In Moscow, there’s plenty of speculation that Musk could quickly become to Trump what Boris Berezovsky was to Putin. Two alpha males, many argue, cannot coexist in the same den.

Musk might also take aim at NASA’s other contracts to serve his interests. Last year, for example, he attacked Boeing over its Starliner program. Some of the many young programmers in DOGE, such as Luke Farritor and Marko Elez, already have connections to SpaceX.