Musk said in a post on X, in response to a user who suggested that Musk send a letter to Senate and House Democrats on January 1 offering to cancel the contracts. The share of the government revenue will shrink even further over the next year to 5%, Musk added.
“SpaceX contracts with the government are BOTH the best product AND the lowest price!” Musk claimed in the post. “Happy to cancel any that the government doesn’t want. Just say the word!”
In the past quarter, SpaceX reported that government contracts made up 16.6% of its revenue. Those contracts were inked with NASA and the Pentagon for things like satellite launches and the construction of Trump’s so-called Golden Dome missile defense shield system.
The share of government contracts in SpaceX revenue has been declining, and this is not the first time Musk has alluded to an even more rapid decoupling from government revenue. For example, in February, Musk claimed that NASA contracts would only make up around 5% of SpaceX revenue this year. Anthropic also recently reportedly surpassed the U.S. federal government to become SpaceX’s single biggest customer. The AI lab’s IPO filing unveiled last month showed that Anthropic agreed to spend up to $120.5 billion through 2029 as part of its compute deal with SpaceX, a figure that is roughly $36 billion more than what was previously reported.
But the election possibly did plant fear among investors who bought into Musk’s companies. As of Thursday, Tesla and SpaceX had shed more than $450 billion in combined market value over the two days following the election.
On Thursday, the Washington Sun reported that congressional Democrats were already preparing plans to launch investigations into hundreds of executives and companies, including tech giants and AI labs, once the party regains control of Congress.
Musk’s tweet came a couple of hours after The Washington Post reported that between March 2025 and June 2026, the government agreed to pay nearly $1.2 million to SpaceX for a military unit that sets up communications for White House officials. The Post notes that White House officials told the New York Times last year that Musk had donated Starlink service to the White House. At the time, Democrats on the House Oversight Committee requested more information on the Starlink installation.
“Donations such as this raise considerable red flags as to whether Mr. Musk is using his position in the federal government to benefit his companies,” the Democratic representatives wrote in a letter.
There is also significant controversy brewing over Musk’s power in the war between Ukraine and Russia. Last month, Ukrainian officials said that their military abruptly lost critical access to Starlink services because SpaceX allegedly implemented a speed limit. Musk denied that he was responsible for it, but did accuse the Ukrainian military of violating Starlink’s “terms of service” via an alleged loophole that was now closed.
