Elon Musk’s influence over the federal government is extraordinary, and extraordinarily lucrative.

埃隆·马斯克对联邦政府有着异乎寻常的影响力，这种影响力也为他带来了极为丰厚的利润。

Mr. Musk’s rocket company, SpaceX, effectively dictates NASA’s rocket launch schedule. The Defense Department relies on him to get most of its satellites to orbit. His companies were promised $3 billion across nearly 100 different contracts last year with 17 federal agencies.

马斯克的火箭公司SpaceX实质上决定着美国国家航空航天局(NASA)的火箭发射时间表。美国国防部的大部分卫星需要靠他来送入轨道。去年，他的公司与17个联邦机构签订了近100份不同的合同，将从中得到30亿美元。

His entanglements with federal regulators are also numerous and adversarial. His companies have been targeted in at least 20 recent investigations or reviews, including over the safety of his Tesla cars and the environmental damage caused by his rockets.

他与联邦监管机构也有着盘根错节、充满对立的联系。他的公司至少是20项近期调查或审查的对象，调查的内容包括特斯拉汽车的安全性和他的火箭造成的环境破坏。

Given Mr. Musk’s immense business footprint, he will be a major player no matter who wins the election.

鉴于马斯克无所不在的商业足迹，无论谁赢得大选，他都举足轻重。

But he has thrown his fortune and power behind former President Donald J. Trump and, in return, Mr. Trump has vowed to make Mr. Musk head of a new “government efficiency commission” with the power to recommend wide-ranging cuts at federal agencies and changes to federal rules.

但他把自己的财富和权力都投向了前总统特朗普，作为回报，特朗普誓言要让马斯克担任新成立的“政府效率委员会”的负责人，这个职位有权对联邦机构的大范围开支削减和联邦规则的修改提出建议。

That would essentially give the world’s richest man and a major government contractor the power to regulate the regulators who hold sway over his companies, amounting to a potentially enormous conflict of interest.

这实际上将让这位世界首富和重要政府承包商有权去监管那些监管机构，而这些机构对他旗下的公司有着决定性影响，这可能会带来巨大的利益冲突。

Through a review of court filings, regulatory dockets and government contracting data, The New York Times has compiled an accounting of Mr. Musk’s multipronged business arrangements with the federal government, as well as the violations, fines, consent decrees and other inquiries federal agencies have ordered against his companies. Together, they show a deep web of relationships: Instead of entering this new role as a neutral observer, Mr. Musk would be passing judgment on his own customers and regulators.

通过查阅法庭文件、监管案卷和政府合同数据，《纽约时报》整理出一份关于马斯克与联邦政府的多方面商业安排的记录，以及违规、罚款、协议裁决以及联邦机构下令对其公司进行的其它调查。相关资料综合显示出了一张深厚的关系网：马斯克并非以中立观察者的身份进入这个新角色，而是将对自己的客户和监管机构做出评判。

Already, Mr. Musk has discussed how he would use the new position to help his own companies.

针对他将如何利用新职位来帮助自己的公司，马斯克已经作出过讨论。

He has questioned a rule that required SpaceX to obtain a permit for discharging large amounts of potentially polluted water from its launchpad in Texas. He also said that limiting this kind of oversight could help SpaceX reach Mars sooner — “so long as it is not smothered by bureaucracy,” he wrote on X, his social-media platform. “The Department of Government Efficiency is the only path to extending life beyond Earth.”

他已对一项规定提出了质疑，该规定要求SpaceX位于得克萨斯州的发射台产生的大量可能受到污染的水需要获得排放许可证。他还表示，限制这种监管可以帮助SpaceX更快地到达火星——“只要它不被官僚主义所扼杀”，他在自己的社交媒体平台X上写道。“政府效率部是在地球之外延长生命的唯一途径。”

Earlier this month, he attacked the Federal Communications Commission, which oversees the internet satellites that SpaceX launches. He suggested on X that if the commission hadn’t “illegally revoked” more than $886 million worth of federal funding the company had sought to deliver internet access to rural areas, satellite kits would “probably have saved lives in North Carolina” after a hurricane devastated parts of the state.

