White House Says Musk Will Police His Own Conflicts of Interest
By Dana Hull
5 February 2025
The White House said Elon Musk, the billionaire leading President Donald Trump’s government cost-cutting efforts, will determine if there are conflicts of interest between his work reviewing federal spending and his overlapping empire of six companies.
“The president was already asked to answer this question this week,” said White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt at a briefing Wednesday. “And he said, if Elon Musk comes across a conflict of interest with the contracts and the funding that DOGE is overseeing, that Elon will excuse himself from those contracts, and he has again abided by all applicable laws.”
Musk, as the “special government employee” leading a federal team known as the Department of Government Efficiency, is subject to conflict of interest rules, but those are largely enforced by White House officials.
Musk, 53, is the CEO of SpaceX, which has significant government contracts with NASA and the US military. The company’s rocket launches are regulated by the Federal Aviation Administration. He is also the CEO of Tesla Inc., the electric car-maker that has been the subject of probes by several federal agencies ranging from The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration to the Securities and Exchange Commission.
“I don’t know of any other case, anywhere, in which an individual could determine for himself whether he had a conflict of interest,” said Donald Kettl, a professor emeritus and former dean at the University of Maryland School of Public Policy. “In fact, self-determination of a conflict of interest is itself a conflict of interest.”
The executive order creating DOGE tasked the group with “modernizing Federal technology and software to maximize governmental efficiency and productivity.” Since then Musk has moved swiftly, with DOGE staff now embedded at agencies across the government, including the Office of Personnel Management, the General Services Administration and the Treasury Department.
— With assistance from Stephanie Lai