Elon Musk, the world’s wealthiest person and leader of multiple companies with billions in federal contracts, faces intensifying scrutiny over his role as a special government employee in the Trump administration. Musk, who oversees SpaceX and Tesla, has been appointed to head the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), a new advisory group tasked with dismantling federal agencies, while he is receiving ethics waivers that remain undisclosed to the public. Musk spent a quarter of a billion dollars to help re-elect Donald Trump.
“But the real issue here is that he’s talking a big game about transparency, but he’s not being transparent himself,” Fox News host Jessica Tarlov said during a broadcast. Tarlov added that requiring Musk to submit financial disclosures like other government employees is essential, noting that his companies hold tens of billions in government contracts. She emphasized that he should disclose his financial records as head of DOGE since taxpayer money funds his various technological ventures through federal contracts.
“And President Trump said yesterday, ‘Oh well, he doesn’t need to do it,’” Tarlov added.
The situation has prompted Representative John B. Larson to introduce the Ending DOGE Conflicts Act, legislation aimed at closing loopholes currently allowing Musk to operate without independent oversight. The bill would mandate public financial disclosure and review by the Office of Government Ethics, addressing concerns about Musk’s conflicts of interest.
Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt intensified the debate during a White House press briefing on Wednesday by defending the administration’s decision to withhold both Musk’s financial disclosure forms and his ethics waivers from public view.
A New York Times investigation revealed that Musk’s businesses face more than 32 open complaints across 11 federal agencies; many of those agencies are now targets of DOGE’s restructuring efforts. These complaints span multiple concerns, including safety probes into Tesla’s automated driving systems and labor practices at SpaceX.
The scope of DOGE’s influence has expanded rapidly, with Musk’s team gaining access to at least 15 federal agencies. DOGE’s actions have included shuttering diversity and inclusion programs and, in some instances, attempting to dismantle entire agencies. These moves have triggered legal challenges from federal workers’ unions, resulting in several court victories that temporarily halted DOGE’s initiatives.
DOGE’s potential impact on ongoing federal investigations into Tesla is of particular concern to safety advocates. These include National Highway Traffic Safety Administration crash investigations of Tesla’s partially automated vehicles and a Department of Justice criminal probe examining potential misrepresentation of the vehicle’s self-driving capabilities.
A group of senators, including Elizabeth Warren, Jamie Raskin, Jeff Merkley, and Adam Schiff, has demanded that Musk voluntarily release his financial disclosures. The lawmakers argue that self-policing of conflicts of interest is insufficient given Musk’s extensive business interests in federal contracts and his role in reshaping government agencies.
Questions have also emerged about the DOGE team’s composition and qualifications. An investigation has revealed that one team member, 19-year-old Edward Coristine, was previously terminated from a cybersecurity internship for sharing confidential information. Coristine, who now has access to sensitive government data, has founded multiple companies, including Tesla.Sexy LLC, which controls at least two domains registered in Russia, one of which is active.
The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau has become a focus of DOGE’s efforts, coinciding with the agency’s plans to regulate Musk’s mobile payment service on X. This targeting of an agency poised to oversee Musk’s business interests has intensified calls for greater transparency and oversight of potential conflicts.
