We Mapped Elon Musk's Entire Empire

His satellites shape wars.

His tweets shape elections.

There's barely a place on Earth

that doesn't feel the gravitational pull of the broligarch

whose grand gestures are erasing the line

between private enterprise and political power.

But just how far does Elon's clout really stretch

and what conflicts of interest are emerging?

WIRED pulled the data

and mapped out the key places that shape Elon's Empire.

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Our first stop is Washington DC.

Musk was the single largest individual political donor

in the 2024 election.

And now he has his very own office

right next door to the White House.

From here, he administers

the newly created Department of Government Efficiency,

or DOGE, whose goal is to slash a trillion dollars

in so-called government waste.

With little transparency,

Musk and team have fired thousands of federal employees

and even locked out members of Congress

from government offices.

He is someone who operates with a startup mentality,

move fast, rake things.

He is bringing those same tactics

into the infrastructure of the federal government,

and that is what we are seeing play out in real time.

Musk is basically leading

a restructured and rebranded US Digital Service,

the department responsible for streamlining data

from across the federal government.

So Musk and team now have access

to sensitive data about government employees

and possibly proprietary data about US companies

that are government contractors,

including his own competitors like GM, Ford,

subcontractors for OpenAI, Boeing,

and Jeff Bezos's Blue Origin.

Plus, Musk is now weakening agencies

that have sued or fined him in the past,

such as the SEC, the FAA,

and the National Labor Relations Board,

which had 24 open investigations

into Musk's companies as of 2025.

Their investigations involve alleged surveillance

of Twitter employees

and interference with union organizing at Tesla.

At least five inspector generals

that were looking into Elon Musk's companies

were fired by the Trump-Musk administration.

Just a few blocks over here

is where DOGE first set up shop before Inauguration Day,

in the offices of SpaceX's global government affairs

and global satellite policy teams.

Sources tell WIRED that SpaceX engineers

have been brought in as senior advisors

inside the Federal Aviation Administration,

the agency responsible

for regulating commercial space launches.

SpaceX has received upwards of $18 billion

in federal contracts, mainly from NASA,

the Defense Department

and its National Reconnaissance Office

based in Chantilly, Virginia,

which awarded SpaceX a $1.8 billion contract

to develop a network of hundreds of spy satellites

that aims to provide

continuous realtime surveillance capabilities globally.

In 2022, Musk played a crucial role

in restoring Ukraine's communication infrastructure.

This was done in partnership with USAID.

However, his decisions

to restrict military use in certain areas

led to geopolitical controversy

over the privatization of critical battlefield technology.

In May of 2024, the inspector general of USAID

revealed that the agency was, quote,

examining USAID's oversight

of Starlink satellite terminals in Ukraine.

Musk, who became publicly hostile to USAID,

recently shut down the agency

with the blessing of Donald Trump,

sparking concerns over a conflict of interest.

Although US sanctions

prohibit Starlink operations in Russia,

Ukrainian soldiers have claimed

that Putin's military utilizes the service.

So how extensive is Elon's web of satellites?

This constellation of dots represent thousands of satellites

that were shot into space on SpaceX rockets

on behalf of its subsidiary, Starlink.

They're designed and manufactured in Redmond, Washington

to deliver satellite-based internet service

to over 4 million global subscribers.

Because Starlink satellites are in a low Earth orbit,

the time it takes for data to travel

between the satellite and the user is much lower

compared to traditional geostationary satellites,

so it has the potential to compete

with traditional broadband internet services worldwide.

Starlink launched its service in Nigeria in early 2023,

and demand across Africa has surged.

Interestingly, not in rural areas as anticipated,

but in major cities.

Maybe Starlink's reputation for sudden rate hikes,

as high as 97% in Nigeria,

contributed to the slower adoption

in less developed regions of the continent.

Musk's internet service has yet to get the green light

in his native South Africa.

One possible reason is that by law there,

companies applying for communications licenses

must be at least 30% owned

by persons from historical disadvantaged groups,

which includes Black people, women, youth,

and people with disabilities.

Apparently, Starlink does not meet those requirements.

Recently, Musk has called

the South African government racist

because of a law he says unfairly targets

white minority Afrikaners.

Trump echoed Musk's position and cut aid to South Africa,

most of which supports health programs,

particularly for HIV/AIDS treatment.

One place you definitely won't get Starlink is Taiwan.

