MOSCOW, July 20: During the assessment of government contracts with SpaceX, owned by US billionaire Elon Musk, the administration of US President Donald Trump came to the conclusion that it is necessary to keep most of them, since they are extremely important for the Pentagon and NASA, the Wall Street Journal reported, citing sources.
According to the publication’s sources, a few days after Trump announced in early June that he would conduct a full reassessment of the current government contracts with Elon Musk, the US administration initiated a corresponding review of the contracts in order to identify potential losses in multi-billion-dollar agreements.
One of the newspaper’s sources noted that some SpaceX contracts might be subject to further scrutiny.
According to the publication, SpaceX President Gwynne Shotwell met with White House officials during the US government’s assessment of SpaceX contracts.
The assessment of the contracts emphasised Musk’s company’s dominant position as a leading rocket maker and the world’s main provider of satellite internet communications, the newspaper said.
In June, White House had instructed the Defence Department and NASA to collect detailed information about large contracts with SpaceX after a public conflict between Trump and Musk.
After Trump threatened to terminate contracts with Space X, Musk said he might stop flying the Dragon spacecraft. This would deprive the space agency of the ability to send astronauts to and from the International Space Station.
Musk later backed down on his threat, but his announcement has raised concerns among NASA officials, who trusted SpaceX to keep their astronauts safe, and the Pentagon, which relied heavily on the company to launch its critical satellites.
The tensions between Musk and Trump have also been exacerbated by the White House’s withdrawal in late May of Jared Isaacman, a close friend of Musk, as NASA administrator nominee.
(UNI)
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