Elon Musk, after months omnipresent in the White House, was nowhere near the Oval Office on May 20 when Donald Trump announced his new “Golden Dome” space weapons system. He didn’t have to be. He had already maneuvered his companies to benefit substantially from the $25 billion Trump said he would spend immediately and the hundreds of billions in federal contracts the new effort will spawn.

Elon Musk said in an interview that he's “disappointed” by the cost of Donald Trump’s much-ballyhooed sweeping tax bill passed by the House.

It is thought that the legislation could increase the deficit - or the difference between what the US government spends and the revenue that it receives - by about $600bn (£444bn) in the next fiscal ...