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project on government oversight
Musk's SpaceX Likely Paid 'Little to No Taxes' Despite Lucrative Government Contracts
Patriotic Millionaires, an organization that lobbies for higher taxes on the wealthy, said the report was a "reminder of how unfair our tax code is."
Aug 15, 2025
Although Elon Musk's space exploration company SpaceX has benefited over the years from several lucrative government contracts, it has largely avoided paying any taxes to the federal government.
The New York Times reports that SpaceX has "most likely paid little to no federal income taxes since its founding in 2002 and has privately told investors that it may never have to pay any."
The reason that the company has gotten away with paying practically no taxes, writes the Times, is that it takes advantage of a tax benefit commonly referred to as a net operating loss carryforward "that allows it to use the more than $5 billion in losses it racked up by late 2021 to offset paying future taxable income." This tax benefit was initially limited in its scope, but congressional Republicans and US President Donald Trump in 2017 scrapped its expiration date for all companies, thus letting SpaceX and other firms take advantage of it indefinitely.
Danielle Brian, the executive director of the Project on Government Oversight, told the Times that this tax benefit was intended to help struggling firms weather tough times to stay in business, but that it was "clearly not intended for a company doing so well" as SpaceX.
In its review of SpaceX's internal documents, the Times found that SpaceX had paid a small amount of taxes over the years, although none of them were to the federal government.
"In one document, the company said it expected to pay $483,000 in income tax to foreign governments and $78,000 in state income tax in 2021," writes the paper. "Separately, it reported paying $6,000 for income taxes in 2020 and 2021, but did not disclose if the payments were for federal, state or local governments."
What makes SpaceX's tax avoidance particularly noteworthy is its own dependence on the federal government for business. In 2020, the Times found, federal contracts accounted for nearly 84% of the firm's total revenues.
Patriotic Millionaires, a group of wealthy Americans who advocate for higher taxes on the rich, wrote on X that SpaceX's almost total lack of tax payments to the federal government was yet another piece of evidence about the tax system being rigged for the big corporations.
"SpaceX has secured billions in government contracts over the years," they wrote. "In return, it has likely paid... $0 in federal income taxes—and may never have to. Just in case you needed a pre-weekend reminder of how unfair our tax code is!"
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'Authoritarianism 101': Observers Decry DOJ's Lawsuit Against Maryland Federal Bench
"It's hard not to see this challenge as further escalation by the administration of its opposition to courts that have sought to check illegal government conduct," said one lawyer and director at the Brennan Center for Justice.
Jun 26, 2025
In an escalation of the Trump administration's tense relationship with the judiciary, the U.S. Department of Justice on Tuesday sued the entire 15-judge bench of Maryland's U.S. District Court over a recent immigration-related order, a move that was met with alarm by several observers.
The lawsuit comes in response to an order by Chief Judge George L. Russell III, who in May imposed a stay for a period of two days on the deportation of any immigration custody detainee in Maryland who files a petition for habeas corpus, which is a legal action challenging the lawfulness of a person's detention. The plaintiffs in the new case are the United States and the U.S. Department of Homeland Security.
According to The Washington Post, the complaint makes the case that the order was "unlawful" and "antidemocratic." It also alleges that the order runs afoul of Supreme Court precedent and intrudes "on core Executive Branch powers." Russell's order applies not only to cases before him, but also the 14 other district judges in Maryland, per the Post.
"President [Donald] Trump's executive authority has been undermined since the first hours of his presidency by an endless barrage of injunctions designed to halt his agenda," said U.S. Attorney General Pamela Bondi in a statement announcing the lawsuit. "The American people elected President Trump to carry out his policy agenda: This pattern of judicial overreach undermines the democratic process and cannot be allowed to stand."
Adam Bonica, a political science professor at Stanford University, called the DOJ's core claim in the lawsuit "stunning." On his Substack, Bonica wrote that the DOJ is essentially arguing that the Trump administration is being injured "by the very existence of judicial oversight."
Several legal experts characterized the lawsuit as an attack on judicial independence, as did the watchdog group Project on Government Oversight.
"This isn't about process. It's about punishing judges for rulings the administration doesn't like. That's authoritarianism 101," the group said in a post on X on Wednesday.
Alicia Bannon, the director of the Judiciary Program at the Brennan Center for Justice, added that "if the administration's challenge is successful, it will be far easier to evade the courts altogether in future immigration cases."
"It's hard not to see this challenge as further escalation by the administration of its opposition to courts that have sought to check illegal government conduct," she said.
The judges named in the lawsuit have ruled on major cases involving the Trump administration this year. For example, Judge Paula Xinis, one of the defendants, is overseeing the high-profile case of a Maryland man who was wrongly deported to El Salvador earlier this year. He is back on U.S. soil now after the Trump administration delayed returning him to the country.
