- After news broke that the State Department had included a line item for $400 million worth of armored electric vehicles in its forecast, Tesla CEO Elon Musk posted that he was fairly certain there wasn’t such a deal in place. A spokesperson from the State Department told Fortune the solicitation is on hold and there are no current plans to issue it.
A single line item in the procurement forecast for the U.S. State Department included $400 million in armored Teslas, but after a flurry of news broke about the potential order, both Tesla CEO Elon Musk and a spokesperson for the State Department have shut the door on any potential deal for now.
A State Department spokesperson told Fortune in a statement: “No government contract has been awarded to Tesla or any other vehicle manufacturer to produce armored electric vehicles for the Department of State.” The item now refers to “armored electric vehicles” without specifically naming Tesla or any other manufacturer.
According to the State Department, the Biden administration asked it to scout interest from private companies to obtain armored electric vehicles. Accordingly, the department issued a request for information and only one company responded at the time. The next step was intended to be an official solicitation to vehicle manufactures to sort through competitive bids. However, the solicitation is “on hold and there are no current plans to issue it,” the spokesperson said.
The line item in the procurement forecast had raised questions about Musk’s potential conflict of interest given his ownership stake and CEO role at Tesla and his leadership of the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) task force. Musk’s DOGE has been feverishly tearing through government agencies, stripping funding, and probing systems. White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said Musk would recuse himself from situations that posed a conflict, which in turn raised questions about whether such an arrangement itself created the appearance of a conflict.
So far, Musk has avoided making public disclosures about his finances and he has not indicated that he will relinquish his private-sector roles at Tesla, The Boring Company, Neuralink, SpaceX, X, and xAI despite his high-profile new role in government. The dual role currently held by Musk—with a net worth of $384 billion, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index—breaks with decades of tradition that have seen senior business leaders resign their private-sector jobs to serve in government.
In a post late Wednesday on X, Musk wrote: “I’m pretty sure Tesla isn’t getting $400M. No one mentioned it to me, at least.”