本月早些时候，他抨击了负责监管SpaceX发射的互联网卫星的联邦通信委员会。他在X上表示，如果委员会没有“非法撤销”该公司寻求的价值超过8.86亿美元、用以向乡村地区提供互联网接入的联邦资金，那么相关卫星套件“可能会挽救北卡罗来纳州人们的生命”，此前飓风摧毁了该州部分地区。

A spokesman for the commission said it didn’t award the money because the company was proposing to provide services in some areas that weren’t actually rural, including the Newark Liberty International Airport.

该委员会的一位发言人表示，之所以没有授予这笔资金，是因为该公司计划在一些非乡村地区提供服务，包括纽瓦克自由国际机场。

Mr. Musk and SpaceX did not respond to requests for comment for this article. Brian Hughes, a spokesman for Mr. Trump, declined to directly address questions about the potential for a conflict of interest, if Mr. Musk takes on this new role.

马斯克和SpaceX没有回应对本文的置评请求。特朗普的发言人布莱恩·休斯拒绝直接回答有关马斯克担任这一新职务是否可能存在利益冲突的问题。

“Elon Musk is a genius, an innovator, and has literally made history by building creative, modern and efficient systems,” Mr. Hughes said in a statement.

“埃隆·马斯克是一位天才、一位创新者，他通过建立富有创意、现代和高效的系统创造了历史，”休斯在一份声明中表示。

Regardless of who is elected president, the deep ties between Mr. Musk and the U.S. government are unlikely to change anytime soon, with agencies becoming increasingly reliant on the vehicles, rockets, internet and other services his companies provide.

无论谁当选总统，马斯克与美国政府之间的深厚联系不太可能在短期内发生改变，各机构越来越依赖他的公司提供的车辆、火箭、互联网等服务。

What he delivers to the U.S. government is sprawling, according to federal contract data:

根据联邦合同数据，他为美国政府提供的内容非常广泛：

SpaceX was hired to design, build and test a space landing system for astronauts.

SpaceX受聘为宇航员设计、建造和测试太空着陆系统。

SpaceX sold Starlink satellite internet to the U.S. embassy in Ashgabat, Turkmenistan, providing access to U.S. officials in a country that severely censors online activity.

SpaceX向美国驻土库曼斯坦阿什哈巴德大使馆出售了星链卫星互联网，为美国官员提供了访问网络的渠道，而该国对网络活动进行着严格的审查。

Tesla provided a tactical vehicle to the U.S. embassy in Iceland.

特斯拉向美国驻冰岛大使馆提供了一辆战术车。

And the U.S. Forestry Service used Starlinks to connect emergency responders battling wildfires in remote parts of California.

此外美国林业局使用星链与在加州偏远地区扑灭野火的应急响应人员取得联系。

The idea for an efficiency commission originated with Mr. Musk. When he interviewed Mr. Trump on X in August, Mr. Musk brought it up three times — returning to the topic when Mr. Trump digressed into other subjects.

效率委员会的想法源自马斯克。8月，当他在X上采访特朗普时，马斯克三次提到了这个问题——每当特朗普离题谈论其他话题时，他就将谈话拉回这个话题。

“I think it would be great to just have a government efficiency commission that takes a look at these things and just ensures that the taxpayer money — the taxpayers’ hard-earned money — is spent in a good way,” Mr. Musk said the third time. “And I’d be happy to help out on such a commission.”

“我认为如果政府能成立一个效率委员会来监督这些事情，确保纳税人的钱——纳税人的血汗钱——用在正确的地方，那就太好了，”马斯克第三次说道。“我很乐意为这样的委员会提供帮助。”

“I’d love it,” Mr. Trump finally replied. “Well, you, you’re the greatest cutter.”

“挺好的，”特朗普终于回答道。“嗯，你最会裁人了。”

Maya MacGuineas, president of the nonpartisan Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, applauded the idea of an efficiency commission, and said that Mr. Musk’s experience in business could be good preparation to lead it.

