Trump ‘tried to cancel Musk's SpaceX contracts' after fallout
As Mr Trump's relationship with his former 'first buddy' descended into a bitter feud, the US president suggested he could save public money by terminating contracts awarded to Mr Musk's companies.
The relationship between the pair began to publicly sour after Mr Musk criticised the 'big, beautiful bill', describing it as a 'disgusting abomination'.
On June 5, Mr Musk inflamed the tension by claiming in a now-deleted post on X that Mr Trump was named in the so-called 'Epstein files', an apparent collection of documents pertaining to the case of the late paedophile financier Jeffrey Epstein.
Days later, on June 9, a senior official asked the Department of Defence (DoD) to fill out a spreadsheet detailing every SpaceX and other transaction agreements, according to The Wall Street Journal.
Josh Gruenbaum, the GSA's commissioner for the Federal Acquisition Service, also asked Nasa about its contracts with Musk's firm, as well as several other federal agencies, an official told the paper.
The spreadsheets, which were called 'scorecards', included details on how much the SpaceX contacts were worth and whether it would be possible for a competitor to complete the same job more effectively.
The official is said to have relayed that the data they collected would be shared with the White House to await further instruction.
After reviewing the data officials reportedly found that the majority of the deals were critical to the DoD and Nasa, and the contracts remained in place.
The review showed how Mr Musk's agencies currently dominate the space exploration industry, and how there is little competition in the market.
Gwynne Shotwell, the president of SpaceX, is said to have met with White House officials in recent weeks.
White House officials have pushed other space companies to try and step up to create some competition within the industry.
But rival companies have faced delays and technical challenges when working on products to compete with SpaceX.
SpaceX has won several federal contracts in 2025, including a $5.9billion (£4.4billion) deal to conduct 28 national security flights.
Nasa expects SpaceX to fly astronauts to the International Space Station within weeks.
Before the feud, SpaceX launched a GPS satellite for the US Space Force using a Falcon 9 rocket from the Space Force station in Cape Canaveral, Florida.
'Many Presidents have promised, but none other than president Trump has delivered to actually make the government more efficient and root out waste, fraud, and abuse in Washington, and that mission is moving full steam ahead', Harrison Fields, a White House spokesman, said.
He added: 'Under the president's leadership, every agency and department is executing this mission seamlessly and, as a result, has yielded more than $170 billion (£126 billion) in savings for the American people.'
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