Nov 6 (Reuters) - Elon Musk's backing of Donald Trump's

decisive victory for a second presidency puts the billionaire

entrepreneur in an extraordinary position of influence to help

his companies secure favorable government treatment.

Musk contributed at least $119 million to a pro-Trump

spending group, federal records show, part of a wider strategy

to insulate his companies from regulation or enforcement and

boost their government support, according to Reuters interviews

with six Musk-company sources familiar with his political and

business dealings and two government officials who have

extensive interactions with Musk firms. Musk has business

interests that depend heavily on government regulation,

subsidies or policy, from Tesla's electric cars to Neuralink's

brain chips to SpaceX's rockets.

"Elon Musk sees all regulations as getting in the way of his

businesses and innovation," said one former top SpaceX official

who spoke on condition of anonymity. "He sees the Trump

administration as the vehicle for getting rid of as many

regulations as he can, so he can do whatever he wants, as fast

as he wants."

Musk endorsed Trump on July 13, the day the candidate was

shot in the ear in a Pennsylvania assassination attempt. Musk

was a frequent speaker for Trump during the waning days of his

campaign and spent election night with the president-elect at

his Mar-a-Lago club in Florida. Trump has also promised to make

Musk an "efficiency czar" in his administration.

Tesla, SpaceX, Neuralink, Musk and the Trump campaign did

not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Musk once fashioned his image primarily around fighting

climate change by building electric cars to limit pollution and

rockets that could one day help humans flee to Mars from a dying

earth. He's now at the forefront of a growing class of Silicon

Valley billionaires championing a libertarian movement as a

backlash to the California region's historically liberal

ideology - which Musk now derides as a "woke mind virus."

His rising political involvement could put his industrial

empire in a position that current and former employees likened

to the Gilded Age, when industry barons including J.P. Morgan

and John D. Rockefeller held broad sway over government policy

that impacted their companies and their wealth.

Musk's growing power excited his fans and backers who also

view government as an impediment to his high-tech ventures,

including Shervin Pishevar, a venture capitalist who has

invested in SpaceX and advocated for Silicon Valley's shift

toward Trump. Cutting regulation, he said, would speed SpaceX's

efforts to get to Mars.

"He's going to make America function like a startup,"

Pishevar said of Musk. "There's no greater entrepreneur in

American history than Elon Musk."

DRIVING AUTO POLICY

Musk's political ascension comes after perceived slights

under the Biden administration that accelerated Musk's embrace

of Trump's rightwing populism. For example, Tesla wasn't invited

to an August 2021 EV summit at the White House that featured

only unionized Detroit automakers that produce a fraction of the

EVs Tesla sells.

The fortunes of Tesla could rise or fall depending on a

second Trump administration's treatment of the diverse array of

subsidies, policies and regulatory schemes governing electric

and autonomous vehicles. Democratic administrations have

historically championed many such pro-EV policies, with Tesla's

support. Musk could potentially now protect them despite the

Republican party's traditional rejection of EVs - and Trump's

ridicule of Biden's EV policy on the campaign trail.

For Tesla, Musk's goals include getting the U.S. National

Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), its primary

federal safety regulator, to hold off on potential enforcement

actions involving the safety of Tesla's current

driver-assistance systems, called "Autopilot" and "Full

Self-Driving," according to a person familiar with the matter.

Musk, the person said, could also push for favorable regulation

of autonomous vehicles and robotaxis that Tesla plans. For his

new artificial intelligence startup xAI, Musk could shape

nascent rules or a new agency, the person said.

Musk said last month he expects to roll out driverless

Teslas in California and Texas by next year, and start

production in 2026 on a fully autonomous "Cybercab," which would

have no steering wheels and pedals. Tesla would need a waiver

from NHTSA to produce such a vehicle. There are no nationwide

regulations governing how autonomous vehicles can be deployed.

That means operators have to deal with different regulations in

each state.

Musk bemoaned the challenges of the state-by-state

regulatory landscape in a Tesla earnings call last month and

advocated for one federal approval process.

Despite Musk's complaints of a stifling bureaucracy, SpaceX

currently leads the world in government-financed rocket launches

and Tesla sells nearly two million heavily subsidized EVs

annually.

Tesla shares were up 15% on Wednesday after Trump's

election to a second term.

At his brain-implant startup Neuralink, Musk has long

complained that the slow FDA approval process has slowed the

firm from implanting the device inside human brains. Musk could

use his rising clout in a Trump administration to cut through

some of the safety-related approvals in that process, according

to a source familiar with the company's operations.

GROWING POWER

Musk's designs on setting up a lax regulatory environment

comes as his companies already face fewer regulatory

requirements and softer enforcement of current federal rules,

according to the six Musk company sources familiar with Musk's

regulatory dealings and his political strategy. Some federal

agencies already struggle to muster the political will to go

after Musk companies for alleged policy violations or safety

issues, they said, in part because Musk is the dominant player

in highly-regulated and politicized industries such as electric

cars and rockets.

NASA, for instance, has relied on SpaceX's know-how in such

missions as the expected rescue of Boeing's Starliner astronauts

who are still stranded in space.

NASA and other agencies often try to avoid alienating the

company, said a federal official who is familiar with the

company's government interactions and spoke on condition of

anonymity. "NASA needs SpaceX more than SpaceX needs NASA," the

official said.

NASA has invested more than $15 billion into SpaceX. SpaceX

is also separately developing a network of hundreds of spy

satellites with a U.S. intelligence agency, Reuters has

reported.

A Reuters investigation last year documented at least 600

worker injuries at SpaceX facilities nationwide and found that

Musk's rocket company disregarded safety regulations and

standard practices. Worker injury rates at SpaceX facilities

also continued to exceed an industry average last year,

according to a Reuters review of safety data.

Neither NASA nor OSHA, which regulates worker safety, has

taken any significant enforcement action against SpaceX over

worker injuries and related reporting violations. NASA declined

to comment on Musk's potential influence after Trump's election.

Musk has nonetheless excoriated the government for trying to

enforce the rules even as his company has moved faster than

competitors. In an interview before the election, he described

federal enforcement as overly harsh and said he aimed to get rid

of "insane" regulations.

"Eventually, you just can't get anything done," said Musk

during an appearance at the All-in Summit, a gathering

affiliated with a tech podcast by the same name.

However, the U.S. government does not regulate the safety of

participants in private space flights in orbit due to a

temporary Congressionally imposed ban on the agency's oversight,

to encourage innovation in the industry. A Trump administration,

influenced by Musk, is expected to push for softer regulations

on this front, according to four SpaceX sources familiar with

its regulatory strategy.

Musk and SpaceX see the company's dominance as evidence that

it can handle less oversight, the sources said, even as an

unfettered Musk could have unintended consequences for the

industry.

One former SpaceX official cautioned that taking a lax

regulatory attitude in an industry as dangerous as

rocket-building "could blow up in everyone's face and set back

the industry for a decade."