无党派组织“负责任联邦预算委员会”主席玛雅·麦克吉尼斯对成立效率委员会的想法表示赞赏，并表示马斯克在商业方面的经验可以为领导该委员会提供良好的准备。

She said Mr. Musk’s formal power would most likely be limited. Previous presidents, going back to Theodore Roosevelt, have tried using committees of business-minded outsiders to rethink government. For their ideas to become law, Congress has to agree. Usually, she said, it does not.

她说，马斯克的正式权力很可能是有限的。从西奥多·罗斯福以降，历届总统都曾尝试利用具有商业思维的外部人士组成的委员会来对政府进行重新设想。他们的想法要成为法律，国会必须同意。她说，通常情况下，国会不会批准。

But a suggestion from Mr. Musk could still be damaging to an agency, if he singled it out to Mr. Trump as an example of waste or mismanagement.

但是，马斯克的建议仍然可能给某个机构造成大麻烦，如果他跟特朗普点名说该机构是浪费或管理不善的典型的话。

Legal experts who have studied federal ethics rules and the use of outside business executives as government advisers said Mr. Musk’s interactions with the federal government are so broad it might not be possible for him to serve as a prominent adviser to the president without creating major conflicts of interest.

研究联邦伦理规则以及使用外部企业高管担任政府顾问的法律专家表示，马斯克与联邦政府的互动如此广泛，因此他在担任总统的重要顾问时，产生重大利益冲突是难以避免的事情。

Mr. Musk “has had very contentious interactions and entanglements with regulators,” said Kathleen Clark, an ethics lawyer who has served as an adviser to the District of Columbia Attorney General’s office. “It is entirely reasonable to believe that what he would bring to this federal audit is his own set of biases and grudges and financial interests.”

马斯克“与监管机构有过争议非常大的互动和纠葛”，曾担任哥伦比亚特区总检察长办公室顾问的伦理律师凯瑟琳·克拉克说。“完全有理由相信，他会把自己的一套偏见、怨恨和经济利益带到这次联邦审计中。”

Mr. Musk and his companies often question federal regulations — particularly when they threaten to slow plans to further expand his operations.

马斯克和他的公司经常质疑联邦法规，尤其是当这些法规有可能减缓他进一步扩张业务的计划时。

One such example was the test launch this month of Starship, SpaceX’s newest rocket. NASA has agreed to pay the company as much as $4.4 billion to take astronauts to the surface of the moon on two future missions — although the dates will depend on when all the equipment is ready. So far, Starship has not flown any humans.

本月SpaceX最新火箭星舰的试射就是一个例子。NASA已同意向该公司支付高达44亿美元的费用，用于在未来的两次任务中将宇航员送上月球表面——不过具体日期将取决于所有设备的准备情况。到目前为止，星舰尚未有过载人飞行。

But the Federal Aviation Administration held up this most recent test launch for weeks, in part because of questions about harm SpaceX has caused to wildlife near its Texas launch site, a delay that infuriated Mr. Musk.

但美国联邦航空管理局(FAA)将最近的一次试射推迟了数周，部分原因是担心SpaceX对得克萨斯州发射场附近的野生动物造成伤害，这一延误激怒了马斯克。

“We continue to be stuck in a reality where it takes longer to do the government paperwork to license a rocket launch than it does to design and build the actual hardware,” SpaceX said in a statement.

SpaceX公司在一份声明中说：“我们继续被困在这样一个现实中，即向政府申请火箭发射许可的手续耗费的时间，比设计、制造实际硬件还要多。”

Last month, the F.A.A. started the process to fine SpaceX $633,009 for disregarding license requirements related to two of its Florida launches last year that may have compromised safety, the agency said.

空管局表示上个月启动了对SpaceX公司罚款633009美元的程序，因为它去年在佛罗里达州进行的两次发射违反了许可要求，可能危及安全。

This was a shift for the F.A.A., which in past instances had not imposed fines when SpaceX ignored the agency’s direct orders. Marc Nichols, the F.A.A.’s chief counsel, said in a statement last month that “failure of a company to comply with the safety requirements will result in consequences.”