Why?

Well, according to an article in the Wall Street Journal,

Musk has been in contact

with Russian president Vladimir Putin since late 2022,

though the Kremlin denies this and Musk has not commented.

Allegedly, Putin requested Musk

refrain from launching Starlink service in Taiwan

as a favor to China,

whose military has been increasingly aggressive

against its island neighbor.

As of February, 2025,

Musk has not publicly addressed these allegations,

and the Kremlin has dismissed the claims as absurd.

Elon Musk has strong business interests in China,

has openly said he thinks Taiwan should just go to China.

Starlink's goal is to grow its constellation

to 42,000 satellites, radically expanding its ability

to beam the internet into more homes from space.

But on the ground, Musk's influence

doesn't stop at providing internet.

It extends to controlling the conversation itself

through social media.

In 2022, Musk bought Twitter for $44 billion,

took it private, and eventually rebranded it as X.

It's now worth 15 billion.

With a user base of hundreds of millions

of active accounts worldwide,

the social media platform's strong presence

in countries like the US, Japan, Brazil, and India

highlights its significant impact across diverse regions.

But has it delivered on its promise of free speech?

After acquiring Twitter, Musk fired most of the workforce,

including much of the trust and safety staff,

leading to a surge in hate speech

and misinformation on the platform.

Allegedly, at Musk's direction, X implemented code

to boost his posts by a factor of 1,000

to ensure they outrank others in the feed.

He has also been criticized for complying with demands

from authoritarian governments to take down certain posts

and for suspending journalists who were critical of him.

Musk's vision is to transform X into an everything app

that even offers payment and financial services.

This would put X under scrutiny

from the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.

As of the filming of this video,

DOGE is currently working to dismantle this agency,

which is designed to protect consumers from financial abuse.

Musk is no stranger to financial services.

Here in Palo Alto, he founded another company

called X.com in 1999, which ultimately became PayPal.

He sold his stake in PayPal

to the tune of $180 million after taxes.

Historically, Musk's businesses have been deeply tied

to California's tech and innovation hubs.

Here in Mountain View is the former site of Zip2,

which Elon and his brother Kimbal founded in 1995

to provide online maps to newspapers.

Compaq bought it four years later for $304 million.

All the way down the coast, in Hawthorne, California,

we can see where The Boring Company

dug its first hole in 2017.

A test of the feasibility

of high speed underground transportation,

the 1.14-mile long test loop ran from here to here

under the parking lot

of what was then the SpaceX headquarters at 1 Rocket Road.

In this office, Elon Musk famously burned the midnight oil,

often working 80 to 100 hours per week,

setting the tone for what former employees described

as a hardcore, high-pressure environment

driven by relentless deadlines.

Musk built quite the resume in the Golden State,

but in 2020, in search of lower taxes,

less regulation, and more space,

he started the process of closing down the headquarters

of just about all of his businesses and moving to Texas.

He even sold three of his homes in Los Angeles.

Right now, only a few major businesses

remain headquartered in Silicon Valley

in order to remain close to its specialized talent pool.

Here in Fremont is the headquarters of Neuralink.

Valued at $8 billion,

the company hopes to treat neurological conditions

and achieve human-AI symbiosis, but has only implanted

three brain computer interfaces so far in humans

while euthanizing

an estimated 1,500 test animals since 2018.

Also in Fremont, one of America's largest Tesla factories

employs 20,000 workers that make sedans and SUVs.

And xAI in nearby Palo Alto,

Musk's artificial intelligence startup,

birthed the AI chatbot Grok.

It was recently revealed that Grok was given instructions

by xAI programmers to ignore all sources

that mentioned that Elon Musk and Donald Trump

spread misinformation.

Down in LA, in Hawthorne, SpaceX keeps the lights on

for the Falcon 9 rocket program,

which launched in Santa Barbara County over here,

which the company leases from the US military

to send classified payloads

for intelligence agencies into space.

Typically, the reusable rocket land somewhere over here,

on the drone ship named Of Course I Still Love You,

Elon's nod to a sentient spaceship

in Ian Bank's sci-fi classic The Player of Games.

But these days, Musk's game is increasingly played in Texas.

X relocated to Bastrop, 30 miles outside of Austin,

and so did The Boring Company, right across the street.

Not far away is the site of the Ad Astra School,

Musk's private school which recently opened for enrollment

to students aged three to nine.

