Musk Stains Future Federal Contract Bids
Protest all bids in the U.S. Court of Federal Claims
Undisclosed insider information is an exclusionary conflict of interest. The newest Musk gaffe is that he created a massive hurdle to the award of any future government contract. Through his DOGE efforts, we can legally confront Musk with Insider Information protests on any upcoming Government Contract bid.
Musk cannot win an insider information protest in COURT. Judges don’t stand for conflicts of interest and are outside the influence-vulnerability of GAO. I expect that sharing this conflict of interest information will cause Musk to tuck tail and run. A bid protest by itself can easily block an award for 2 years, irrespective of outcome.
As you have read, Musk had an eye for buying companies with future potential. That is his genius, however, Musk also shows extreme degrees of rank stupidity. Musk is unable to correlate how his actions impact diverse holdings, i.e., his Twitter investment debacle. His and his partners’ overall stake in X of $44 billion has shed $24 billion in value—a vaporization of 55% of the wealth as of 12/2024. That loss has little other parallel outside of devastating corporate scandals.
Musk is setting financial loss records with his belligerent mouth and chaotic actions. European Tesla sales are off 50+%. The instant effort with DOGE is a similar case in point. He has precluded himself from future Government awards, in my studied opinion. He is oblivious to downside risk.
Bid Protests. Things to know in bid protesting, get an attorney steeped in bid protests. Do not rely on me. I follow my advice, I get an attorney. The attorney will do all filings.
1. You must be deemed an interested bidder. That means typically you are the horse that came in second. However, you must also protest as soon as you become aware of the discrepancy. That is pretty much when the RFP is released. That is when there is officially a procurement. THAT MEANS NOW if the RFP is on the street.
2. If you are a bidder and you suspect Musk’s company is bidding as a prime, subcontractor, or team mate in an LLC, your protest challenge is for the proposed award.
3. The Procurement Flaw. Inconsistencies should not be present during the solicitation period, on the bid application, or during scoring. Each bidder should be given the same information and no variations should occur during any part of the process. Therein lies Musk’s problem. Musk has already obtained unreleased information of upcoming major procurements and gained an enormous advantage over competitors. Therefore he has access to undisclosed information.
4. Protests can be done prior to award, but there must be an actual procurement, i.e., an RFP has been released.
5. You must have a sound business case of being denied equal treatment. I have been personally involved in having a $1.2 billion contract award overturned due to similar conflicts of interest (DOE OCRWM-SAIC vs. TRW (Yucca Mountain).
6. New rules apply regarding the GAO’s electronic protest filing system and a $500 fee. You can leave the protest with GAO, but you will be better served going to the U.S. Court of Federal Claims. I do not trust that the GAO can act independently now. U.S. Court of Federal Claims (202) 357-6400.
7. If you require technical assistance or assistance with respect to a specific case, you can contact protests@gao.gov or 202-512-5436. I would have the attorney handle all actions.
I need to add that a protest must be filed before the next milestone in the procurement chain. Otherwise the protest can be deemed untimely. So if an RFP is put on the street, the protest must be filed before bids are due.
Well spoken,Carl, and true in my experience as a USAID project manager. However, Elon just picked up another 400 million in USG contracts yesterday. In my learning and experience, all of this is completely illegal. If he is doing any work inside the government, he must divest himself of his contracts. He is not doing this. However, Trump was supposed to do that in his first term and never did it. It's like stepping through the looking glass into some other weird, twisted reality. Very unsettling. Thanks for this piece.