这对于该机构来说是一种转变，过去，SpaceX无视该机构的直接命令时，它并没有处以罚款。该机构的首席法律顾问马克·尼科尔斯上个月在一份声明中表示，“一家公司若是不遵守安全要求将导致后果。”

Mr. Musk responded on his social media site: “SpaceX will be filing suit against the FAA for regulatory overreach.” The company followed up with a four-page letter to Congress complaining about the F.A.A. which it said had been “unsuccessful in modernizing and streamlining its regulations.”

马斯克在他的社交媒体网站上回应道：“SpaceX将对FAA提起诉讼，控告它监管过度。”该公司随后向国会递交了一封四页的信件，抱怨FAA未能“未能成功实现监管的现代化和简化”。

The list of clashes by Mr. Musk’s companies extends to many other federal agencies.

马斯克的公司还与其他许多联邦机构存在冲突。

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration has opened five investigations of Tesla, including for complaints of unexpected braking, loss of steering control and crashes while cars were in “self-driving” mode.

美国国家公路交通安全管理局对特斯拉展开了五项调查，其中包括对汽车在“自动驾驶”模式下意外刹车、转向失控和撞车的投诉。

Tesla has tried to block at least two rulings from the National Labor Relations Board, including one punishing Mr. Musk for tweeting that factory workers would lose stock options if they joined a union.

特斯拉尝试阻止至少两项全国劳工关系委员会的裁决，其中一项是对马斯克的处罚，因为他发推文称，如果工厂工人加入工会，他们将失去股票期权。

Neuralink, Mr. Musk’s brain-implant company, was fined for violating Transportation Department rules regarding the movement of hazardous materials.

马斯克的脑植入物公司Neuralink因违反交通部关于危险材料运输的规定而被处以罚款。

The Justice Department sued SpaceX, arguing that the company refused to hire refugees and people granted asylum because of their citizenship status.

司法部起诉SpaceX，声称该公司以公民身份问题为由拒绝雇佣难民和获得庇护的人。

Mr. Musk in recent years has particularly attacked the Securities and Exchange Commission, which in 2018 charged him with securities fraud for a series of false and misleading tweets related to taking Tesla private. Mr. Musk had posted on Twitter that he had planned to take the company private at $420 a share, and that he had “funding secured” for a transaction. As part of a later settlement with the S.E.C., he stepped down as Tesla’s chairman and Tesla paid a $20 million fine.

近年来，马斯克对美国证券交易委员会尤为不满，后者在2018年指控马斯克犯有证券欺诈罪，原因是他发布了一系列与特斯拉私有化有关的虚假和误导性推文。马斯克曾在Twitter上发帖称，他计划以每股420美元的价格将该公司私有化，并表示他已经为这笔交易“筹集到了资金”。作为后来与美国证券交易委员会达成和解的一部分，他辞去了特斯拉董事长一职，并支付了2000万美元的罚款。

In a 2022 TED Talk, Mr. Musk lambasted regulators, calling them “bastards.”

在2022年的TED演讲中，马斯克痛斥监管机构，称其为“混蛋”。

Even before getting a formal role in the federal government, Mr. Musk has repeatedly called for a broad effort to strike or weaken federal regulations, and to slash federal spending. “If Trump wins, we do have an opportunity to do kind of a once in a lifetime deregulation and reduction in the size of the government,” Mr. Musk said at a conference in Los Angeles last month.

尚未正式担任任何联邦政府职务的马斯克已经多次呼吁采取广泛行动打击或削弱联邦监管，削减联邦开支。“如果特朗普赢了，我们就有机会进行一次千载难逢的放松监管和缩减政府规模的行动，”马斯克在上个月洛杉矶的一次会议上说。

If Mr. Musk were to get a senior advisory role in a Trump administration, regulators might have to consider how taking action against one of Mr. Musk’s companies might affect their budget or regulatory authority, even if he did not directly push those agencies to back down, Ms. Clark said.

克拉克说，如果马斯克在特朗普政府中获得高级顾问职位，监管机构可能不得不考虑对马斯克的一家公司采取行动可能会影响它们的预算或监管权力，即使他没有直接迫使这些机构做出让步。

The federal government has rules intended to prevent such conflicts. There are 1,019 advisory committees with more than 60,000 members, opining on everything from how pesticides are used on farms to how wild horses in the United States are managed. But these committees each have very narrow jurisdiction, compared to a governmentwide “efficiency” review that Mr. Musk would lead.

