1. United States
2. Calif.
3. Letter

Investigate Elon Musk's federal contracting and campaign spending now, before the corruption gets any deeper. Federal law has barred contractors from making campaign contributions since 1940, when Senator Harry Byrd warned that such payments "may be considered in some instances as bribery in order to secure governmental contracts." Musk invested $736 million electing Trump and Republicans, then collected $16.3 billion in federal contracts, a 2,200 percent return. The pattern is not subtle. After DOGE fired most of the federal government's space traffic control staff, SpaceX received exclusive access to classified Pentagon space-tracking data, along with $4.2 billion and $2.3 billion contracts to build the Golden Dome missile defense system under a fast-track process that bypassed standard procurement rules. Dave Vorland, Biden's acting deputy assistant secretary of space and missile defense policy, put it plainly: "It shouldn't be the case that you decide ahead of time that you'd like to award a contract to an individual company and then write all the criteria to make that happen." A full investigation must cover the contracts, the regulatory favors, and the SEC's decision to slash Musk's securities-fraud fine from $150 million to $1.5 million after Trump took office. Richard Painter, chief White House ethics lawyer under President George W. Bush, said of Musk's role in Air Force Secretary Troy Meink's confirmation process, "I've never seen anything like this before." Neither have I. Open a formal investigation.