Here's your Forbes Daily Briefing for Sunday, February 23rd.

Today on Forbes, Elon Musk is a billionaire federal welfare vampire.

Elon Musk, the South African-born billionaire overseeing President Trump's massive and haphazard effort

to hack down government overspending is among the largest beneficiaries of

federal government support ever. His empire was built on it. In the past 15 years alone,

Tesla, Musk's $1.1 trillion company, and SpaceX, his $350 billion valuation company, have sucked in a stunning $30 billion in public

money. Meanwhile, Musk's personal wealth ballooned to the point of engorgement, swelling from $2 billion

in 2012 to over $400 billion in December 2024. As of Friday, he's now worth $393 billion. Prior to 13 years ago,

the world's richest person wasn't even a billionaire. Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney

labeled Musk a, quote, crony capitalist in 2012. Though long-term financial goodies Musk's companies have

received, bring to mind another Republican moniker for someone living off public money. In the

ensuing years, his companies have developed a symbiotic relationship with federal programs,

turning him into more of a vampire. Those include SpaceX rocket launches, satellite deliveries,

ferrying astronauts and supplies to the International Space Station,

and Starlink services that have won $22 billion in Defense Department and NASA contracts,

according to SpaceX President Gwynne Shotwell.

A review of publicly available data puts the

tally at $20 billion.

At least $4 billion of the $11.7 billion of regulatory credits Tesla has sold since 2008

were from sales to automakers needing to comply with U.S. corporate average fuel economy

rules.

A $465 million federal loan guarantee for Tesla in 2009 helped the then-struggling startup secure its first factory,

...