Biden accuses Trump of prioritizing Bezos, Musk and Zuckerberg over Americans
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Pentagon Secretary Pete Hegseth visited one of Jeff Bezos’ space facilities in Florida on February 2, where the military signed a deal with the owner of Blue Origin and other tech billionaires who have worked to cultivate friendly relations with the Trump administration.
Mr. Hegseth’s visit is part of his “Arsenal of Freedom” speaking tour, part of a campaign to reform the relationship between the Pentagon and the “defense industrial base,” the system that contracts for weapons production.
“We will unleash our businesses, we will unleash our industries, we will unleash the competitive spirit that will allow America to come out on top,” Hegseth told the crowd.
“No more business as usual. Mr. Bezos, I know that’s music to your ears,” he said.
Bezos’ Blue Origin has become famous for offering paid trips to space for the ultra-wealthy. But the company also receives billions of dollars in defense contracts to build high-tech projects such as nuclear-powered spacecraft, communications technology that uses space lasers, and satellite processing facilities.
The Department of Defense and Blue Origin did not respond to requests for comment.
Hegseth tours Musk and Bezos’ rocket factory
Hegseth’s tour also included a stop on Jan. 12 at SpaceX’s Texas facility, owned by billionaire Elon Musk, who took on a larger role in the Trump administration as former head of the Department of Government Efficiency. At Musk’s direction, the department (abbreviated as DOGE) took its ax to the federal government early last year, eliminating thousands of jobs and entire government agencies.
“We want to build a big, futuristic spaceship that can take a lot of people to places we’ve never been before,” Musk said on stage as he introduced Hegseth. “That’s the goal. And I think that’s what I think when the public thinks of the Space Force,” he added, touting the service’s space-focused branch.
During his visit, Hegseth also announced that Grok, a chatbot run by Musk’s social media platform X, will be integrated into the Pentagon’s internal systems. The AI chatbot is embroiled in an ongoing controversy over its production of sexual images of children on X.
Mr. Bezos and Mr. Musk, who both stand to make huge profits from contracts worth billions of dollars, are among the tech tycoons who have been close to Mr. Trump since he was elected to a second term. Both billionaires reportedly rushed to Mar-a-Lago to dine with Trump in the weeks before Trump’s inauguration, and Amazon, which Bezos owns, donated $1 million to Trump’s inaugural fund.
Trump called Bezos after news outlets reported in April that Amazon would display additional costs added to prices due to President Trump’s tariffs on its site, but Amazon quickly backtracked.
Greg Williams, director of the Center for Government Oversight Project’s Defense Information Center, said the conflict of interest concerns raised by Hegseth’s speech at SpaceX and Blue Origin are “not particularly new” and that the risk of corruption in the Pentagon’s dealings with defense contractors is “structural and unavoidable.”
But his presence “calls attention to an unprecedented conflict of interest situation” in the Trump administration.
President Trump and his officials have been under continued scrutiny over their refusal to divest from commercial enterprises and make lucrative backroom deals with foreign officials. The Wall Street Journal reported in recent days that Emirati officials bought a large stake in President Trump’s cryptocurrency company just before the administration granted approval for a much-needed American-made AI chip in the United Arab Emirates.
“At the Department of Defense, many individual stakeholders and private entities pursue government contracts while also fostering personal relationships with the president,” Williams said.
Amazon recently purchased the rights to the newly released documentary “Melania,” about first lady Melania Trump, for $40 million, making it the most expensive documentary ever made. Of that amount, $35 million was spent on promoting the film, raising questions about whether Bezos and his company were trying to curry favor with the president.
Williams said that by “spending a small amount of money to buy the rights” to Melania Trump’s documentary, Bezos “could potentially reap a much larger return” in the form of a multibillion-dollar defense contract with Blue Origin and other government windfalls.
Musk’s SpaceX will see even more money flowing into defense contracts this year. Three days before Hegseth’s visit to SpaceX, the military’s Space Systems Command announced it would give the company an additional $739 million for a missile warning and tracking system. The company had already won the bulk of the Space Force’s 2026 launch contract. In April, the company won a $5.9 billion contract for Space Force launches through 2029 (Blue Origin won $2.3 billion for the same tranche).
According to the Washington Post, Musk’s companies are supported by about $38 billion in government contracts and subsidies. The full scope of Mr. Bezos and Mr. Musk’s defense contract is unknown because parts of the contract are classified.
Last year, Mr. Hegseth welcomed DOGE to the Pentagon to continue his pledged mission to cut wasteful spending, even as Mr. Musk’s aides laid off thousands of workers and seized sensitive personal data of Americans.
Nevertheless, the total savings from that effort amounted to just $6 billion in this year’s defense budget. By comparison, this year’s defense budget is an unprecedented $1 trillion, and President Trump has said he would request a 50% increase to $1.5 trillion next fiscal year.
