Tesla CEO Elon Musk looks at President Donald Trump talking to the media, outside the White House in Washington, DC, March 11, 2025.
Kevin Lamarque | Reuters
Two companies led by the billionaire chief Doge Elon Musk – SpaceX and Tesla – have submitted letters putting pressure on the US trade representative On the Trump administration’s pricing policies.
But the two companies had different messages to American commercial representative Jamieson Greer.
The manufacturer of electric vehicles Tesla has warned the negative effect on its results on its results and tasks imposed by other countries on American manufacturing products in retaliation for these prices.
SpaceX complained that the operating costs of its Internet Starlink satellite service are increased by trade barriers abroad, while foreign competitors do not face such costs in the United States.
The letters come as Musk oversees the so-called government ministry of efficiency, an effort to reduce the expenses of the federal government and the number of employees at the request of President Donald Trump.
At the same time, Trump imposes rigorous prices on China, Mexico and Canada, China and Canada violating with reprisals.
The letters are two of the more than 700 received so far by the office of the commercial representative in response to an invitation to public comments on “unfair commercial practices by other countries”. The answers are displayed on a public file.
Jamieson Greer, president of President Donald Trump to be an American trade representative, testifies during his confirmation audience of the Senate financing committee, in the building of the Dirksen Senate office on February 6, 2025.
Tom Williams | CQ-Roll Call, Inc. | Getty images
Tesla, in her unconted Letter to Greerencouraged him “to consider the downstream impacts of certain proposed measures taken to combat unfair commercial practices”.
“While Tesla recognizes and supports the importance of fair trade, the evaluation undertaken by the USTR of potential actions to rectify unfair trade should also take into account exports from the United States,” said the letter, which was submitted by the associated lawyer of Tesla, Miriam Eqab.
“American exporters are intrinsically exposed to disproportionate impacts when other countries react to American commercial actions.”
Tesla noted that “the United States’s special tariff actions thus (1) increase costs for Tesla for vehicles manufactured in the United States, and (2) increase costs for these same vehicles when exported from the United States, which has led to an international market less competitive for American manufacturers”.
“The USTR should study the means to avoid these traps in a future action,” said the letter.
SpaceX, in its letter to Greer, said that it “faces a range of regulatory complexities and commercial barriers in all countries that the US government should seek to address in order to support continuous American leadership in the space field”.
The letter noted that the company must pay foreign governments for access to the spectrum and import rights for its Internet equipment by Satellite Starlink, and other costs which “considerably increase the cost of operating in these countries – artificially”.
“Import rights paid in a handful of countries represent a significant increase in costs for Starlink products in these countries, despite the United States, essentially having no rights to similar foreign products imported to the United States to serve customers here,” Mat Dunn, principal and governmental director of SpaceX, in the letter.
“As President Trump noted with other sectors, this is an important drawback for American companies,” wrote Dunn.
Tesla and SpaceX did not immediately respond to a request for CNBC comments about their letters.
