The Heritage Foundation, a prominent conservative think tank, is intensifying its efforts to uncover internal discussions at NASA regarding billionaire Elon Musk and former President Donald Trump. This initiative involves filing numerous Freedom of Information requests aimed at revealing how employees perceive these figures and their impact on the agency.
According to federal records reviewed by Reuters, this campaign aligns with the Heritage Foundation’s broader strategy to support Trump’s potential re-election bid by identifying civil servants who may resist his agenda. Mike Howell, director of the foundation’s investigative unit, suggested that the requests are designed to explore whether NASA is hindering private enterprises like Musk’s SpaceX. He criticized the agency for being overly focused on cultural and identity issues, stating, “Instead of cool things in space, NASA is doing all this woke stuff on the ground.”
Experts in government administration view these requests as a politically motivated attempt to pinpoint civil servants who may oppose Trump’s plan to appoint Musk as a government efficiency czar. This role could potentially facilitate the former president’s aim to replace federal employees deemed unsupportive of his administration’s ideology. Kel McClanahan, a federal employment lawyer, argued that the Heritage Foundation’s actions appear to be a strategy to create a list of “undesirables” critical of Trump and Musk.
As of September 3, the Heritage Foundation has filed at least 192 open records requests with NASA, seeking employee communications that mention Musk, Trump, or their associated companies, including Tesla and SpaceX, which has secured over $11.8 billion in contracts with NASA. Howell acknowledged uncertainty regarding the number of responses received so far but noted that this effort is part of a larger campaign involving over 65,000 records requests aimed at uncovering discussions related to Trump and other significant issues.
Neither NASA nor Musk has commented on the Heritage Foundation’s inquiries, and Trump’s campaign has distanced itself from the think tank’s activities, emphasizing that only Trump and his advisors represent his proposals for a second term.
