President Donald Trump put up to $5 million into bonds from SpaceX just two days before he rolled out an effort to cut red tape for commercial space travel, according to newly released ethics filings reported by CNN.
SpaceX, led by right-wing tech titan Elon Musk, is a significant government contractor. The bond buy was part of a burst of 517 trades by Trump in August that has renewed worries about conflicts of interest. The disclosures also show purchases of Meta shares worth up to $25 million, Microsoft shares worth up to $6 million, and some Oracle stock.
According to the filings, Trump's accounts bought $1-5 million of SpaceX notes on August 18. On August 20, the White House said Trump had signed a national security presidential memorandum to speed up what it called a "golden age" of space transportation. Its goal is to allow over 1,000 launches and reentries a year on American soil by 2030, in part by shortening permit and environmental review timelines, a change SpaceX is positioned to benefit from.
The trades also came weeks before Trump brought Musk, Meta's Mark Zuckerberg and other AI leaders to the White House, where he rejected calls for tougher regulation of the industry.
Richard Painter, the chief ethics lawyer under George W. Bush, said the purchases raise a clear problem even if no law was broken, adding that the president, vice president and members of Congress sit outside federal conflict-of-interest rules.
"There is a conflict of interest," Painter told CNN.
The White House says Trump had no role in the trades. Spokesperson Davis Ingle said an outside firm runs his portfolio using automated model portfolios built to track major indexes, and that neither Trump nor his relatives can direct or influence what is bought or sold. Ingle said there are no conflicts of interest.
Nevertheless, Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) argued the trades are corruption and called on Congress to bar both lawmakers and the president from owning and trading stocks. "Rather than bringing down the cost of gas and groceries, President Trump is using his office to enrich himself," she said.