As the Trump administration gets under way, it can sometimes feel like the phrase “conflict of interest” has lost all meaning whatsoever. Trump’s nominee for Attorney General used to be his personal lawyer. Dr. Oz (yes, that Dr. Oz), Trump’s nominee to head the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services, is said to have invested in some of the businesses that he will be tasked with regulating. And then there’s Elon Musk, who, despite being investigated by a slew of regulatory agencies, is now overseeing many of those agencies via his newly created Department of Government Efficiency (or, DOGE).
Critics have argued that DOGE also provides Musk with an opportunity to unfairly privilege his own businesses—many of which rely on federal loans and contracts—ahead of his competitors. On Monday, Vivek Ramaswamy, Musk’s DOGE colleague, did little to disavow 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. Those plants will be utilized 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 ostensibly nativist Trump administration, homegrown manufacturing jobs would be a good thing. There’s a problem, however: Stellantis is notably a rival of Tesla.
Characterizing it as a last-minute “spending spree” by the outgoing Biden administration, Ramaswamy vowed to investigate the loan to the electric car maker. “Biden’s midnight spending spree is illegitimate & should be rescinded,” Ramaswamy wrote on X, a platform also owned by Musk. “The Department of Energy just announced a staggering $7.5BN 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 $7.5BN splurge to StarPlus comes less than a week after the Energy Department shamefully announced a $6.6BN “loan” to a failing 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 scrutinize every one of these questionable 11th-hour transactions, starting on Jan 20,” Ramaswamy concluded.
Do Ramaswamy’s comments represent a blatant targeting of Musk’s competitors? Well, no, not yet—not really. But if DOGE ends up recommending the Stellantis and Rivian deals be nixed, the corruption would be pretty clear. Call it an effort to cut government waste if you want, but the net effect will be a win for Tesla, which is operating its own U.S.-based EV battery factory.
Ramaswamy, a MAGA-pilled former pharma bro, has seemed like a savvy political opportunist ever since he first stepped into the national spotlight with an ill-fated run for President last year. Ramaswamy spent most of his campaign complimenting Trump and, since his withdrawal from the race, has parlayed that very loud support into a prominent administration role. So far, however, DOGE has served as little more than a platform by which Musk and Ramaswamy can broadcast their political views, badmouth their enemies, and promote Trump’s agenda. It’s unclear what sort of work the organization will actually end up doing.
