Elon Musk Is Poised to Get Another Huge Payday From the Government

The Trump administration did not rule out that its pitch to replace the nation’s space launch system could massively benefit Elon Musk.

In an interview with Fox Business Friday, Office of Management and Budget Director Russel Vought refused to clarify if the “Dark MAGA” tech billionaire would be pocketing off the budget increase.

“The budget phases out the grossly expensive and delayed space launch system,” Fox Business’s Charles Payne said. “Is there a chance that Elon Musk could benefit from that?”

“Look, this is a billion-dollar investment into Mars,” said Vought, a former Project 2025 architect. “We’re doing both, we’re going back to the moon as part of the Artemis. We’ve protected exploration funding that’s open to all companies. Elon Musk hasn’t been a part of the NASA budget conversations at all. And we also provide resources for what we’re doing on Mars.”

As part of its budget proposal Friday, the Trump administration is reportedly looking to slash NASA’s budget by 24 percent year over year, amounting to the largest single-year slice to the agency in its history, with $6 billion in cuts.

The proposal spells the end of the Space Launch System rocket and NASA’s brand-new Orion spacecraft. It also envisions killing the Gateway space station that is crucial to one of the space agency’s biggest missions: a full-fledged, multistep exploration of the moon dubbed the Artemis campaign. (As soon as the U.S. beats China in its space race.)

“We do believe that, after Artemis, it’s time to look for lower cost, commercial, cheaper vehicles that allow us to not have the cost overruns and the delays and the expense that we’ve seen in the SLS and the Orion program,” Vought told Fox. “We’re not doing anything that would in any way delay what’s necessary to get to the moon.”

Instead, the White House envisions that the future of the country’s space funding should be spent on Mars—an idea that isn’t too difficult to trace back to the SpaceX CEO.

Musk has been a vocal opponent of NASA’s Artemis campaign. In January, Musk posted on X that the moon is just a “distraction” and that his company would be looking to go “straight to Mars.”

Republican Representative Mike Collins is freaking out over a halal restaurant coming to the cafeteria in the House’s Rayburn building.

The skittish conservative complained on X Friday morning about CHA Street Food, a Pakistani restaurant, replacing Steak n Shake this summer, likening it to a religious war from thousands of years ago.

If Collins knew anything about cuisines, or even cultures, outside of America, he’d know that Pakistan is thousands of miles away from Jerusalem. His own X post includes a screenshot of an email pointing out that CHA Street Food is actually based out of northern Virginia. Not only that, his beloved Steak n Shake is owned by an Iranian American, Sardar Biglari.

If Collins thinks a new halal restaurant in a House cafeteria is like “the Muslim conquest of Jerusalem,” perhaps he should get to know his colleagues. There are currently four Muslims serving in the House: Representatives Ilhan Omar of Minnesota, Rashida Tlaib of Michigan, André Carson of Indiana, and newly elected Lateefah Simon of California. There’s even a congresswoman in his own Republican Party of partial Pakistani descent, Stephanie Bice of Oklahoma.

But Collins is not known for his nuance or tolerance, cheering on racist protesters in Mississippi last year and blaming diversity, equity, and inclusion procedures for train derailments. Maybe the Georgia congressman ought to try out CHA Street Food and its menu of Pakistani street food, which includes burgers and fries. He might actually have his horizons broadened.

Alabama’s “dumbest” senator appears to be running an especially stupid con at the moment.

In a gambit for Alabama’s governorship, Senator Tommy Tuberville is in the midst of trying to prove he actually lives there.

In order to qualify for the race, Tuberville needs to prove state residency going back for at least seven years. That’s a far cry from the minimum public office standards he had to meet to run for Alabama’s Senate seat: The state required Tuberville to prove he lived there for just one day before he could throw his hat into the 2020 election.

You’d think that proving his residence would be remarkably easy—if he actually lived there. The former Auburn football coach has failed to provide evidence for his long-term residency, for instance refusing to make public his income tax returns, according to Pulitzer Prize–winning columnist Kyle Whitmire. Instead, Tuberville has attempted to lean on his wife’s homestead exemption in Auburn, claiming that the residency loophole should be enough to prove he’s resided in the state since 2018.

Except for one small hiccup: Tuberville voted in Florida that year.

The oversight calls into question two major issues—if Tuberville was genuinely living in Alabama, then did he commit fraud by voting in the Sunshine State? Or, alternatively, has the Trump ally been fudging the numbers on his state residency in order to shoehorn his way to the top of Alabama’s executive leadership?

A number of things occurred in 2017 that cast doubt on Tuberville’s residency. In February of that year, Tuberville’s wife registered to vote in Walton County, Florida, where the couple owns a $4.8 million beach house. In July, while recording an advert for ESPN, Tuberville said he had “moved to Santa Rosa Beach” six months earlier, calling it a “great place to live.”

In October 2018, Tuberville’s wife and his son, Tucker, began claiming a homestead exemption on a three-bedroom home in Auburn that Tucker had purchased. The senator, however, did not, reported Whitmire. The following month, Tuberville and his wife both voted in Walton County, Florida.

“If Suzanne Tuberville’s Auburn homestead exemption is proof of where Tuberville lives, then at this point, he’s voting in the wrong state,” reported Whitmire. “She was, too.”

