SpaceX and Louisiana are finalizing a deal for the company to acquire 130,000 acres of coastal marshes and land on the Gulf Coast for the construction of a new spaceport. The Louisiana site would complement SpaceX’s launch complexes in California, Florida and Texas.
The news came on the heels of an announcement by Department of Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy of a proposed rule to waive 13 environmental laws covering the licensing and permitting of commercial rocket launches, launch sites, and spacecraft reentry areas. Duffy said the move was to ensure that America won Space Race 2.0; environmentalists claim the move is illegal.
The following day, Axios broke the news that SpaceX CEO Elon Musk is planning a massive get-out-the-vote campaign for the midterm elections in order to keep Republicans in control of Congress. He is reportedly planning to spend $100 million to $120 million.
Coincidence? Nooooooo. It is not. President Donald Trump is running the most transparently transactional government America have ever had. The corruption is worse than during the Nixon, Truman, Harding and Grant administrations. That’s saying a lot.
Need a presidential pardon? Donate a million or two and it’s yours. You won’t have to pay millions in restitution you owe your victims. Want a no-bid contract? Sure, if you’re FOD (Friend of Donald). How much does a tariff exemption cost? Would you believe an 18-carat gold ring worth $25,000?
Trump is determined to monetize his office in a way unlike any previous president. It is estimated that he earned $2.4 billion in 2025 through various deals. The president calls his top fundraiser, Meredith O’Rourke, nearly every night to find out who is — and who is not — writing multi-million dollar checks to his political action committee, MAGA Inc., and legacy projects such as his presidential library. His sons Eric and Don Jr. have invested in companies awarded $6.3 billion in Pentagon contacts.
To waive not one but 13 laws as Musk eyes a new spaceport is a perfect illustration of the administration’s pay-to-play approach to governing the country. It aligns with Trump’s systematic undermining of environmental and safety regulations during his second term.
Musk spent nearly $300 million on the last election, the vast majority of which went toward putting Trump back in the White House. Musk ran Trump’s voter outreach in the states. He also showed up at rallies to endorse the candidate.
Trump appointed Musk to lead the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE). Musk and his team of tech bro wunderkinds ripped through the federal bureaucracy like a hurricane. They closed entire agencies and laid off hundreds of thousands of civil servants.
Musk predicted DOGE would cut $2 trillion from the federal budget. He later lowered that amount to $1 trillion and even lower still. DOGE’s Wall of Receipts lists the savings as $215 billion. The Government Accountability Office recently published a report, DOGE Wall of Receipts: More Transparency Needed on How Savings Are Derived from Contract, Grant, and Lease Terminations, that said DOGE overstated the savings and failed to provide documentation for many of the claims. So much for Musk’s promise of fully transparency.
DOGE reduced the federal workforce through direct layoffs, employee buyouts, hiring freezes and the closing of agencies. There was a key focus on probationary workers who had been hired in the last one to two years plus career employees who had been recently promoted or transferred from other agencies. They were an easy target because did not have full civil service protections.
DOGE was focused on numbers; it didn’t evaluate the importance, performance, or skills of the probationary employees it terminated. Critics said the civil service was gutted, leaving agencies in chaos and unable to deliver critical services.
These workforce cuts are so large that the only way they can be implemented is through cuts to essential services. For example, the Social Security Administration is planning to reduce its employees by approximately 12 percent. Paired with other proposed changes at the agency, this will result in longer call wait times and delays in processing claims and benefits. Vulnerable populations like the elderly and disabled will be especially impacted by these changes in staffing and services.
NASA shed 22 percent of its employees in 2025 due to DOGE and the Trump Administration’s plan to slash the space agency’s budget. A recent GAO report, NASA: Assessments of Major Projects, found that the cuts left the space agency without critical skills in more than two dozen projects. The Artemis program to land astronauts on the Moon in 2028 was impacted.
To date, 25 of 36 projects have reported effects from the reduced staffing. Subsequently, in February 2026, the NASA Administrator announced plans to resume hiring and address skill gaps. The President’s fiscal year 2027 budget request, however, proposes to reduce funding for NASA by more than 20 percent. This request contributes to the ongoing uncertainty as to whether NASA will be able to hire the workforce needed to address skills gaps…
The SLS program at Marshall Space Flight Center noted the loss of almost 20 percent of its civilian workforce. The program is analyzing succession planning and overall workforce effects and is considering tracking workforce as a risk after Artemis II.
The Orion program at Johnson Space Center reported that it lost approximately 10 percent of its civil servant workforce and faces challenges in filling several key positions. Referring to the hiring freeze in place at the time, program officials said they need release of hiring authority to begin the process of filling some of these positions. Moon to Mars program officials, however, said that they have taken steps—including meeting with civil servants and contractors—to ensure all the programs supporting Artemis II, including Orion, were not affected by the workforce reductions.
Musk had numerous conflicts of interest in making cuts at agencies that both regulate and award contracts to SpaceX and his other companies. The White House said Musk would decide for himself what constituted a conflict of interest, There’s no evidence that he recused himself relating to any agencies that DOGE cut.