Tax filings reveal that Elon Musk's foundation

contributed a hundred million dollars

to support the school's launch.

Musk had previously expressed support

for abolishing the Department of Education.

Also in Austin is the home base

of the conservative America PAC.

Musk was the primary donor to the PAC, providing 91%

of the over quarter of a billion dollars raised.

The Musk Foundation is also based in Austin.

Despite its $9.5 billion in cumulative assets,

in 2021, 2022, and 2023,

the Musk Foundation dispersed less than legally required

in order to keep its tax-exempt status.

The foundation has thus far saved Musk

an estimated $2 billion plus in tax breaks.

Neuralink is building new digs here in Del Valle, Texas,

a suburb to the east of Austin.

Outside of Corpus Christi in Robstown, Texas, Tesla built

the first large scale battery-grade lithium refinery

in North America.

In McGregor, Texas, about 20 miles southwest of Waco,

is SpaceX's primary rocket engine testing

and development facility.

And all the way down here near the Mexican border

is SpaceX headquartered in Brownsville.

This area is the hub for the development

of the massive Starship project,

featuring the largest rocket ever built,

designed to carry humans and cargo to the moon.

Starship's Human Landing System,

designed specifically for NASA,

will also ferry astronauts between lunar orbit

and the moon's surface.

And since we're up here,

we may as well do a small detour over to Mars.

Several uncrewed SpaceX Starships

are slated to launch to Mars in 2026.

Currently, launches are estimated

at around a hundred million dollars per launch.

Elon has also said it costs about $1 billion per ton

to send cargo to Mars.

Just outside the city limits of Austin

is the Tesla corporate headquarters and gigafactory,

the primary production site for the Cybertruck and Model Y.

The company's market cap

has dipped to below $1 trillion recently from 1.54 trillion.

And it's once 140,000 plus employees all over the world

is down to 120,000.

Tesla produces 1.77 million vehicles annually,

but it only has the production capacity

of 375,000 vehicles annually.

650,000 Teslas can be produced annually

in the old Fremont plant here,

but the vast majority are made

in the Shanghai, China Tesla factory,

which has the capacity to roll out 950,000 Model 3

and Model Ys for the global market of Europe and Asia.

Another up to 375,000 can be built in Grunheide,

near Berlin, Germany.

Not far away in Prum,

there's a Tesla factory that specializes

in advanced automation systems for manufacturing.

Musk seems invested in German politics,

publicly endorsing the far right party there.

I think there's like frankly too much of a focus

on past guilt, and we need to move beyond that.

Tesla claims to have 60,000 global Superchargers.

In the US, there are nearly 30,000 ports.

That accounts for 57%

of all direct current fast charging ports in the US.

Over here in Buffalo, this Tesla gigafactory

makes solar roof tiles for the energy generation

and storage division.

In 2023, the division generated

approximately $6 billion in revenue.

This gigafactory way over here in Sparks, Nevada

produces battery packs

for 1.3 million Tesla vehicles per year.

Another Musk company made its mark on Nevada.

The Boring Company has been building

a privately operated 68-mile tunnel system

40 feet below the ground,

designed to transport passengers

at speeds up to 150 miles per hour using autonomous Teslas.

The stretch goal is to eventually connect

all the way to Los Angeles.

However, as of January, 2025,

after several years in operation

and several unresolved workplace safety violations,

The Boring Company

has only completed a few miles of tunnels.

Here in Abilene, Texas, the first data center

of Stargate AI Initiative,

launched by OpenAI, SoftBank, and Oracle, is being built.

They seem to be in direct competition

with xAI's Colossus supercomputer,

which came online in September, 2024

here in an industrial park in South Memphis, Tennessee.

Powered by 200,000 GPUs, Musk has said

he plans on increasing that amount significantly,

which has some locals worried

about the strain the site places on the Memphis power grid

and the potential increase in carbon emissions

from the energy-intensive operations.

Critics also point to the lack of transparency

regarding water usage for cooling systems

and reports of operating

without proper environmental permits.

This wraps up our tour of Elon's empire.

The sheer scale of it is a lot to digest,

and the news cycle is moving quickly.

More cuts are being made by DOGE

as of this video being released.

Head to wired.com for immediate information

as our coverage of the story is unfolding.

Thanks for watching On the Grid.

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