On Tuesday, during a virtual interview with the Qatar Economic Forum, Elon Musk said that he plans to scale back his political giving. “I’m going to do a lot less in the future. I think I’ve done enough,” said Musk, who was the largest individual donor in the 2024 election cycle, shelling out $290 million in support of Donald Trump. “If I see a reason to do political spending in the future, I will do it. I do not currently see a reason.”

No wonder: in just four months’ time, the Trump administration has already given Musk plenty of return on his investment. On the regulatory front, his businesses face less scrutiny as some government investigations into them have been closed, stalled or thrown into disarray, thanks in part to Musk’s own efforts with DOGE to defund and gut multiple federal agencies. His companies, particularly SpaceX, are positioned to receive billions of dollars in fresh government contracts. On the global stage, Musk is striking deals and gaining approval to operate in foreign jurisdictions, often with the tacit or explicit support of the Trump administration.

Then there are the personal benefits. Musk is far richer now than he was before endorsing Trump. His net worth stands at $419 billion—approximately $170 billion more than what it was on July 15, just two days after Trump survived an assassination attempt in Pennsylvania, after which Musk endorsed him. Tesla’s stock price has fallen by 20% since Trump’s return to the White House in late January, but remains 35% higher than in mid-July 2024. SpaceX is now valued at $350 billion, nearly double what it was around the time of Musk’s endorsement. And his third largest company, xAI Holdings, which now includes his social media platform X and artificial intelligence startup xAI, was valued at $113 billion in its recent merger, more than triple what the two firms were worth a year ago.

Critics of Trump and Musk say that Musk’s involvement in DOGE and relationship with the president is benefitting him financially. “The nature of Mr. Musk’s businesses, as well as their substantial earnings from government contracts, mean that he is deeply entangled in the regulatory functions of the government he is now empowered to shape,” concluded an April report authored by the Democratic minority members in the U.S. House of Representatives. “President Trump could not have chosen a person more prone to conflicts of interest.”

Trump denies this. “If there’s conflict, then we won’t let him get near it,” the president said in the Oval Office in February. Musk has also denied having conflicts of interest and said he has no role in SpaceX’s applications for government contracts. “The suggestion that Elon Musk’s companies have somehow benefited from his time at the White House is baseless and lacks journalistic integrity,” said Harrison Fields, Trump’s principal deputy press secretary, in a statement emailed to Forbes. “Elon’s companies have faced arson, vandalism, gunfire, cyberattacks, boycotts, and personal attacks unprecedented for any American businessman or company. As stated numerous times, the President will not tolerate any conflicts of interest, and Elon Musk continues to adhere to applicable ethics guidelines in his mission to eliminate waste, fraud, and abuse.”

Indeed, not everything has been rosy for Musk under Trump. The administration’s tariff regime, including 30% tariffs on imports from China, will likely increase supply chain costs for Tesla, SpaceX and xAI. Sales of Tesla vehicles have been slumping across all major markets, in large part due to growing consumer backlash against Musk’s activities with the Department of Government Efficiency. A Reuters/Ipsos poll of Americans conducted this month found that 58% of respondents held an unfavorable opinion of Musk, compared to 39% who held a favorable one. Peaceful protestors, as well as vandalizers and arsonists, have targeted Tesla dealerships and showrooms. Musk, who insists that Tesla’s sales are rebounding, told the interviewer in Qatar that he’s taken the blowback personally.

“The work Mr. Musk has done around DOGE has done considerable damage to the Tesla brand, both domestically and internationally, and therefore has cost Mr. Musk dearly,” says Gil Luria, a technology analyst at D.A. Davidson. “The stain on the brand…is almost unprecedented in the automotive industry.”

Even so, Trump has given Musk plenty to smile about. In January, Trump signed an executive order that hampered the Department of Labor’s Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs, which had been investigating alleged workplace discrimination at Tesla’s factories. As a result, that investigation into Tesla has been halted, the San Francisco Standard reported. In March, the president memorably encouraged Americans to buy Tesla cars during a sales pitch from the White House lawn.

The all-important question for Tesla’s future growth prospects is the Trump administration’s stance toward partially and fully autonomous cars. Last year, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration opened two investigations—the first into Tesla’s full self-driving features, the second into Tesla’s remote self-driving features—which remain ongoing, according to NHTSA’s investigations dashboard and a spokesperson for the agency.

Last month, the Transportation Department eliminated a requirement for automakers with partial and full self-driving features to report certain types of non-fatal crashes. The rule change benefits Tesla and will hurt Waymo, the fully autonomous vehicle company owned by Alphabet which is already active in several cities and which Tesla aims to compete with, says Wedbush Securities analyst Dan Ives. A spokesperson for the Transportation Department denies that the rule change benefits Tesla and says that the agency made the change so that it could “focus on crash types that contribute more significantly to the agency’s safety work.”

Musk is seeking to compete with Waymo by rolling out Tesla’s fully autonomous vehicles at scale. Earlier this week, in an interview with CNBC, Musk said he expects there to be hundreds of thousands of full self-driving Teslas in the U.S. by next year. That’s unlikely: Waymo has been rolling out its cars for several years and has deployed 1,500 of them across four U.S. cities, with plans to add 2,000 more next year. Plus, there have been missed deadlines and safety issues with Tesla’s self-driving cars, as Forbes reported earlier this month. But the Trump administration appears supportive of Musk’s goals. Secretary of Transportation Sean Duffy visited Tesla’s gigafactory near Austin this week to meet with Musk and, in his words, “see firsthand the future of autonomous vehicles.”

