It is now fair to ask the question: Is Elon Musk a national security risk?

现在，我们可以问这样一个问题了：埃隆·马斯克会对国家安全构成风险吗？

According to numerous interviews and remarks, Mr. Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency co-leader, Vivek Ramaswamy, once appeared to believe he was. In May 2023, Mr. Ramaswamy went so far as to publicly state, “I have no reason to think Elon won’t jump like a circus monkey when Xi Jinping calls in the hour of need,” a reference to China’s leader. In a separate X post targeting Mr. Musk, he wrote, “the U.S. needs leaders who aren’t in China’s pocket.”

从诸多采访和言论来看，与马斯克共同领导政府效率部的维韦克·拉马斯瓦米似乎一度认为，他的确是一个风险。2023年5月，拉马斯瓦米甚至公开表示，“我有充分的理由认为，在习近平需要的时候，埃隆会像马戏团的猴子一样跳起来。”在另一篇针对马斯克的X推文中，他写道，“美国需要不受中国控制的领导人。”

Mr. Ramaswamy has since walked back his numerous public criticisms of Mr. Musk, but he was right to raise concerns. According to news reports, Mr. Musk and his rocket company, SpaceX, face federal reviews from the Air Force, the Defense Department’s Office of Inspector General and the under secretary of defense for intelligence and security for failing to provide details of Mr. Musk’s meetings with foreign leaders and other potential violations of national-security rules.

拉马斯瓦米后来撤回了对马斯克的多次公开批评，但他提出的担忧是有道理的。据新闻报道，由于未能提供马斯克与外国领导人会面的细节，及其他可能违反国家安全规定的行为，马斯克和他的火箭公司SpaceX正面临美国空军、国防部监察长办公室和国防部负责情报与安全的副部长的联邦审查。

These alleged infractions are just the beginning of my worries. Mr. Musk’s business ventures are heavily reliant on China. He borrowed at least $1.4 billion from banks controlled by the Chinese government to help build Tesla’s Shanghai gigafactory, which was responsible for more than half of Tesla’s global deliveries in the third quarter of 2024.

这些据称的违规行为只是我担忧的开始。马斯克的商业活动严重依赖中国。他从中国政府控制的银行贷款至少14亿美元，用于建造特斯拉在上海的超级工厂，该厂占到特斯拉2024年三季度全球交付量的一半以上。

China does not tend to give things away. The country’s laws stipulate that the Communist Party can demand intelligence from any company doing business in China, in exchange for participating in the country’s markets.

中国可没有白给人东西的习惯。该国法律规定，中共可以要求任何在华做生意的公司提供情报，作为进入中国市场的交换条件。

This means Mr. Musk’s business dealings in China could require him to hand over sensitive classified information, learned either through his business interests or his proximity to President-elect Donald Trump. No federal agency has accused him of disclosing such material, but as Mr. Ramaswamy put it, China has recognized that U.S. companies are fickle. He added, “If Xi Jinping says ‘jump,’ they’ll say, ‘How high?’”

这意味着马斯克在中国的商业交易可能需要他交出敏感的机密信息，这些信息要么是通过他的商业利益，要么是通过他与候任总统特朗普的亲密关系获得的。没有联邦机构指控他披泄露了类似材料，但正如拉马斯瓦米所说，中国已经认识到美国公司善于见风使舵。他补充说，“如果习近平说‘跳’，他们会问‘需要跳多高？’”

Mr. Musk’s relationship with China’s leaders could prove a problem for America’s national security given that SpaceX has a near monopoly on the United States’ rocket launches. The United States is in an intense space race with China. In a May interview, Maj. Gen. Gregory J. Gagnon, the deputy chief of space operations for intelligence at the U.S. Space Force, said that there has never been a buildup comparable to what the Chinese are attempting in space — not even during World War II — and that “an adversary arming this fast is profoundly concerning.” The last thing the United States needs is for China to potentially have an easier way of obtaining classified intelligence and national security information.

鉴于SpaceX几乎垄断了美国的火箭发射，马斯克与中国领导人的关系可能会对美国的国家安全构成风险。美国正在与中国展开一场激烈的太空竞赛。在5月的一次采访中，美国太空部队情报部门太空作战副主管格雷戈里·加尼翁少将表示，中国意图进行的太空战备是史上空前的——即使在第二次世界大战期间也没有过，而且“对手如此快速地武装起来，令人深感忧虑”。美国最不想看到的，就是中国可能变得更容易获得机密情报和国家安全信息。

Mr. Musk already has a history of pleasing the Chinese Communist Party. He heaped praise on Mr. Xi to commemorate the party’s 100th anniversary. In 2022, earning thanks from Chinese officials, he went to bat for the party by arguing that Taiwan should become a special administrative region of China.

