SpaceX has warned investors of the risk of Musk's return to politics

Elon Musk could return to politics and government work, his space company SpaceX has warned investors. The prospect of this, it first included in the section on risks in the materials for a new deal with shares. Musk's previous attempt to get involved in politics cost Tesla investors dearly - its stock price and sales collapsed. The entrepreneur says he's back to work without weekends and is back to occasional nights at the office, but things can still change in his world, writes Bloomberg. 

Ilon Musk previously served as a senior adviser to Donald Trump "in connection with the Department of Government Effectiveness (DOGE) and may serve in similar roles in the future, devoting significant time and effort." That's according to documents that SpaceX sent out to holders of its stock, which were followed by Bloomberg.

The company added such language to the risk section of its investor materials prepared in connection with the tender offer. According to Bloomberg's sources, this is the first time SpaceX has specified such a risk in its tender offers.

As part of the latest purchase offer, certain shareholders were given the opportunity to sell their stakes. According to Bloomberg, SpaceX will buy back up to $1.25 billion worth of shares from employees and other holders. The deal valued SpaceX at about $400 billion, making it the most expensive private company in the world, the agency recalls.

Representatives for Musk and SpaceX did not respond to Bloomberg's request for comment.

SpaceX is one of the key contractors of the US government: the company works with both NASA and the Pentagon. In addition to launching Falcon rockets and developing a heavy Starship rocket for manned missions to Mars, SpaceX operates an orbital constellation of about 8,000 satellites under the Starlink brand. During his spat with Musk, the U.S. president has already promised to strip the billionaire's companies, including SpaceX, of subsidies and government contracts.

Musk joined Donald Trump's administration in January. He headed the Department of Government Effectiveness (DOGE) as a special government employee and senior advisor to the president. He left at the end of May - his term as a "special employee" was limited to 130 days a year. But even before he left, Musk began publicly criticizing Trump's budget and tax initiative - the so-called big and beautiful bill that was eventually passed in early July. The businessman warned that it would undermine efforts to cut spending and increase the budget deficit. Among other things, the bill canceled subsidies for electric car purchases that benefited Tesla. 

During Musk's administration, the percentage of Americans with a negative view of him rose from 45% to 55%, wrote Forbes, citing Silver Bulletin polling data. Tesla, the only publicly traded company under the billionaire's control, was affected: its stock price fell 20% during Musk's political tenure, while the S&P 500 index fell less than 3%. In the first quarter of 2025, Tesla's sales decreased to a nearly three-year low. JP Morgan analysts predict that this entire year will be Tesla's worst year for deliveries since 2022. The company will report for the second quarter after the close of trading on July 23.

After his resignation, Musk promised to focus on business and leave political ambitions behind. However, after a public spat with Trump this summer over a budget bill, he criticized the president and Republicans in Congress and in July promised to form a new political party to push for the resignation of a number of congressmen.

Musk is now demonstrating that he is solely concerned with work at his five companies, Bloomberg notes. "Working 7 days a week again and sleeping in the office if my little ones aren't around," Musk wrote on social media X on July 20. But SpaceX's risk warning "serves as a reminder to investors in any of Musk's companies that few things in the billionaire's world - as indeed in the Trump administration - are truly the end of the story," Bloomberg writes.

This article was AI-translated and verified by a human editor