“We estimate the AI and autonomous opportunity is worth at least $1 trillion alone for Tesla,” says Ives, whose firm Wedbush upgraded Tesla’s price target to $500 (it closed Friday at $339). “We fully expect under a Trump White House these key initiatives will now get fast tracked as the federal regulatory spiderweb that Musk & Co. have encountered over the past few years around full self-driving/autonomous clears significantly under Trump.”

SpaceX is also finding reprieve with the new regime. The Department of Justice dropped a lawsuit over SpaceX’s refusal to hire certain immigrants. The National Labor Relations Board, which had sued SpaceX in January 2024 over the alleged wrongful dismissal of eight employees who had written an open letter criticizing Musk, moved to terminate its own lawsuit last month in a joint filing with SpaceX that questioned whether the agency has jurisdiction to pursue its original claims. A former chairman of the NLRB disagrees with the decision. “This abrupt change in course is highly unusual and a huge setback for SpaceX workers, representing yet another successful attempt by SpaceX to delay and obstruct its workers' efforts to get a voice on the job,” says Lauren McFerran, now a senior fellow at the Century Foundation, a think tank.

SpaceX was already a major U.S. contractor before Trump’s return to the White House, and now is primed to receive more federal dollars. SpaceX currently holds nearly $16 billion of active contracts with the federal government, which includes $6 billion awarded by the Department of Defense last month, according to the April report from the Democratic minority members in the U.S. House of Representatives. Musk’s rocketmaker is reportedly a “front runner” to help build Trump’s desired ‘Golden Dome’ defense shield in what would likely be a multi-billion-dollar contract with the Pentagon, as the project is expected to cost $175 billion over three years. "At this time, the Department has no announcements regarding future contracts associated with the Golden Dome effort,” a senior defense official told Forbes in an emailed statement.

“SpaceX does have the potential to to get government contracts, and therefore Mr. Musk’s relationship with administration is helpful,” says Gil Luria, the analyst at D.A. Davidson.

Starlink, which accounts for roughly two-thirds of SpaceX’s estimated $13.1 billion in revenue last year, is getting a direct assist from Trump officials. The State Department and U.S. embassies have “pushed nations to clear hurdles for U.S. satellite companies, often mentioning Starlink by name,” while Secretary of State Marco Rubio has “increasingly instructed officials to push for regulatory approvals for [Starlink],” the Washington Post reported earlier this month. In smaller African countries, U.S. diplomats have “pressed governments to fast-track licenses for Starlink and arranged conversations between company employees and foreign leaders,” ProPublica reported last week.

Closer to home, Starlink could secure a new contract from the Federal Aviation Administration. The agency began a trial with Starlink as part of an “initial testing period,” with the possibility that Starlink will help contribute to “a long-term infrastructure upgrade for aviation safety,” SpaceX said in March. A spokesperson for the Department of Transportation confirmed that the FAA is testing Starlink at facilities in Alaska, Oklahoma City and Atlantic City. “To update our telecommunications system, the agency will work with multiple companies and multiple technologies—there is no one technology solution. That is why we are testing not only satellites, but also fiber and wireless to ensure safety,” the spokesperson said in an emailed statement.

Meanwhile, xAI, Musk’s artificial intelligence startup—which powers the large language model Grok—is positioning itself for government contracts as it builds a government-focused business, with the help of data it gets from government agencies, The Information reported this week. Musk’s DOGE is already using GROK in its government work and pushing staff at the Department of Homeland Security to use it, Reuters reported Friday. (The DHS denied to Reuters that DOGE was pushing its staff to use any particular tools or products; xAI did not respond to a request for comment.)

Musk’s AI company, which is building a massive supercomputer in Memphis, could also benefit from a weakened Environmental Protection Agency, which is embarking on what it calls the “biggest deregulatory action in U.S. history.” Last fall, the EPA began looking into xAI and its use of temporary gas turbines, which it has been accused of operating without proper permits in violation of the Clean Air Act. A spokesperson for the EPA told Forbes in an emailed statement that they are “still reviewing” the matter.

Even Musk’s smaller companies are seemingly benefitting. In January, as part of a broader purge of inspectors general across federal agencies, Trump fired the inspector general of the Agriculture Department, Phyllis Fong, whose office had been investigating Neuralink, Musk’s controversial brain implant startup, for alleged mistreatment of animals, per Reuters, which reported the probe was ongoing as of January. (The USDA did not respond to a request for comment.)

Musk’s tunneling startup the Boring Company has not yet completed any significant projects, apart from one tunnel in Las Vegas, since its 2017 founding, but is in talks with the Federal Railroad Administration about participating in an $8.5 billion Amtrak project, the New York Times reported. A spokesperson for the Department of Transportation said no decision has been made on bids and that “Amtrak in coordination with DOT will follow standard procedures for bidding out contracting and subcontracting.”

During Trump’s visit to the Middle East last week, Musk tagged along, and business deals followed. Saudi Arabia agreed to introduce Starlink to its maritime and aviation sectors, and Abu Dhabi (which announced a tunneling project with the Boring Company in February) said it would be performing a clinical trial with Neuralink.

Back in the White House on Wednesday, Musk joined Trump for a livestreamed meeting with South African President Cyril Ramaphosa. During the sit down, Trump chided his counterpart for failing to stop the alleged genocide of white Afrikaners (a claim for which there is no evidence), which happens to be one of Musk’s pet issues. “I don’t want to get Elon involved. That’s all I have to do, get him into another thing,” said Trump during his Oval Office performance, to the laughter of those gathered. “This is what Elon wanted.”