马斯克对中共的讨好早已有之。他曾在该党成立100年的时候，对习近平大加赞美。2022年，他站出来为该党说话，称台湾应成为中国的一个特别行政区，得到中国官员的感谢。

In May 2023, Mr. Musk also reportedly told Qin Gang, then the Chinese foreign minister, that Tesla opposed the United States decoupling from China, stating that U.S. and Chinese interests are “intertwined like conjoined twins.”

据报道，2023年5月，马斯克还告诉时任中国外交部长秦刚，特斯拉反对美国与中国脱钩，称美中利益“像连体双胞胎一般交织在一起”。

Although claiming to be a free-speech advocate, Mr. Musk was the first foreigner to contribute an article to China Cyberspace, a magazine that is run by the Communist regime’s internet censorship agency.

尽管自称言论自由的倡导者，马斯克却是在《中国网信》杂志上发文的首个外国人，该杂志的主办方是中共政权下属的互联网审查机构。

Chris Stewart, a Republican former congressman and senior member of the House Intelligence Committee, whom Mr. Trump reportedly considered nominating as director of national intelligence, once pushed for closed-door briefings on Mr. Musk’s China ties. Mr. Trump’s choice for secretary of state, Senator Marco Rubio, who previously accused Tesla of covering up for the Chinese Communist Party, introduced a bill to prevent NASA and other federal agencies from giving contracts to companies linked to China or Russia.

前共和党国会议员、众议院情报委员会资深成员克里斯·斯图尔特（据报道，特朗普考虑提名他担任国家情报总监）曾推动就马斯克与中国的关系举行闭门简报会。被特朗普选中担任国务卿一职的参议员马可·卢比奥曾指责特斯拉为中共掩盖真相，并提出一项法案，阻止NASA和其他联邦机构向与中国或俄罗斯有联系的公司提供合同。

The question now is whether the incoming Trump administration will take this risk seriously.

现在的问题是，即将上任的特朗普政府是否会认真对待这一风险。

Mr. Musk is one of Mr. Trump’s top advisers. Mr. Trump may have gone so far as to reject a bipartisan congressional budget measure because it did not have Mr. Musk’s stamp of approval. In November, after his election, Mr. Trump traveled to Texas to watch Mr. Musk’s Starship launch. That is fine, but doing nothing to ensure America’s space apparatus remains secure from potential vulnerabilities would not be.

马斯克是特朗普的高级顾问之一。特朗普对一项在国会得到两党支持的预算案的否决，可能只是因为它没能得到马斯克的首肯。11月，当选后的特朗普前往得克萨斯州观看马斯克的“星舰”发射。这本身没问题，但如果不采取措施确保美国的太空机构免受潜在漏洞的威胁，那就不好了。

The Musk-China concerns might be just the beginning. In a November letter to Attorney General Merrick Garland and the Pentagon’s inspector general, two Democratic senators asked that they investigate Mr. Musk’s “reliability as a government contractor and a clearance holder” because of his reported conversations with Vladimir Putin and other Russian officials. In a separate letter, the senators asked the Air Force secretary, Frank Kendall, to reconsider SpaceX’s “outsized role” in America’s commercial space integration. Mr. Kendall wrote back stating that, while he was legally prohibited from discussing Mr. Musk’s case, he shared their concerns.

对马斯克与中国关系的担忧，可能只是开始。在11月写给司法部长梅里克·加兰和国防部监察长的一封信中，两名民主党参议员要求他们调查马斯克“作为政府承包商和安全许可持有人的可靠性”，因为有报道称他与普京和其他俄罗斯官员举行过对话。在另一封信中，这两名参议员们要求空军部长弗兰克·肯德尔重新考虑SpaceX在美国商业航天整合中的“突出作用”。肯德尔回信说，虽然法律禁止他讨论马斯克的案子，但他与他们一样担心。

If the federal investigations demonstrate deep connections to China and Russia, the federal government should consider revoking Mr. Musk’s security clearance. It should already be thinking about using alternatives to SpaceX’s launch services.

如果联邦调查发现马斯克与中俄有着很深的联系，那么联邦政府应考虑撤销马斯克的安全许可。联邦政府应该已经在考虑使用其他方式来替代SpaceX的发射服务。

The fact that Mr. Musk spent a quarter of a billion dollars to help re-elect Mr. Trump does not give the incoming White House the license to look the other way at the national security risks he may pose. If Mr. Trump and his appointees mean what they say about getting tough on America’s adversaries, then they will act on this matter without delay. There is too much at stake to ignore what’s right in front of them.

马斯克花了2.5亿美元帮助特朗普再次当选，但这并不意味着即将上任的新政府可以无视他带来的潜在国家安全风险。如果特朗普和他任命的官员真要严厉打击美国的对手，那么他们就应该毫不拖延地就此事采取行动。事关重大，他们不能对眼前的事情视而不见。