WASHINGTON — Democratic leaders of two House committee are asking NASA and the Defense Department to investigate claims that SpaceX takes investment from Chinese sources as well as broader conflict-of-interest concerns.
The May 6 letter, from the ranking members of the House Armed Services Committee and its strategic forces subcommittee, as well as the ranking members of the House Science Committee and its space subcommittee, is the latest to highlight what they perceive to be conflicts of interest involving Elon Musk, chief executive of SpaceX who has also been a senior adviser to President Trump.
“Because SpaceX performs significant work for the federal government across the national security and civil space architectures, even the perception of a conflict of interest is very troubling, and Mr. Musk’s influence over the agencies awarding large contracts to his company goes far beyond mere perception,” the letter to Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth and acting NASA Administrator Janet Petro states. “These convergent interests should be immediately evaluated to determine whether SpaceX has been, or could be, given special treatment due to the position that its CEO holds within the Trump Administration.”
The letter also mentions a report by ProPublica March 26 that found evidence that SpaceX took money from Chinese investors through offshore accounts, such as in the Cayman Islands. The report raised questions about foreign influence on the company, although the report stated that the investments were structured to limit the information the Chinese investors received and that the amount invested was “well under $100 million,” a tiny fraction of the company’s estimated $350 billion valuation.
“SpaceX may be reluctant to publicly disclose the full extent of Chinese investment into the company’s privately held ownership structure. In light of the extreme sensitivity of SpaceX’s work for DoD and NASA, this lack of transparency raises serious questions,” the members wrote.
Jared Isaacman, the nominee to be NASA administrator, was asked about the ProPublica report in a question for the record from Sen. Ben Ray Luján (D-N.M.) published after the hearing. Isaacman said he was not familiar with the report. “That said, I would hope that NASA—and the broader U.S. government—have implemented the appropriate safeguards to ensure open, fair competition while also protecting against influence from geopolitical adversaries,” he wrote.
The House members requested information from both NASA and the DOD on how they assess conflicts of interest and SpaceX’s compliance with regulations about them, as well as any reviews they have performed of foreign investment in SpaceX. The letter set a May 20 deadline for providing that information.
Series of letters
The letter is the latest in a series from Democratic members of Congress highlighting concerns they have about Musk’s role in the administration, including as the de-facto head of the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), which has sought access to many government agencies and worked to cancel what it considered to be wasteful contracts.
That included an April 8 letter from House Science Committee Democratic leadership to NASA, the latest in a series seeking information about DOGE’s role at NASA. The agency told the House members that “DOGE-associated persons” were working at NASA as civil servants, serving as advisers to senior agency leadership, but provided few other details about their activities.
In that April letter, House members complained about “a lack of comprehensive and transparent responses and disclosures” by NASA about the work of DOGE there, including the names of the DOGE-associated personnel, their roles and level of access to agency information. They said that “the agency has provided few direct and straightforward answers in response to our questions, and our request for a briefing from the DOGE team was ignored.”
The letter requested a briefing from NASA by April 22 about the role of DOGE at the agency. The committee’s Democratic caucus has not provided an update since then.
