Elon Musk’s government efficiency squad is heading to NASA to examine how the space agency spends money, according to Acting Administrator Janet Petro.
“We are a federal agency, we are going to have DOGE come,” she told journalists this week at the Commercial Space Conference in Washington D.C. “Similarly to what they’ve done at other agencies, they are going to look at our payments and what money has gone out.”
NASA’s budget for the 12 months to September 30, 2024, was USD24.875 billion – a 2% reduction on the previous year’s budget. The agency has asked for USD25.4 billion this fiscal year, a “modest increase” yet to be approved.
Petro says DOGE offers an opportunity to lean in
Department of Government Efficiency, led by Musk, has caused ructions across the US federal bureaucracy as it looks for excessive spending and unnecessary programs. NASA’s over-budget Moon rocket, the Space Launch System, is potentially at risk. In an internal staff email, Petro suggest NASA employees “lean into this new opportunity to maximise efficiencies.”
Musk has previously described the “Artemis architecture” as extremely inefficient and a jobs-maximising program. Artemis is NASA’s flagship Moon exploration program. It aims to, among other things, put a permanent human presence on the Moon.
Already, NASA has made some changes to the way it does things, specifically around the Trump administration’s moves to wind down diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility programs. For example, the agency has disabled a feature that allowed employees to add pronouns to their email display names.
Musk’s real or perceived conflicts of interest have sparked interest about what he plans to do with NASA. SpaceX, founded and headed by Musk, has NASA contracts worth around USD15 billion. Earlier this week, NASA awarded the company a USD300 million contract to provide launch services for the Pandora mission.
Acting NASA Administrator Janet Petro
Conflict of interest concerns
Last week, three federal Democrat politicians wrote to Petro expressing concern that Musk’s government efficiency squad would seek to access confidential contractual information and proprietary scientific data held by NASA under the guise of DOGE business and use it for SpaceX’s benefit. There are unconfirmed reports that some DOGE officials have already arrived at NASA.
Petro told journalists that NASA had strong conflict of interest policies in place and they would apply to any DOGE officials on-site, Musk included.
“We have very strict conflict-of-interest policies, so any employee or any person who is coming in we will check out their conflicts of interest and make sure they don’t have any conflicts of interest with any of the companies that we work with,” she said. “Those conflicts of interest would be examined by NASA’s legal office.”
Meanwhile, Petro said “hundreds” of employees had accepted the Trump administration’s redundancy offer. NASA employs over 18,000 people. The White House has offered to pay federal employees through to the end of the fiscal year (September 30) if they resign now.
Petro, acting as the administrator after Bill Nelson’s resignation, is winning some praise for her handling of a difficult situation – keeping the White House happy, managing an anxious workforce, and trying to keep NASA’s space programs on track.
