Rocket Lab In Spotlight After Report Says US Evaluated Ending Some SpaceX Contracts After Trump-Musk Feud

The administration officials reportedly determined that they couldn’t eliminate most of those contracts because they are critical to the Defense Department and NASA.

SpaceX rival Rocket Lab USA (RKLB) stock is expected to garner attention on Monday after a report said that the Trump administration reviewed all federal contracts of the Elon Musk-led company to identify potential waste in the multi-billion-dollar agreements.

The Wall Street Journal reported on Saturday, citing people familiar with the matter, that the U.S. government launched the review just days after the public spat between the billionaire Tesla CEO and President Trump in June.

The administration officials reportedly determined that they couldn’t eliminate most of those contracts because they are critical to the Defense Department and NASA. SpaceX provides rocket launch services to the U.S. space agency as well as satellite broadband through its unit Starlink. SpaceX President Gwynne Shotwell also met with White House officials in recent weeks, as per the report.

While Musk headed the Trump administration’s efforts to cut costs through the Department of Government Efficiency, his relationship with the President soured following an online dispute regarding Trump’s ‘Big Beautiful Bill,’ which became law, earlier this month.

Musk raised alarms about the rise in the U.S. federal debt, and Trump responded that a way to cut spending would be to cancel the contracts awarded to Musk’s companies. The South Africa-born billionaire then threatened to scrap the Crew Dragon program, which is the key tool for NASA to carry astronauts to the International Space Station.

The federal government has remained concerned about SpaceX’s dominance and has urged industry players to step up ahead of NASA’s ambitious plans to send humans to the moon by 2027.

Retail sentiment on Stocktwits about Rocket Lab was in the ‘extremely bullish’ territory, while retail chatter was ‘high.’ Several users were optimistic about the company's growth prospects.

“They (U.S.) want to end the contracts but can’t. Rocket Lab does not have the capability to replace those contracts and won’t for several years, but is growing steadily,” one retail trader said.

Rocket Lab is currently gearing up for the first deployment of its Neutron launch vehicles, which will help it deliver larger payloads and better compete with SpaceX.

The stock has more than doubled this year.

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