Mr. Musk dug into his companies’ budgets, preferring to cut too much rather than too little and to deal with the fallout later. Under Donald Trump, he is set to apply those tactics to the U.S. government.

Meanwhile, Musk’s artificial intelligence start-up xAI has raised $5bn at a valuation of $45bn, almost double its valuation a few months ago, according to the people. The fundraising has been carried out at breakneck speed as discussions between Musk and his investors began just last month.

SpaceX’s Starship rocket will be launched for a sixth test flight next week, the latest experiment by the Elon Musk-owned aerospace firm to create reusable spacecraft after a previous test resulted in a “seminal moment” for the company.

On a Saturday morning in December 2022, Elon Musk summoned finance executives at Twitter, which he had bought six weeks earlier, to a conference call. Then he drilled into a spreadsheet that contained the social media company’s expenditures.

Key Takeaways Elon Musk's SpaceX reportedly plans to sell existing shares through a tender offer next month.The move to sell shares at a price of $135 each could value the company at more than $250 billion.