What’s Going On With US State Division $400M Armored Tesla Cybertruck Order?

Evs & Robotics
By Imran
What’s Going On With US State Division 0M Armored Tesla Cybertruck Order?


Join every day information updates from CleanTechnica on e-mail. Or comply with us on Google Information!

Final Up to date on: thirteenth February 2025, 10:33 am

There’s a little bit of a bizarre story on the market relating to a US State Division order for $400 million value of armored Tesla Cybertrucks. There are nonetheless some issues that aren’t clear about this, however I’m going to share what we all know, after which add some conjecture. Right here’s what has occurred:

  • In a State Division doc that was titled “Division of State Procurement Forecast 12 months 2025 (Revised 12/23/2024),” a line merchandise was included that learn “Armored Tesla (Manufacturing Items),” final revised December 13 (till not too long ago).
  • The full for that line merchandise was $400 million, making it the most important expenditure on the listing.
  • Elon Musk apparently thought it was a lie, writing on X in response to an MSNBC/Rachel Maddow phase on the matter, “Hey @Maddow, why the lie?”
  • At the moment, he wrote, “I’m fairly certain Tesla isn’t getting $400M. Nobody talked about it to me, at the very least.”
  • The doc has now been retitled “Division of State Procurement Forecast 12 months 2025” and the $400M line merchandise now simply says “Armored Electrical Automobiles.”
  • Whereas that is for a 2025 procurement forecast, the $400M line merchandise is for a 5-year contract.

It appears to me that somebody on “the Elon Musk facet” who’s now concerned in setting State Division procurement plans intends to order $400 million value of armored Tesla automobiles, most likely Cybertrucks, this 12 months. Whereas that appears ridiculous in lots of regards, it’s additionally one thing that might have been anticipated, particularly when you think about dramatic lack of regular processes, destruction of our separation of powers, and total Banana Republic conduct that’s typifying this Trump–Musk presidency. In spite of everything, Musk’s response to a reporter asking him the way it’s not a battle of curiosity for DOGE to audit Division of Protection contracts when the Division of Protection provides contracts to SpaceX was that he’s not personally the one at SpaceX who writes the contract proposals. They degree of idiocy or madness in that response is one thing I simply can’t recover from.

Wouldn’t it be higher for the State Division to make use of a bunch of armored electrical automobiles (even Cybertrucks) than armored Cadillac Escalades or Ford Tahoes or Chevrolet Suburbans or such? I definitely suppose so. Nevertheless, is that this all beginning to come throughout as blatant corruption? Nicely …. if you put “Tesla” on the road merchandise earlier than placing out a request for proposals, yeah, it certain does.

Additionally, as NPR summarizes, “As Musk’s deputies have gained entry to almost two dozen federal companies, ethics specialists have raised concern in regards to the billionaire working into conflicts of curiosity, since Musk runs six firms, a few of that are below investigation by authorities authorities. Musk’s firms, together with Tesla and SpaceX, even have multibillion-dollar contracts with the federal authorities.” There are blatant and surprising conflicts of curiosity.

 

Chip in just a few {dollars} a month to assist assist unbiased cleantech protection that helps to speed up the cleantech revolution!

Have a tip for CleanTechnica? Wish to promote? Wish to counsel a visitor for our CleanTech Discuss podcast? Contact us right here.

Join our every day publication for 15 new cleantech tales a day. Or join our weekly one if every day is simply too frequent.

Commercial



 

CleanTechnica makes use of affiliate hyperlinks. See our coverage right here.

CleanTechnica’s Remark Coverage





Supply hyperlink

Imran
You might also like More from author