Tesla, SpaceX and X: Trump friend Musk benefits from EU funds in the millions

The controversial tech entrepreneur Elon Musk benefits from EU funds in the millions. As can be seen from a letter from the EU Commission to the German MEP Daniel Freis (Greens), a subsidiary of Tesla receives almost 159 million euros from the “Connecting Europe” funding program for the construction of charging stations for electric cars.

The US company SpaceX recently charged another around 197 million dollars (around 177 million euros) for the start of satellites for the European satellite navigation system Galileo with Falcon 9 support missiles. In addition, there were also around 630,000 euros for paid advertising on the platform X by October 2023, as can be seen from the document available to the German Press Agency. This is the answer to a parliamentary request from the Green Member friend.

In view of the revelations, the German politician demands an immediate stop of payments to the companies guided or controlled by the billionaire Musk. “This man is a declared enemy of the EU and our basic values. It cannot be that we still pay hundreds of millions of subsidies to the richest man in the world,” criticizes friend. The principle must apply: “No EU money for the enemies of the EU.”

Musk supports German AfD

Musk is controversial in the EU for his work for US President Donald Trump and his open support for the AfD in Germany. There are also several procedures against his company X due to alleged violations of EU requirements for digital services. They check whether the platform complies with regulations for containing hate speech and disinformation.

In its letter to Freund, the European Commission points out that no paid services have been used since October 2023. Regarding the orders for the two rocket starts, each with two Galileo satellites, she explains that these were an exception, since there were delays in the commissioning of the European Racket Ariane 6.

At the same time, it initially remained unclear whether the list is complete. In this way, the letter also refers to the publicly accessible financial transparency system (FTS) – with the addition that the information on the financial year 2024 is only published in June 2025. A spokesman for the EU Commission said on Tuesday that the available data would be looked at again. There are many actors who received funds from the EU budget.