Elon Musk’s six major conflicts of interest with the federal government
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As co-chair of Trump’s ‘Department of Government Efficiency’, the world’s richest man is likely to get richer. The Federal Advisory Committee Act says in plain language that an advisory committee – as Elon Musk proposes the “Department of Government Efficiency” to be – must ensure that its recommendations are not biased by any special interest.
Yet, Musk, the richest man on Earth, has a wider and deeper range of potential conflicts of interest with the federal government than perhaps any person has ever had. Musk owns, directs or invests in a wide array of industries, touching dozens of departments and agencies of the federal government, from the Department of Transportation with Tesla, to the Department of Defense with SpaceX, to the Department of Health and Human Services with Neuralink. His companies are the subject of federal investigations and regulatory actions, including accusations of hiring discrimination, environmental damage and safety deficiencies.
Donald Trump has dismissed concerns about Musk’s conflicts of interest, saying in his recent interview with Time Magazine: “I think that Elon puts the country long before his company.”. The electric car company where Musk serves as CEO is worth $1.25tn today, more than every other publicly traded car company in America combined – this, despite ranking 10th in revenue and ninth in earnings among them. The stock valuation is a product of expectations: that it will eventually put other car companies out of business, that it will capture their market share, that it will evade the labor and pension costs of legacy car makers, and that it will escape deep liability for production problems with its cars.
