Moskowitz, Meeks Call on Rubio to Explain $400 Million in Contracts to Elon Musk’s Tesla

WASHINGTON, DC - Congressman Jared Moskowitz (D-FL-23)-Ranking Member of the House Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on Oversight and Intelligence-and Congressman Gregory Meeks (D-NY-05)-Ranking Member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee-today called on Secretary of State Marco Rubio to explain media reports alleging potentially unlawful procurement activities surrounding $400 million to Elon Musk's Tesla.

Text of the letter can be found below. A copy of the PDF can be found HERE.

Dear Secretary Rubio,

We write to you to request answers and documentation to respond to a series of media reports that the Department of State and Elon Musk intended to engage in unlawful procurement activities that would constitute a serious violation of federal procurement laws, and in doing so planned to unlawfully enrich Mr. Musk - a "special government employee" and the largest individual shareholder in Tesla - thereby constituting waste, fraud and abuse against American taxpayers. Specifically, these reports suggest that the Department may have conspired to line Elon Musk's pockets by funneling upwards of $400 million to Tesla in the form of procurement contracts.

The collective actions these damning reports describe potentially constitute a gross violation of several federal procurement statutes and regulations, a breach of the American taxpayers' trust, and a demonstration of the very waste, fraud, and abuse which Mr. Musk and his allies have claimed must be rooted out. In fact, it is potentially Mr. Musk's influence over the State Department and his clear intention to use his access and influence to enrich himself and his other billionaire allies-all the while as the Trump Administration makes draconian cuts to domestic food programs for low-income families and dismisses tens of thousands of federal employees for fabricated allegations of misconduct and sub-par performance-that exemplifies such waste, fraud, and abuse.

Media reporting on these activities first emerged on February 12, 2025, after Drop Site News reviewed the Department's publicly available procurement forecasts and noted $400 million in U.S. taxpayer dollars was slated to be spent on "Armored Tesla."[1] The next day, reporting in the New York Times cited a response from Trump Administration officials claiming that the plan actually stemmed from Biden Administration engagements with Tesla, and that the Department had no plans to move forward with the potential contract anyway.[2]

On February 24, reporting by National Public Radio indicated that the Biden Administration plans set aside only $483,000 for electric vehicle purchases for Fiscal Year 2025, yet the Administration provided no explanation for how the Biden Administration's $483,000 plan increased nearly a thousandfold to $400 million under the Trump Administration.[3]

In addition, screenshots published by NPR in its February 24 reporting showed that in the two weeks since Drop Sitefirst published news of the procurement of Armored Tesla vehicles, the Department had quietly edited the procurement forecast documents to remove any specific mention of Tesla but did not immediately remove the project itself.[4] This suggests the Department may have intended to move forward with the project but obscure any involvement by Mr. Musk or Tesla. Metadata of the document examined by Drop Site verified that the document was edited after the initial press reporting on February 12, 2025, about a forthcoming $400 million giveaway to Musk.[5]Furthermore, the procurement document indicates that it was published in December 2024 - at the end of the Biden Administration - but a publicly available website archive showed no such edited document having appeared on the Internet during the month of December.[6] This raises serious questions about whether the Department not only scrubbed the document to remove any references to Tesla but also may have backdated the publicly available documentation to give the false impression that every element of these procurement plans - including the $400 million value - originated in the prior Administration.

These reported actions demonstrate either your willingness as Secretary to allow the Department you lead to be captured by Elon Musk and DOGE, or your inability to prevent such capture from occurring. The American people deserve transparency and clear answers from you. Therefore, in keeping with Congress' constitutional oversight duties, and the jurisdiction of the House Foreign Affairs Committee over the Department of State's procurement activities, we request written responses to the following questions by no later than 5:00pm EST on March 14, 2025:

1. Did the Department of State intentionally increase the value of plans to procure armored electric vehicles from Tesla $483,000 to $400 million? If so, what security risks to the Department or other justification emerged between December 2024 and January 2025 that necessitated nearly a thousandfold increase in this projected line-item expense?
2. Did the Department of State intentionally mislead the American people by claiming that the Biden Administration's $483,000 procurement plan and the Trump Administration's $400 million procurement plan were one and the same?
3. What Department bureau or office oversaw this procurement since January 20 and to whom in Department leadership does this bureau or office report?
4. Did the Department of State, after its reported plans to enrich Elon Musk and Tesla by awarding it a $400 million contract were exposed, intentionally scrub the publicly available procurement documents to erase any specific references to Tesla?
5. To what extent, if at all, were other providers of such armored vehicles considered or an open competition or bid process conducted after January 20 when the projected line-item expenditure increased by nearly a thousandfold?
6. Did the Department of State backdate the publicly available procurement documents to support its misleading claims about the timeline and the origins of the project?
7. Has the Department definitively abandoned any plans to award Tesla and Elon Musk with contracts of any kind while he serves as a "special government employee?"
8. Has the Department of State referred this very serious, likely unlawful series of actions constituting potential waste, fraud and abuse to the State Department Office of the Inspector General for investigation?

We also request that the Department provide the following by no later than 5:00pm EST on March 14, 2025 the following documentation to support its claimed explanations on this matter:

1. All current and past versions of the procurement documents and records relating to the potential purchase of armored electric vehicles, including from Tesla.
2. All records and correspondence between the Department of State and Tesla relating to such potential procurement since January 20, 2025.
3. Necessary documentary evidence to verify that the version of the procurement documentation posted online as of February 24, 2025, was, in fact, generated or updated in December 2024.
4. All documents, records, and correspondence between the Department and DOGE, the Department and Elon Musk, and/or the Department and Tesla related to procurement or discussions about requirements for such armored vehicles.

We await your response by the deadlines provided and remind you that good-faith compliance with Congress' oversight requests is undergirded by the United States Constitution.

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