According to foreign media reports, in the latest procurement forecast of the US State Department, there is no procurement plan for a $400 million armored electric vehicle related to Musk’s Tesla company.
In December 2024, the procurement plan included a budget project to purchase “Armored Tesla”. The U.S. State Department procurement plan starts in 2025 and lasts for five years. Tesla has appeared in the document with BMW, and the U.S. State Department also plans to buy BMW’s armored X5 and X7 SUVs. But the file has been revised at present, and the BMW name is still on the list, but Tesla-related projects have been removed. The $400 million contract, still in the planning stage, is now generally landmarked as an “armored electric vehicle” procurement project.
A U.S. State Department spokesman said in a statement that he has not signed a government contract to produce armored electric vehicles with Tesla or any other automaker. The spokesman said the tender was first proposed during the Biden administration and has been put on hold and there is no plan to reissue the tender.
Tesla did not respond to a request for comment in response to the relevant reports. Musk posted on social media platform X that he was “quite certain” that Tesla did not get a $400 million contract.
Currently, Musk serves as a government spending supervisor in the administration of U.S. President Donald Trump, an unprecedented role raises the question of how he will oversee himself when one of Musk’s many companies bids for an official contract. He has said that all activities of the Ministry of Efficiency of the Government he led will be carried out in a transparent manner.
Musk has six interrelated companies, and the sensitivity issues surrounding these companies may persist. His SpaceX company has received billions of dollars in government contracts for launching rockets for the U.S. military and picking up astronauts to and from the International Space Station for NASA.
The “armored electric vehicles” that the US government previously planned to purchase are likely to be targeted at Tesla’s Cybertruck. Cyberpeasters are manufactured at Tesla’s factory in Austin, Texas, USA and sell for $79,990 without any tax incentives. Musk himself is a military history fan, and he has often hinted at the military uses of Cybertruck.
“I wanted to build a futuristic combat tank, the kind that looks like it’s driven from Blade Runner or Alien movies,” Musk once said in a podcast.