Elon Musk’s SpaceX, Tesla lobby Trump trade rep on tariffs

Elon Musk’s SpaceX, Tesla lobby Trump trade rep on tariffs


Tesla CEO Elon Musk looks on next to U.S. President Donald Trump talking to the media, at the White House in Washington, D.C., U.S., March 11, 2025. 

Kevin Lamarque | Reuters

Two companies led by billionaire DOGE chief Elon Musk — SpaceX and Tesla — have submitted letters lobbying the U.S. trade representative on Trump administration tariff policies.

The letters come as Musk oversees an effort to slash federal government spending and employee headcount at the behest of President Donald Trump.

At the same time, Trump is imposing stiff tariffs on China, Mexico and Canada, with China and Canada firing back with retaliatory tariffs.

Tesla, in its unsigned letter to U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer, referred to those retaliatory levies as a threat to the electric vehicle company’s bottom line.

The letter encouraged Greer “to consider the downstream impacts of certain proposed actions taken to address unfair trade practices.”

“While Tesla recognizes and supports the importance of fair trade, the assessment undertaken by USTR of
potential actions to rectify unfair trade should also take into account exports from the United States,” said the letter, which was submitted by Tesla’s associate general counsel Miriam Eqab.

“U.S. exporters are inherently exposed to disproportionate impacts when other countries respond to U.S. trade actions.”

SpaceX, in its own letter to Greer, said that it “faces a range of regulatory complexities and trade barriers in every country that the U.S. Government should seek to address in order to support continued U.S. leadership in the space domain.”

The letter noted that the company must pay foreign governments for access to spectrum and import duties for its Starlink satellite internet equipment, and other fees that “substantially increase the cost of operating in these countries — artificially.”

“The import duties paid in a handful of countries represent a significant cost increase for Starlink products in those countries, despite the United States having essentially no duties on similar foreign products that are imported into the United States to serve customers here,” wrote Mat Dunn, SpaceX’s senior director of global business and government affairs, in the letter.

“As President Trump has noted with other sectors, this is a significant disadvantage to U.S. companies.

 Tesla and SpaceX did not immediately respond to a request for comment from CNBC about their letters.

This is breaking news. Please refresh for updates.



Source

Couple bought a homestead for 0,000, spent ,000 on DIY renovations: Their No. 1 takeaway after a year on the land
World

Couple bought a homestead for $390,000, spent $13,000 on DIY renovations: Their No. 1 takeaway after a year on the land

In 2023, Sophie Hilaire Goldie, 37, and Rocky Goldie, 50, had just finished converting a friend’s Home Depot shed into a tiny home and were ready to start looking for their own place together. “If it wasn’t for meeting her, I probably would have ended up in a little shack,” Rocky tells CNBC Make It. […]

Read More
Harvard-trained educator: Kids who learn how to use AI will become smarter adults—if they avoid this No. 1 mistake
World

Harvard-trained educator: Kids who learn how to use AI will become smarter adults—if they avoid this No. 1 mistake

Students that copy and paste ChatGPT answers into their assignments, with little thinking involved, are doing themselves a disservice — especially because artificial intelligence really can help students become better learners, according to psychologist and author Angela Duckworth. Instead of distrusting AI, show kids how to properly use it, Duckworth advised in a speech at […]

Read More
U.S. judge prevents Trump from invalidating 5,000 Venezuelans’ legal documents
World

U.S. judge prevents Trump from invalidating 5,000 Venezuelans’ legal documents

U.S. military personnel escort alleged members of the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua and the MS-13 gang recently deported by the U.S. government to be imprisoned in the Terrorism Confinement Center (CECOT) prison, as part of an agreement with the Salvadoran government, in San Luis Talpa, El Salvador, in this handout image obtained March 31, […]

Read More