- A potential financial conflict has sprung up for one of the most visible and active members of the Trump Administration: The head of the Department of Government Efficiency and automaker Elon Musk. The State Department included a line item in its procurement forecast to buy armored electric vehicles valued at $400 million amid Musk’s vast cost-cutting spree across the federal government.
An official record from the State Department shows that it might be planning to buy a fleet of armored electric vehicles valued at about $400 million.
The procurement data includes one line item for “Armored Tesla (Production Units)” for fiscal year 2025 with a contract length of five years. Generally, procurement documents outline purchase agendas in different government agencies for the coming year and show items obtained, their value, procurement timeline, and security clearance requirements. Former senator Marco Rubio is currently serving as the Secretary of State, and was sworn in on Jan. 21, 2025 after being appointed by President Trump.
The Tesla line item is new this year and was included in a revised version of the procurement plan that was updated in December 2024 after Trump won the election, according to Drop Site News. However, the line item was added during the Biden Administration before Trump was sworn in on Jan. 20, 2025. It’s unclear specifically what type of vehicle the item could refer to but EV publication Electrek reported the Cybertruck is marketed as armored and bullet proof. Tesla claims the armor glass on the Cybertruck can resist the impact of a baseball at 70 miles per hour, or class four hail.
Elon Musk is the CEO of Tesla, and has embedded himself into the Trump Administration as the head of the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE). Presently, Musk also serves as the CEO of The Boring Company, Neuralink, SpaceX, X and is the founder of xAI. He is also the richest man in the world, with a net worth of $384 billion, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.
Thus far, Musk has avoided making public financial disclosures and White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said his conflicts will be policed by Musk himself. If he is conflicted, he will recuse himself. However, questions and doubts have arisen about the optics and stability of the arrangement, including whether such an arrangement, itself, is a conflict. Musk claims DOGE is being fully transparent through X updates on its daily efforts and a live DOGE tracker has tallied up $37.8 billion in “taxpayer dollars saved,” though it’s unclear how that amount has been calculated. Musk also claimed DOGE found $1 trillion in alleged “abuse” and “fraud” to root out over the next year, but he has not offered evidence of the alleged abuse or fraud.
The Cybertruck was officially launched in 2023, and the past year has seen its popularity rise with California drivers. A recent report from the California New Car Dealers Association revealed the Cybertruck was the sixth out of the 25 top-selling battery electric and plug-in hybrid vehicles. The Irvine Police Department in California generated headlines in 2024 after it spent $150,000 on a Cybertruck to be used for social media, community events, and the Drug Abuse Resistance Education (DARE) program.
Tesla and the State Department did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
