RIt is now fair to ask the question: Is Elon Musk a national security risk?
According to numerous interviews and remarks, Mr. Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency co-leader, Vivek Ramaswamy, once appeared to believe he was. In May 2023, Mr. Ramaswamy went so far as to publicly state, “I have no reason to think Elon won’t jump like a circus monkey when Xi Jinping calls in the hour of need,” a reference to China’s leader. In a separate X post targeting Mr. Musk, he wrote, “the U.S. needs leaders who aren’t in China’s pocket.”
Mr. Ramaswamy has since walked back his numerous public criticisms of Mr. Musk, but he was right to raise concerns. According to news reports, Mr. Musk and his rocket company, SpaceX, face federal reviews from the Air Force, the Defense Department’s Office of Inspector General and the under secretary of defense for intelligence and security for failing to provide details of Mr. Musk’s meetings with foreign leaders and other potential violations of national-security rules.
These alleged infractions are just the beginning of my worries. Mr. Musk’s business ventures are heavily reliant on China. He borrowed at least $1.4 billion from banks controlled by the Chinese government to help build Tesla’s Shanghai gigafactory, which was responsible for more than half of Tesla’s global deliveries in the third quarter of 2024.
China does not tend to give things away. The country’s laws stipulate that the Communist Party can demand intelligence from any company doing business in China, in exchange for participating in the country’s markets.
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