联邦政府制定了旨在防止此类冲突的规定。政府目前有1019个顾问委员会，成员超过6万人，从农场如何使用杀虫剂到如何管理美国的野马，他们就各种问题发表意见。但与马斯克将领导的对整个政府“效率”的审查相比，这些委员会的执行范围都非常有限。

Another criminal law prohibits federal employees and outside advisers who are sometimes considered “special government employees” from “participating personally and substantially in any particular matter that affects your financial interests, as well as the financial interests of your spouse, minor child, general partner, an organization in which you serve as an officer.”

还有一项刑事法律禁止联邦雇员和有时被视为“特殊政府雇员”的外部顾问“亲自和实质性地参与任何影响到你本人以及你的配偶、未成年子女、普通合伙人、你担任高管的组织的财务利益的特定事项”。

But that has often not prevented problems with outside advisers — even those with much less complicated portfolios than Mr. Musk’s. Pharmaceutical industry advisers to the Food and Drug Administration, various studies have shown, often appear to have made recommendations that benefit their corporate interests, as have military contractors tapped to advise the Pentagon.

但这往往无法防止与外部顾问之间的问题——即便是那些投资组合远没有马斯克的情况复杂的顾问。各种研究表明，美国食品药品监督管理局的制药行业顾问似乎常常会提出有利于药企的建议，被五角大楼指定为顾问的军事承包商也是如此。

Mr. Musk has hinted at one government efficiency he would like to see: killing NASA’s Starliner contract with Boeing, his main industry competitor.

马斯克暗示，他希望政府提高的一个效率是：取消NASA与波音公司（其主要行业竞争对手）签订的“星际客机”合同。

“The world doesn’t need another capsule,” he wrote earlier this year, referring to the long-delayed Boeing system, which returned empty this month, after encountering trouble on its first human test flight. (He has not addressed if the proposed efficiency committee would take this up.)

“世界不需要另一个太空舱，”他在今年早些时候写道，指的是拖延已久的波音系统，该系统在首次载人试飞中遇到麻烦后，于本月空载返回。（他没有说明拟议中的效率委员会是否会考虑这个问题。）

Mr. Trump has previously faced accusations that he created conflicts when he named certain business executives as advisers.

特朗普此前曾面临指控，称他在任命某些企业高管为顾问时制造了冲突。

That included his appointment of Carl Icahn, the billionaire investor, as a special adviser on regulatory matters in 2017, even as Mr. Icahn was lobbying federal regulators to revamp a rule that would allow a Texas oil refinery he partly owned to save hundreds of millions of dollars. Mr. Icahn ended up stepping down from the unpaid role only months after he was appointed, after broad criticism of the arrangement.

其中包括他在2017年任命亿万富翁投资者卡尔·伊坎为监管事务特别顾问，尽管当时伊坎正在游说联邦监管机构修改一项规定，从而使他部分拥有的一家得克萨斯州炼油厂可以省下数亿美元。在这一安排受到广泛批评后，伊坎上任几个月就辞去了这个无薪职位。

Richard Briffault, a Columbia University professor of law who has served as chair of the New York City Conflicts of Interest Board, said that there might be an advantage to having Mr. Musk as a formal adviser to Mr. Trump — because that would at least require some disclosure of the advice he was offering.

曾担任纽约市利益冲突委员会主席的哥伦比亚大学法学教授理查德·布里法特表示，让马斯克担任特朗普的正式顾问可能有一个好处——因为这至少需要在一定程度上披露他提供的建议。

“Having this in public as opposed to having Elon Musk calling up the White House and saying, ‘Hey, this agency is coming down hard on me. Get them to back off,’ — is that even worse?” Mr. Briffault said. “It’s an open question.”

“把这个公开出来，而不是让埃隆·马斯克打电话给白宫说，‘嘿，这个机构在搞我。让他们滚远点，’——后者是不是更糟糕？”布里法特说。“这是一个仍然没有答案的问题。”