Musk's SpaceX Received Big Boosts from "Putin's Favorite" Rep. Dana Rohrabacher
Elon Musk didn't create SpaceX in a vacuum — he had help from an old friend of Vladimir Putin.
When Elon Musk formed Space Exploration Corporation in 2002, he based the company in El Segundo, California — an area rich with aerospace and defense contractor talent. That choice proved to be fateful, as it put him on a path to collaborate closely with Rep. Dana Rohrabacher (R-CA District 48), the Congressman who would go on to become known as "Putin's favorite."
At the time of SpaceX's founding (the company adopted this shorter form shortly after launch), new laws were needed to help pave the way for private companies seeking access to space. This had been Rohrabacher's quest for the last decade. Rohrabacher, who served as chairman of the House Subcommittee on Space and Aeronautics from 1997 to January 2005, had long been a champion of privatization of America's space program — and promoted collaboration with Russia.
Rohrabacher, a fervent anti-communist who had opposed the Soviet regime, altered his stance on Russia in early 1992, immediately after the collapse of the Soviet Union, saying at the time, "It's clear to everybody that there's going to be a crunch in terms of the dollars available for the space effort. One of the ways we can actually eliminate some of the items in our space budget and bring down the cost is to work in cooperation with democratic Russia." Rohrabacher was subsequently involved in drafting legislation designed to privatize space activity by opening up opportunities for commercial space operations, supporting landmark bills in 1991, 1998, and 1999.
Russia on Musk's Radar
As Rohrabacher was eager to begin collaborating with Russians on privatizing American spaceflight capabilities, Musk landed on the same idea.
At a convention of the Mars Society in August 2001, Musk described his efforts to collaborate with Russia, saying, “There are many great people at NASA. However, the organization today is not healthy nor is it an effective user of taxpayer dollars.” Musk added, “you can do things for a fraction of what current [NASA] costs are using Russian technology – converted ICBMs. That is what my group and I are doing.”
Earlier that year, Adeo Ressi, a housemate of Musk's at the University of Pennsylvania and also a PayPal alumnus, recommended that Musk contact Jim Cantrell, a noted space expert who had many ties to Russian space officials. Musk, Ressi, and Cantrell traveled to Russia in October 2001, only to be rebuffed, with officials not taking him or his offer seriously. Ressi described the episode to Esquire in 2012:
“Then we started having meetings with the Russian space program, which is basically fueled by vodka. We’d all go in this little room and every single person had his own bottle in front of him. They’d toast every two minutes, which means twenty or thirty toasts an hour. ‘To space!’ ‘To America!’ ‘To America in space!’ I finally looked over at Elon and Jim and they were passed out on the table. Then I passed out myself.”
They returned to Moscow again in February 2002 with Mike Griffin, a veteran of the CIA's venture capital fund, In-Q-Tel. The delegation was once again dismissed; per Cantrell's account, "They said, 'Oh, little boy, you don't have the money?'" Annoyed, Musk dove into a spreadsheet on the flight back, at one point telling Cantrell, "I think we can build a rocket ourselves," leading to the creation of the Falcon 1 design — and collaboration with Rohrabacher.
Legislative Support
Musk, recognizing Rohrabacher as a useful ally, made his very first political donations: $2,000 to Bush-Cheney '04 on June 23, 2003, and $2,000 to the Committee to Re-Elect Congressman Dana Rohrabacher on July 11th, per FEC filings.
On July 24, Musk testified before Rohrabacher's committee arguing in favor of new legislation to allow private companies to launch humans into space with immunity from liability. In his testimony Musk argued, "One of the surest ways of preventing companies like SpaceX from offering human transportation in the future is to make it an unlimited liability business, where a single, unintentional mistake can result in a hundred million dollar jury award. It would instantly kill not only the company that made that mistake, but the entire industry."
Rohrabacher subsequently sponsored the Commercial Space Launch Amendments Act of 2004, which became law in December of that year.