There were at least 32 active federal investigations into Musk and his companies before Trump took over. Most of them stalled or were dropped. The Securities and Exchange Commission sought to fine Musk at least $150 million over the delayed disclosure of his acquisition of Twitter stock. Under Trump, the amount fell to $1.5 million.
Having worked for months to reduce the size of government, Musk was appalled when Congress wrote the One Big Beautiful Bloated Bill that increased spending and drove up the federal deficit. Musk wrote on his social media platform:
If this insane spending bill passes, the America Party will be formed the next day.
Our country needs an alternative to the Democrat-Republican uniparty so that the people actually have a VOICE.
In some ways, DOGE was a sideshow that kept people focused on what Musk and his tech bros were doing while Trump and Congress worked on the spending bill. Musk did not like being used. After conducting a poll of users, Musk announced the creation of a brand new political party.
By a factor of 2 to 1, you want a new political party and you shall have it!
When it comes to bankrupting our country with waste & graft, we live in a one-party system, not a democracy.
Today, the America Party is formed to give you back your freedom.
It looked like the United States would have something fairly rare: a third party to challenge the Democrats and Republicans backed by the world’s richest man. Or so it seemed.
Talk of a new party subsequently faded as Musk and Trump reconciled. They both have a common fear that Democrats will retake control of Congress in November. Hence, Musk’s decision to spend $100 to $120 million to get the vote out for Republicans. And Trump Administration’s decision to waive 13 environmental laws for SpaceX and other companies.
Trump’s goal is to keep the gravy train going that has made him billions of dollars. If Democrats gain control of Congress, there will be hearings and investigations and subpoenas flying in every direction. The wealth that Trump has acquired since becoming president would be put under a microscope. They would investigate all the no-bid contracts. Democrats might even have enough votes to impeach and convict him this time. Trump would then be tossed out of the White House in ignominy.
Musk is at risk as well. Congress would likely start investigating DOGE. They will want answers about why certain contracts were cancelled, how DOGE handled Social Security and other sensitive data, and what role, if any, Musk had in killing the investigations into him and his companies.
Perhaps most damaging to Musk’s reputation would be a hearing about DOGE’s abrupt shutdown of USAID, which provided aid to Africa and other impoverished regions. Musk dismantled the aid organization with obvious glee. The world’s richest pan posted the following on Feb. 2, 2025
We spent the weekend feeding USAID into the wood chipper.
Could gone to some great parties.
Did that instead.
Musk claims rather incredulously that no one died as a result of the sudden cut off of vital medical and food aid to the most destitute people on Earth. He publicly demanded proof of any deaths.
New York Times journalist Nicholas Kristof journeyed to Africa to chronicle the impact of the USAID cuts. He responded with the names of people who had died as a result of Musk’s actions.
In fact, I've met the kids who are dying, and I've talked to the families who lost children. In my columns, I've cited many, many names of people who have died because of Musk's aid cuts. A few examples:
*Yamah Freeman was a 23-year-old woman who died in childbirth because Musk cut funding for the diesel for ambulances in her part of Liberia. She couldn't get to a hospital and died as people were carrying her there. I talked to her parents and sister in their village.
*Gbessey Kiadu, age 1, died of malaria because of his cuts to malaria medication in Liberia. I talked to his mom in her village.
*Ibrahim Koroma, an infant, died of AIDS in Sierra Leone after he interrupted HIV supplies. I talked to health workers who cared for him.
*Achol Deng was an 8-year-old girl with HIV in South Sudan who died when Musk cut funding for the health care worker who provided her medicines. I talked to the healthcare workers.
I could go on and on. In almost every village you go to in South Sudan, Uganda, Liberia, Sierra Leone or other countries I reported in, you find people dying because of aid cuts. I challenge Musk: Come with me on a reporting trip, and we’ll talk to these moms and dads, and you’ll see the dying children themselves. I think if you see the kids whose lives are at stake, maybe you’ll change your mind.
Musk responded with name calling. “Nothing that Kristoff [sic] has said is true. He is an utter piece of shit and liar,” he posted.
An Impact Metrics Dashboard estimated that 781,343 people died in the first year after Musk cut off USAID assistance. The number included more than 518,000 children. Experts predict as many as 14 million people could die by 2030 if changes are not made.
A Congressional hearing would be brutal. There would be a string of experts chronicling the damage done and the lives lost. Musk would continue to defend his decisions, claim that no one died, and attack USAID as ineffective. Or, he might defy a Congressional subpoena and risk being declared in contempt of Congress.
Musk’s destruction of USAID will haunt his reputation. A similar cloud has hung over another great space leader, Wernher von Braun, over the exploitation of slave labor to build V-2 missiles for Nazi Germany. An estimated 20,000 people died at the Dora-Mittlebau concentration camp. Around 10,000 prisoners perished building the V-2 rockets. Those numbers pale in comparison with the predicted death toll from the USAID cuts.
Musk and Trump both need protection from accountability. Their alliance is a marriage of convenience, a transactional relationship between two billionaires designed to preserve the status quo and keep both men out of legal trouble. They will cooperate as long as there are mutual benefits for both parties.
Editor’s Note: The deaths have been well documented in the press. A simple Google search would have given Musk the answer.
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