Elon Musk has bought his way to the highest level of American politics, spending 290 million United States Dollars to ensure the re-election of Donald Trump. In return, the South African billionaire has been granted the "Department of Government Efficiency" to cut costs and teams at federal agencies nationwide, regardless of their criticality to the functioning of the United States.

Additionally, Musk has been given some sway over the nomination of key NASA figures for the new Trump Administration, with Jared Isaacman for administrator and Greg Autry for chief financial officer.

Greg Autry

If the name Greg Autry sounds familiar for NASA's chief financial officer position, you wouldn't be mistaken. Autry was nominated to the office back in 2020 when Trump and his supporters believed they hadn't lost that year's election.

Autry is a keen supporter of the "MAGA" movement, Elon Musk, and Trump, following them along uncritically. He is also ideologically uneducated and has no issue with supporting European fascists.

Outside of being a fervent supporter of Trump, Autry is also a China-hawk, and a pretty awful one at that. Co-author of Red Moon Rising, How America Will Beat China on the Final Frontier, with convicted felon Peter Navarro, in which he argues for more free market capitalism to solve the failings of free market capitalism. Additionally, he has no clue about Chinese ideology, goals, policy, or the country itself.

Professionally, Autry is a self-described "expert in the business of commercial space and a globally recognized leader in space policy" and a "serial technology entrepreneur". He is currently an Associate Provost at the University of Central Flordia and a visiting professor at Imperial College London.

Jared Isaacman

Billionaire Jared Isaacman has become well known in the space sector, having led two private spaceflights. One of which saw a Gemini program-esque spacewalk performed. For the two spacewalks, Isaacman has paid SpaceX at least tens of millions of dollars.

Despite claiming to be a "moderate", Isaacman quickly closed ranks with "America First" rhetoric, stating:

"With the support of President Trump, I can promise you this: We will never again lose our ability to journey to the stars and never settle for second place."

Additionally, Isaacman has repeatedly supported the political moves of Musk.

To amass his almost two billion dollar net worth, Isaacman founded the payment platform Shift4 in 1999 and later the defense company Draken International in 2012. Tangentially related to Draken, Isaacman expects and supports the militarization of space.

What does Musk gain?

To see what Musk may gain at NASA, one only needs to look to the U.S. Department of the Air Force, which oversees the U.S. Air Force and Space Force.

The current nominee for the Department is Tory Meink, who Musk recommended and backed. Despite Meink still being grilled by Congress, American policymakers are already worried about the potential end to various spacecraft procurement contracts in favor of SpaceX's offerings, notably Starlink's military variant known as Starshield.

SpaceX currently has 1.8 billion United States Dollars in defense contracts alone and has been the recipient of over 17 billion Dollars in government contracts since 2015. One of its largest, for the Starship Moon lander variant, has an initial value of 2.9 billion with 2.6 billion of it already paid out.

300 million Dollars is far too small of an amount to get Starship into orbit, demonstrate refueling, and perform an uncrewed Moon landing, followed by a crewed landing for the Artemis III mission later this decade. After the first landing, SpaceX stands to gain another 1.1 billion for further Artemis missions. However, SpaceX is looking for an out from the Artemis program, Proxima Report understands*, to focus on its Mars plans.

Musk having two puppets in key positions at NASA would allow for the company to easily leave its Artemis commitments, or gain more billions to remain. With Autry in charge of NASA's finances, Musk could also gut parts of the space agency he views as unimportant (see the firing of NASA's Chief Scientist and Chief Climate Officer). And according to the Wall Street Journal, SpaceX is already working its way into NASA to reallocate the agency's resources.

At present, SpaceX has a near monopoly over U.S. launch capabilities with its Falcon 9 launch vehicle. If its Starship-Super Heavy vehicle can live up to its claims, the company could move into being a total monopoly.

SpaceX monopolization is not surprising despite what company executives may say. Close confidant of Elon Musk, Peter Thiel, has long promoted the idea of monopolies being a net good, literally saying:

"If you’re the founder, entrepreneur, starting a company you always want to aim for monopoly and you want to always avoid competition. And so hence competition is for losers."

A SpaceX monopoly would be an overall negative for the American space sector, strangling out competition, and allowing Musk to charge whatever he wants to the U.S. government for key exploration missions or critical national security launches.

*Multiple sources have informed Proxima Report. Nothing is concrete at present but plans are being considered.