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Trump Taps 'Comically Unfit' Election Denier to Head Key Legal Ethics Office
"Leading the Office of Special Counsel requires independence and experience," said one watchdog. "Paul Ingrassia seemingly has neither of these things."
May 30, 2025
U.S. President Donald Trump on Thursday nominated a far-right former podcast host with white supremacist views who called for martial law to keep Trump in power after his 2020 election loss to lead a key legal ethics office.
Trump tapped 30-year-old Paul Ingrassia—who is currently serving as the White House liaison to the Department of Homeland Security—to head the Office of Special Counsel, an independent investigative and prosecutorial agency tasked with enforcing ethics laws and protecting federal whistleblowers.
"Paul is a highly respected attorney, writer, and Constitutional Scholar, who has done a tremendous job serving as my White House Liaison for Homeland Security," Trump wrote Thursday on his Truth Social network. "Paul holds degrees from both Cornell Law School and Fordham University, where he majored in Mathematics and Economics, graduating near the top of his class."
Critics, however, had a different assessment of Ingrassia's qualifications.
Hampton Dellinger, the previous OSC chief, was initially fired by Trump in February but was temporarily reinstated via court order before being fired again after he began investigating the administration's mass layoffs of federal workers under the so-called Department of Government Efficiency. Dellinger dropped his legal challenge in March and announced that "my time as special counsel... is now over."
The OSC enforces the Hatch Act, which restricts the political activity of civilian executive branch employees. In 2021, the agency found that 13 senior Trump aides violated the law by campaigning for the president's failed 2020 reelection bid.
At that time, Ingrassia and his sister Olivia Ingrassia were hosting the "Right on Point" podcast. As Trump stoked the conspiracy theory that Democrats stole the election, Ingrassia amplified the president's "Big Lie" and called for authoritarian measures to keep him in the White House.
On December 12, 2020, the podcast's handle on its Twitter page was renamed "Stop the Steal HQ." The account reposted a tweet from prolific white supremacist and antisemite Nick Fuentes with the added message, "Time for @realDonaldTrump to declare martial law and secure his re-election!"
Ingrassia has expressed his own white supremacist views, including the assertion that "exceptional white men are not only the builders of Western civilization, but are the ones most capable of appreciating the fruits of our heritage." He also replied to a call for slavery reparations by demanding that the descendants of slaves "pay reparations to the descendants of slave owners" and advocated replacing the "treasonous" Ukrainian flag with the Confederate battle flag under penalty of "serious fines."
During the 2024 Republican presidential primaries, Trump boosted a false birther smear by Ingrassia that Nikki Haley—the former South Carolina governor and United Nations ambassador during the first Trump administration—was ineligible to run for president because her parents were not American citizens when she was born. Ingrassia posted several racist aspersions of Haley's Americanness, which have been archived by freelance journalist Jason Hart.
In March, Daily Dot's Amanda Moore revealed that Ingrassia misrepresented himself as an attorney for more than a year prior to his admission to the bar. During this time, he represented former professional kickboxer, self-described misogynist, and alleged rapist, sex trafficker, and money launderer Andrew Tate and his brother Tristan Tate in a civil suit. The Tates deny the charges.
As Moore reported:
As early as May 16, 2023, months before he took the bar exam, Ingrassia referred to himself as "an Associate Attorney at The McBride Law Firm, PLLC" on his personal Substack. But his bio on the site frequently changed. In a July 2023 piece on Tate, he described himself simply as an "associate" at the firm. In August, he referred to himself as a "law clerk." New York state records show that Ingrassia, a 2022 graduate of Cornell Law, took the bar on July 25-26, 2023, under his given name, Paolo Ingrassia. While Ingrassia received his results in October 2023, he was not admitted to the New York State Bar until July 30, 2024.
Responding to his nomination, Ingrassia wrote Thursday on X that "it's the highest honor to have been nominated to lead the Office of Special Counsel under President Trump!"
"As special counsel, my team and I will make every effort to restore competence and integrity to the Executive Branch—with priority on eliminating waste, fraud, and abuse in the federal workforce, and revitalize the rule of law and fairness in Hatch Act enforcement," he added.
"This is a pattern with the president's picks for watchdogs: partisan yeasayers whose willingness to stand up to the administration is questionable at best."
However, the Project on Government Oversight (POGO), a nonpartisan watchdog, said Friday: "Leading the Office of Special Counsel requires independence and experience. Paul Ingrassia seemingly has neither of these things."
"This is a pattern with the president's picks for watchdogs: partisan yeasayers whose willingness to stand up to the administration is questionable at best," POGO added.
Conservative writer Bobby Miller said on X that "the most insane thing about the Paul Ingrassia appointment is that he's been tapped to lead the Office of Special Counsel, an ethics watchdog tasked with enforcing laws that protect federal employees from abuse and safeguard the government from politicization."
"No one's even pretending that this Andrew Tate fanboy, Putin stooge, and martial law enthusiast would do anything even close to the job description," Miller added.
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