What the Trump-Musk breakup may mean for SpaceX

"If I cared about subsidies," Elon Musk said in 2015, "I would have entered the oil and gas industry." Yet the history of Musk's business empire tells another story. Musk's companies have long been fueled by taxpayer money, whether in the form of massive government contracts, low-interest loans, tax breaks and other support that helped make Musk one of the world's richest people. Over the past two decades, firms run by Musk have received tens of billions of dollars in federal backing. One estimate is that at least $38 billion in government support has been funneled to Musk's companies, an estimate that likely undercounts the breadth of support since some defense and intelligence contracts are not publicly available. SpaceX's Starlink satellite network is a player in a multi-billion-dollar federal effort to expand internet access to underserved parts of the country. So when President Trump on Thursday threatened to end Musk's government subsidies and contracts in a spiraling feud between the former political allies, it was greeted with some skepticism.