President Trump’s recent trip to the Persian Gulf was notable for the ways that American foreign policy overlapped with his family’s business interests. But another powerful White House figure also cut lucrative deals in the region last week: Elon Musk.
Tagging along on Mr. Trump’s state visit to Saudi Arabia last week, Mr. Musk, the world’s wealthiest man, announced that his company SpaceX had secured approval to provide its Starlink satellite internet services to companies there.
As Mr. Trump carried on to Abu Dhabi, where the financial district’s towers were illuminated to resemble American flags, Mr. Musk’s company Neuralink announced a deal. That company, which makes implantable brain chips, said it would conduct a clinical trial in Abu Dhabi with the local health ministry.
The terms of both deals were not disclosed. On Thursday, Bloomberg reported that SpaceX was in talks over providing internet service to Emirates Airlines, which is owned by the government.
Mr. Musk occupies a unique role, even for an administration that has shattered norms around governance and private deal-making. He has attended cabinet meetings and wields incredible power to cut programs across the government — all while operating companies that profit from federal spending and foreign contracts.
He and his family have riches at stake in the Persian Gulf, a region whose autocratic monarchies have tried to cultivate closer ties to the West. In doing so, its leaders have courted international executives, invested in big-name sports leagues or teams and at times, authorities say, bribed lawmakers and their family members.
For years, Mr. Musk’s companies have raised money from government-linked and regional funds in the Gulf. That includes Vy Capital, a Dubai-based firm that has backed at least five Musk-led businesses. SpaceX provides launch services for some Emirati satellites, and Mr. Musk’s tunneling firm, the Boring Company, inked an agreement with Dubai’s transit authority in February to build a transport system under the city.
Elon Musk said last week in Riyadh that he would like to see the Boring Company work with Saudi Arabia as well.
Mr. Musk joined Saudi and U.S. officials for lunch with other business leaders last Tuesday. The White House invite list also included his younger brother, Kimbal Musk, whose company Nova Sky Stories recently announced agreements with Qatar and Abu Dhabi to provide a series of drone light shows. Kimbal Musk said on social media that the Abu Dhabi events would feature 10,000 drones, making them “the world’s largest” of their kind.
Earlier this year Maye Musk, the mother of Kimbal and Elon Musk, was a headliner at a government conference in the Emirates. And Errol Musk, Elon Musk’s father, has said that he is in talks with an Emirati firm to build a Musk Tower in Dubai to house the Musk Institute, a planned technology hub.
Maye and Kimbal Musk did not respond to requests to comment. In an email to The New York Times, Errol Musk said that the Musk Institute he envisioned would be devoted to studying “gravity and space-time travel.”
“The popular vision of the future seen in movies where vehicles go about up and down in the air and into space will never happen unless we solve these problems,” he wrote. Errol Musk said that Elon, with whom he has a fraught relationship, was not involved with the Musk Tower or Musk Institute.
Errol Musk has said that his support of Donald J. Trump in the 2016 election further strained his relationship with his sons. “But since then, both my boys have ‘seen the light,’” he wrote to The Times.
He said he travels often to the Emirates and late last year, he and Kimbal had lunch together there. “We were guests of the sheikh of Abu Dhabi,” he wrote.
On a trip in February, Errol Musk told Arabian Gulf Business Insight that he was working with the Al Khaili Group of Abu Dhabi to build the tower. He was seeking to raise between $150 million and $200 million through his cryptocurrency, called MuskIt. In February, the company behind MuskIt claimed its total value had reached $500 million, though as of this week, that valuation has dropped to less than $1.5 million.
The Al Khaili Group could not be reached for comment, and it is unclear whether a site for the Musk Tower has been selected, or how firm the plans for construction are.
Errol Musk’s digital currency efforts follow in the path of the Trump family. At a major cryptocurrency conference in Dubai last month — two weeks before Mr. Trump and Elon Musk traveled to the region — the president’s son Eric Trump took part in an announcement that a state-backed Emirati firm would use the Trump firm’s digital coins for a $2 billion business deal.
Matthew Hedges, a researcher at Durham University in England and an expert on the Emirati security apparatus, said that Gulf intelligence services were likely to look for people within Mr. Trump’s “personalized power structure” with access to the president but who have few security checks around them, making Elon Musk and his family prime targets.
Jason Karaian contributed reporting. Kitty Bennett contributed research.