In a 2020 post on Facebook, Rohrabacher described the law's creation as being directly attributable to his relationship with Musk, saying, "We could no longer do business as usual so l sought out advice on how the private sector could play a much greater role. I met a young, idealistic Elon in an old warehouse in El Segundo. His vision and practical understanding of technology and business inspired me to write and prioritize the Commercial Space Act of 2004. That legislation unleashed Elon, but also opened the entrepreneurial door to a generation of Americans who have invested billions and are now ready to do business in space... and Elon is still leading the way. Bravo Elon!"
While the new law ostensibly targeted human space flight by commercial operators, it contained a number of key provisions that could be viewed as enabling legislation for SpaceX as a whole. Among the provisions which might be seen as key is one allowing for the use of experimental permits for reusable suborbital rockets, greatly decreasing costs and time between iterations for test flights. It also imposed a moratorium on new safety and design regulations that might be otherwise imposed by the Secretary of Transportation.
However, Rohrabacher's bill did also aim to capitalize on space tourism. American entrepreneur Dennis Tito became the first "space tourist" in April 2001 when he paid MirCorp, a Russian company that operated the Mir space station, $20 million to spend a week in orbit. Musk and Rohrabacher viewed Tito's flight as beneficial to the cause of space privatization — not only as a driver for innovation, but as a source of potential revenue.
On Thursday, December 4, 2003, SpaceX parked a Falcon 1 rocket on Independence Avenue in Washington D.C., across the street from the National Air and Space Museum, adjacent to the National Mall. Twenty-one meters long, and an unusual presence in an area primarily known for its food trucks feeding hungry tourists, it attracted significant attention. Musk invited a few hundred guests to a reception to mark progress on the rocket. He devoted the bulk of his brief remarks to reading a letter of congratulations from Rep. Rohrabacher, who could not attend.
Rohrabacher's letter read, in part, "I want to extend my appreciation and admiration to Elon Musk and the SpaceX team for their work in bringing the Falcon from concept to first launch in 18 months – fastest development time for a new rocket in history, including wartime."
SpaceX made its first successful launch of its Falcon 1 rocket in September 2008, after several failed attempts starting in 2006. It would take until 2021 for SpaceX to launch Inspiration4, its first space tourism mission, organized as a charity fundraiser.
Musk and Rohrabacher shared many interactions between 2009 and 2020, with Rohrabacher organizing meetings with the mayor of Long Beach on behalf of Tesla, and Musk organizing at least "three of [Rohrabacher's] most successful fundraisers," with at least one at the SpaceX "rocket factory," in 2010.
A Fruitful Partnership
Reprising the 2003 reveal of Falcon 1, on June 12, 2014, Musk displayed his Dragon V2 capsule in Washington, D.C., at a SpaceX-hosted event for members of Congress. Rohrabacher was ebullient with praise after touring the capsule, shouting "Great Job, Elon!"
According to the Washington Post, the design earned SpaceX a $2.6 billion contract with the United States government to carry astronauts to the International Space Station. At the time, NASA was reliant entirely on Russia for such missions. With SpaceX established as a known entity able to execute at costs often far below any other contractor, the firm became a magnet for more government contracts — fulfilling Rohrabacher's vision for privatizing America's space capabilities.
Ten days after Musk's triumph in Washington, on June 22, Elon Musk was billed as the special guest at Rohrabacher's birthday party — an annual Orange County affair, featuring a $2,000-per plate fundraiser dinner. A video montage of the pre-dinner reception, available online, features a speech from Rohrabacher and greetings from other well-wishers, but does not include Musk, who may only have been present at the dinner.
The speech contained many of his typically libertarian talking points: against federal government over-reach and information gathering; against the United Nations; against excessive policing; and for increased efficiency through use of technology and deregulation. At the time, these views would also seem to have been Musk's.
In 2015, Rohrabacher featured Blackwater founder Erik Prince and astronaut Buzz Aldrin as his birthday fundraiser special guests. Erik Prince got his start in Rohrabacher's Congressional office, serving as an intern in 1990.