In March 2019, Tuberville registered to vote in Alabama using the address of the Auburn house. In an interview with talk radio host Dale Jackson two months later, Tuberville did not dispute that he had voted in Florida while claiming residency in Alabama.

At a Shoals Republican Club meeting in August, Tuberville referred to himself as “a carpetbagger of this country,” specifying that he “has property’ but is not an “every-day resident of Alabama.”

Years later, after Tuberville lied about what Alabama property he owned during an Alabama Republican Party forum, a 2023 investigation by The Washington Post found that he had “sold all Alabama property in his name, that Susanne Tuberville had continued to work as a real estate agent licensed in Florida but not Alabama, and that campaign records showed him spending extensive time on the Florida coast,” reported Whitmire.

Tuberville himself seems unconvinced as to whether his messy and contradictory residency history will let him squeeze into the gubernatorial race. In an interview with the Alabama Daily News published Tuesday, the former football coach attempted to move the goalposts, claiming that Alabama law does not require him to live seven consecutive years in the Heart of Dixie.

“You can go back to, as long as you’ve had a seven year … I was at Auburn 10 years and so I lived there for 10 years in a row,” Tuberville told the paper. “So it’s not your last seven years.”

Article V Section 117 of the Alabama Constitution requires that the governor and lieutenant governor of the state each be “resident citizens of this state at least seven years next before the date of their election.”

Republican strategist Scott Jennings had to be reminded how the U.S. Constitution works, during an explosive CNN roundtable debate Thursday night.

Jennings, a senior political commentator at the network, argued that a federal judge had overstepped their authority Thursday by striking down Donald Trump’s use of the Alien Enemies Act to deport Venezuelan nationals the government claims are members of the Tren de Aragua gang.

U.S. District Judge Fernando Rodriguez ruled that TdA’s presence did not constitute an “invasion,” as the president had previously claimed. The first-term Trump appointee wrote that the administration had inappropriately invoked the law, which applies only when the nation is facing an armed, organized attack by an invading country.

CNN host Abby Phillip was forced to step in to give Jennings a humiliating civics lesson.

“Can I just ask a simple question, who gets to decide whether the United States is at war?” Phillip asked.

“The president, in my opinion—” Jennings replied.

“No, no, no, actually—” Phillip continued, but Jennings wouldn’t hear the answer.

“If we’re being invaded, I want the commander in chief—”

“Scott, Scott no. It’s actually the Congress,” Phillip said, calmly.

“You want to call Congress and see if we’re being invaded? We’ll be taken over before they ever get to the committee room!” Jennings said.

Article I, Section 8 of the U.S. Constitution specifically grants Congress the sole power to “declare War.” Jennings should be well aware of this fact, but as Josh A. Cohen pointed out in a post on X, “His Bush admin background breaking through like Venom.” (Jennings had previously worked for George W. Bush’s successful 2004 reelection campaign before joining the White House.)

While Jennings may not have sworn any oath to uphold the Constitution, Trump certainly has—and yet the president has continued to attack the checks and balances it established. Trump has repeatedly undermined Congress’s power of purse by directing the withholding of federal funds, and has also begun waging war on the Fourteenth Amendment which established birthright citizenship.

At least 11 federal judges and their families have been threatened and harassed since they ruled against President Trump on issues of deportations, federal funding, and his war on “wokeness.” 

The judges, under anonymity, told Reuters that they had received multiple intimidating calls and emails to their homes and offices. Some have been subject to the disturbing “pizza box” method, in which antagonists will anonymously send a pizza to the home of a judge or their relatives just to show that they know where they live. 

This is only compounded by the countless attacks and doxxing attempts that people like Laura Loomer and Elon Musk have made on X. When U.S. District Judge James Boasberg ruled against Trump’s illegal deportation of 137 men under the Alien Enemies Act in March, Loomer and Musk shared photos of his daughter, while their army of keyboard warriors called for the execution or arrest of Boasberg and the rest of his family. Loomer did the same to Judge John McConnell after he blocked Trump from freezing education grants, posting a picture of his daughter who had worked for the Education Department. Loomer’s post conveniently omitted that McConnell’s daughter left the department before Trump was even inaugurated.

“The reason why Judge McConnell, a Democrat donor and activist wants Trump to restore funding is because his daughter, Catherine McConnell, is currently employed by the same Department of Education that President Trump and @elonmusk want to audit and DEFUND,” Loomer wrote on X. “She was appointed by Joe Biden and now her Dad is abusing his power to protect her paycheck.”   

Reuters identified more than 600 similar posts on social media and right-leaning message boards since February, targeting family members of judges who ruled against the Trump administration. The commentators attacked everything from their physical appearance to their patriotism. Amplified on X and other platforms by some of Trump’s most prominent allies, including Musk, those posts have been viewed more than 200 million times. At least 70 posts explicitly called for judges’ family members to face violence, retaliation or arrest.

This makes the chilling effect impossible to ignore, as judges could potentially begin to rule more and more in favor of Trump out of fear of MAGA retribution.

“The attacks are not random. They seem designed to intimidate those of us who serve in this critical capacity,” said U.S. Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson at a conference on Thursday. “The threats and harassment are attacks on our democracy.”