Trump officials' claim over timing of $400M 'armored Teslas' deal undercut by docs: report

When a recent review of federal contracts exposed that the State Department was preparing to award a $400 million contract for "armored Teslas," it provoked an uproar of corruption accusations, with many suggesting the Trump administration was arranging a kickback to tech billionaire Elon Musk. The State Department put the contract on hold amid the outcry but claimed that the order was arranged during the Biden administration, before President Donald Trump even took office.

But that's only half true, NPR's Bobby Allyn reported on Monday.

"NPR has obtained a State Department document detailing that Biden's State Department planned to spend just $483,000 in the 2025 fiscal year on buying electric vehicles and $3 million for supporting equipment, like charging stations," said the report. This contract, Allyn noted, "represented less than 1% of the hundreds of millions of dollars likely destined for Tesla vehicles after the Trump administration quietly revised a State Department procurement document."

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It's possible that this revision was simply a mistake — but observers NPR spoke to didn't buy it.

"I don't think this is a clerical error. It was likely someone who is new in [the] State [Department] who decided, 'OK, we're gonna do this with Tesla,'" one former State Department official told reporters. This official "said the State Department and Tesla had agreed during the Biden administration to conduct research about armoring electric vehicles, but no money had been set aside to purchase armored Teslas for the State Department."

All of this is occurring amid a cloud of suspicion that Musk, who has been given unprecedented power through his Department of Government Efficiency task force to review and cancel government spending, could use his position to divert taxpayer money to his businesses — and cripple agencies that regulate them.