Elon Musk’s influence in the White House grows as Trump hands him more power
PBS News Hour - Segments
PBS NewsHour
4.1 • 1K Ratings
🗓️ 12 February 2025
⏱️ 6 minutes
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| 0:00.0 | President Trump handed more power over to Elon Musk yesterday, giving the billionaire and his team oversight over hiring decisions across every government agency. |
| 0:10.0 | And as Musk's power grows, he continues to post misleading or false accusations against government agencies to his more than 200 million followers on his social media platform, X. During an |
| 0:23.0 | appearance in the Oval Office, Musk was asked about his false claim that USAID planned to allot |
| 0:28.7 | $50 million for condoms in Gaza before his team stopped it. Musk said this. Well, first of all, |
| 0:36.8 | some of the things that I say will be incorrect and should be corrected. |
| 0:41.0 | So nobody's going to about a thousand. |
| 0:44.8 | Hours later, he continued to amplify the same debunked claim. |
| 0:49.2 | Three weeks into this administration, President Trump has given Elon Musk enormous power over government agencies |
| 0:55.4 | that the billionaires companies do business with. Our White House correspondent, Laura Barone |
| 0:59.7 | Lopez, is here with a closer look at the intersection of his government and private sector work |
| 1:04.4 | and the potential conflicts of interest all of that brings. It's good to see you. So how much do Elon Musk's companies make from his |
| 1:12.7 | federal government contracts? Elon Musk owns six companies, including X, the social media site, |
| 1:18.3 | as well as Neurrelink, the brain implant company. But the two that benefit the most from government |
| 1:22.4 | contracts are the rocket ship company, SpaceX, and Tesla, the electric car company. And in all, Musk companies |
| 1:29.4 | have been awarded more than $13 billion in government contracts over the last five years. That includes |
| 1:36.3 | $3.8 billion in government contracts awarded in 2024. And a lot of those contracts are with the |
| 1:42.0 | Defense Department and NASA, Jeff. And Musk's defense department contracts are estimated to be in the billions. |
| 1:49.0 | We don't have that full number given that some of those details are classified. |
| 1:53.0 | More recently, Elon Musk and his Doge allies have targeted the FAA and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. |
| 2:00.0 | How does his work there present a conflict of interest? |
| 2:04.5 | President Trump has said that Musk has free reign to slash spending as well as the workforce. |
| 2:09.6 | So first with the FAA, they regulate SpaceX. |
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