As the Trump administration gets underway, it can sometimes seem like the phrase “conflict of interest” has lost all meaning. Trump’s nominee for Attorney General he used to be her personal lawyer. It is said that Dr. Oz (yes, that Dr. Oz), Trump’s nominee to lead the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services invested in some of the businesses which will be in charge of regulating. And then there’s Elon Musk, who, despite being investigated by a slew of regulatory agencies, now oversees many of those agencies through his newly created Department of Government Efficiency (or, DOGE).
Critics have argued that DOGE also gives Musk the opportunity to unfairly privilege his own businesses, many of which rely on federal loans and contracts, over his competitors. On Monday, Vivek Ramaswamy, Musk’s DOGE colleague, did little to disabuse critics of that impression when he chose to blast recently announced federal loans to two electric car makers, notable rivals of Musk’s company Tesla .
On Monday, the Biden administration announced a $7.5 billion federal loan to a company called StarPlus Energy LLC, which has been contracted to build two electric vehicle battery plants in Kokomo, Indiana. These plants will be used as part of a joint venture between EV maker Stellantis and car battery maker Samsung SDI. ABC reports that, at full capacity, the plants could produce enough batteries to power approximately 670,000 cars annually. You’d think that, in the eyes of the apparently nativist Trump administration, homegrown manufacturing jobs would be a good thing. There’s one problem, though: Stellantis is notably a Tesla rival.
Characterizing it as a last-minute “spend” by the outgoing Biden administration, Ramaswamy vowed to investigate the loan to the electric car maker. “Biden’s midnight spending spree is illegitimate and should be rescinded,” Ramaswamy wrote on X, a platform also owned by Musk. “The Department of Energy just announced a staggering $7.5 million loan to StarPlus, a JV that includes Stellantis (whose CEO resigned just yesterday).
In the same post, Ramaswamy also took aim at Rivian, another electric car company that rivals Tesla. “This $7.5 million dump on StarPlus comes less than a week after the Department of Energy embarrassingly announced a $6.6 million “loan” to a failed Rivian plant in Georgia, and just weeks after Americans voted decisively to end the wasteful spending of the Biden-Harris administration.” he posted.
“DOGE will carefully examine each of these questionable 11th-hour transactions, beginning January 20,” Ramaswamy concluded.
Do Ramaswamy’s comments represent blatant targeting of Musk’s competitors? Well, no, not yet, not really. But if DOGE ends up recommending that the Stellantis and Rivian deals be scrapped, the corruption would be pretty clear. Call it an effort to reduce government waste if you want, but the net effect will be a win for Tesla, which is operating. its own US-based EV battery factory.
Ramaswamy, a former pharmacist brother with MAGA pills, has looked like a shrewd political opportunist since he first entered the national spotlight with an ill-fated bid for the presidency last year. Ramaswamy spent most of his campaign congratulating Trump, and since withdrawing from the race, he has turned that very strong support into a prominent role in the administration. So far, however, DOGE has served as little more than a platform for Musk and Ramaswamy to spread their political views, hurt their enemies, and promote Trump’s agenda. It’s not clear what kind of work the organization will end up doing.
