Musk's Companies See Positive Results After Leaving the White House
"Fundamentally Successful... Musk's 'Hyper-Focused' Leadership Needed"
Elon Musk, CEO of Tesla, has stepped down from his activities at the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), and as a result, the companies he manages?including Tesla, SpaceX, Neuralink, and xAI?are all showing positive results simultaneously. Analysts attribute this to the effect of Musk resuming direct management.
On June 3 (local time), Musk posted on his social networking service X (formerly Twitter), stating, "SpaceX's commercial revenue generated in space will surpass NASA's entire budget next year."
He commented that SpaceX's revenue exceeding NASA's budget next year would "probably be an interesting milestone," and revealed, "SpaceX's revenue this year is about $15.5 billion (approximately 21.33 trillion won), of which NASA contracts account for about $1.1 billion."
According to the U.S. Trump administration's fiscal year 2026 budget proposal released last month, NASA's annual budget is $18.8 billion. SpaceX has seen significant profit growth by expanding its satellite internet business, Starlink, and succeeding in developing the reusable Falcon rocket.
The previous day, Musk's neuroscience startup Neuralink secured $650 million in new investment. Although Neuralink did not disclose its valuation in this round, Bloomberg reported in April that Neuralink was valued at $8.5 billion while raising $500 million. On the same day, Musk's artificial intelligence (AI) startup xAI launched a $300 million stock sale. The company was valued at $113 billion in this transaction, reaffirming the valuation from the X acquisition in March.
While Tesla's sales in Europe have generally plummeted due to Musk's political activities, Tesla's new car sales in Norway surged by 213% year-on-year last month. Rico Luman, senior economist for transport and logistics at ING, described this as "quite remarkable," noting that sales in the Netherlands also rebounded compared to the previous month. He identified the new Model Y as the reason for Tesla's sales increase in Norway, stating, "Some of the sluggish sales earlier this year were due to consumers postponing orders as they waited for the new model."
However, the Starlink investment and Tesla's sales increase in Norway were achievements made while Musk was serving as head of the Department of Government Efficiency. There are opinions that such results could have been achieved even without Musk's direct involvement.
Nevertheless, CNBC commented, "This serves as a reminder of why so many people support Musk," and added, "His companies are fundamentally successful businesses." The report continued, "While Musk's companies still deserve investor attention, they are not fully autonomous, as exemplified by Tesla's promised full self-driving feature." It concluded, "To move forward, they require steady and, ideally, 'hyper-focused' management."
© The Asia Business Daily(www.asiae.co.kr). All rights reserved.
