His letter is dated March 3 and hes demanding answers from Rubio by today.
Meeks is a ranking member of the Houses Committee on Foreign Affairs.
He sent his letter on March 7 and is demanding his answers no later than March 14.
Tesla co-founder and CEO Elon Musk stands in front of the shattered windows of the newly unveiled all-electric battery-powered Tesla’s Cybertruck© Photo: Frederic J. Brown
When D.C. decides to spend money, it can take a long time.
Theres a 2024 RFI about armoringelectric vehicles here.
Theyd put out the RFI, they said, and only got one response back.
Someone at State also went back to the original procurement document and changed the word Tesla to electric vehicle.
The armored Teslas saga continued to blow up.
At the end of February, NPR reported that it had documents that undercut States denials.
NPRdidnt share these documentsor directly quote them.
According to its reporting, Bidens State Department planned to spend about $483,000 in 2025 buying light-duty EVs.
$483,000 is not $400 million.
It is considerably less than that.
NPR also didnt say that the electric vehicles referenced in the documents would be Teslas.
NPRs story featured several experts who have conflicting opinions about the viability of up-armored Cybertrucks as State Department vehicles.
Some say its the perfect vehicle, others say it would be terrible.
NPR doesnt claim that the State Department plans to spend money on Cybertrucks, just that it could.
I spent the morning crawling through the public database of government contracts.
The State Department has spent the last few years buying electric vehicles.
Some of them are Teslas.
The total cost of the Teslas marked as light duty by State in 2024 isaround $500,000.
Most of the individual contracts are forModel Ysand will beused in South East Asia.
Blumenthals letter spends a lot of time decrying States use of Cybertrucks, something that was probably never planned.
At the time, State told me that writing Tesla in that space was a clerical error.
It insisted it should have been a generic entry that read electric vehicle manufacturer.
On one hand, changing it makes them look guilty.
They are hardly trying to hide it.
Musk and his companies were facing several investigations and pending regulations related to Neuralink, X, and SpaceX.
Using DOGE, hesdecimated the agenciesin charge of many of those investigations.
Musk has celebrated these perceived wins publicly.
He posts about them on X. Trump praised Starlink during an interview with Sean Hannity.
Trump will announce the deal with fanfare and praise.
Hed come out and say he got a really good deal from Elon on electric vehicles.
It wont be hidden.
Itll be right in front of our faces.
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