Rohrabacher invited perennial libertarian presidential candidate Steve Forbes in 2016. Speeches by both Prince and Forbes (whose was titled "The Fate of America") offered a grim assessment of the American future, particularly as shaped by Democratic leadership under then-president Barack Obama.
Given our current political context, Musk's inclusion in this lineup of hardline libertarian, Russia-apologist ideologues raises the question of whether he was an outlier, or representing essentially the same perspectives.
In 2015, Rohrabacher again sponsored legislation which would aid Musk, the U.S. Commercial Space Launch Competitiveness Act. The bill legalizes unrestricted mining in space, allowing Americans to keep anything private companies can extract there.
Omission by Authors
Three serious Musk biographers omit his relationship with Rohrabacher entirely — a curious oversight. Ashlee Vance, author of "Elon Musk: Tesla, SpaceX, and the Quest for a Fantastic Future," makes no mention of Rohrabacher, or any of the laws that enabled SpaceX. Walter Isaacson, author of "Elon Musk" which serves as something of an "official" biography, also makes no mention of Rohrabacher or any legislation.
Eric Berger, author of "Liftoff: Elon Musk and the Desperate Early Days that Launched SpaceX" likewise offers no legislative context for SpaceX's creation, and elides any mention of Rohrabacher. It's difficult to know whether this is purposeful misdirection or merely a glitch in the literary matrix, but in either case readers curious about SpaceX's origins will not learn about his relationship with Rohrabacher through these otherwise authoritative accounts.
From Cold Warrior to Putin's Favorite Congressman
In June 2016, Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) famously told colleagues, "There's two people I think Putin pays: Rohrabacher and Trump." Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) immediately admonished those present to swear to secrecy, issuing his fellow Republicans this warning, "No leaks. . . . This is how we know we’re a real family here." Politico dubbed Rohrabacher as "Putin's Favorite Congressman."
Rohrabacher's concern with Russia's influence stems back decades to his activism as an anti-communist crusader who made visits to Vietnam in 1967, Prague in 1968, and Afghanistan in 1988. Rohrabacher once met Vladimir Putin in 1990 or 1991, when the former KGB official was Deputy Mayor of St. Petersburg, and on a visit to Washington. Putin and his entourage sought him out, as Rohrabacher had been speechwriter for President Reagan, who had called the Soviet Union an "Evil Empire."
They asked if Rohrabacher would like to get some friends together and play American football. Rohrabacher obliged, and assembled a squad that included Dick Cheney-pal Scooter Libby. As Rohrabacher told the story in a 2013 interview:
"We all ended up going to this Irish Times Pub afterwards. And we were having a little bit too much to drink, I guess. Anyway, we started arguing about who won the Cold War, etc. And so we decided to settle it like men do when they've had too much to drink in the pub. So we got to these arm wrestling matches, and I ended up being paired off with Putin. He's a little guy, but boy, I'll tell ya. He put me down in a millisecond! He is tough. His muscles are just unbelievable.
Rohrabacher's outward anti-communist obsessions lead back to one pivotal moment: the end of the Cold War. “I get pushback whenever I’m asking for an honest assessment of a situation in which Russia is being vilified,” he told Politico in 2016. “I don’t know where this is all coming from but there’s clearly a herculean effort to push us back into a cold war.”
For Rohrabacher, nothing could be more repugnant; the end of the Cold War required rapprochement with Russia, in the name of free market capitalism — even if it meant working with dictators. In his retelling of his arm wrestling defeat to the former KGB spy chief, Rohrabacher quipped, "You know, he's a tough guy. And he's supposed to be a tough guy, that's what the Russian people want. But that's no reason why we shouldn't try to work with him." ■
This is the first installment in a series of stories about Rep. Rohrabacher, the Cold War, and Elon Musk. Special thanks to our network of dedicated researchers who contributed to this reporting.
