President Donald Trump denied Thursday that he plans to take away subsidies Elon Musk’s businesses receive from the government.
“Everyone is stating that I will destroy Elon’s companies by taking away some, if not all, of the large scale subsidies he receives from the U.S. Government. This is not so!” he posted on Truth Social.
“I want Elon, and all businesses within our Country, to THRIVE, in fact, THRIVE like never before!” he continued. “The better they do, the better the USA does, and that’s good for all of us. We are setting records every day, and I want to keep it that way!”
On Wednesday, press secretary Karoline Leavitt suggested that the Department of Defense may reassess its plan to contract with Musk’s artificial intelligence company.
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News of the deal was first shared in a post on X last week from Musk’s AI company, xAI, which announced that it would be working with the Department of Defense on “a suite of products that make our frontier models available to United States Government customers.”
When asked by NOTUS during a White House press briefing on Wednesday if the president would be in support of agencies contracting with Elon Musk’s AI company, Leavitt was quick to say, “I don’t think so, no.”
Leavitt told NOTUS that she would ask the president specifically about whether he plans to cancel agency contracts with Musk’s AI company.
Last week the Pentagon announced four multimillion-dollar contracts with AI companies in a new effort intended to “address national security challenges.” In addition to Musk’s xAI, awards were granted to Anthropic, Google and OpenAI — each with a $200-million ceiling.
A former Pentagon employee told NBC News on Tuesday that the decision to include Musk’s company in the initiative came at the last minute.
This story has been updated with Trump’s Thursday Truth Social post.
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