Donald Trump, the president-elect, will begin his next word with an even bigger web of economic ties, reviving questions about how a billionaire entrepreneur and his friends may offer in the White House without having conflicts of interest.
One outside group that filed a lawsuit against Trump claimed that during his first term in office, he engaged in 3,400 issues.
Four years later, Trump’s claim may be even harder to keep. While his brother Eric announced a new Trump Tower may be constructed in Saudi Arabia, he now holds a majority stake in the publicly traded social media platform Truth Social.
Trump has close relations to Elon Musk, making him the co-chair of a new macroeconomic section that may receive similar problems because of his rights of Tesla and SpaceX. Both are gathering to million-dollar state agreements and high-stakes studies.
The situation” just]cries ] out for some sort of action to break that relationship” with Musk, according to Steven Mintz, an ethics expert and professor at California Polytechnic State University.
Trump apparently had a phone conversation with Iranian embassy to the UN and Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky, whose nation relies on Musk’s Starlink companies for online exposure during its war against Russia.
After the emoluments section dispute erupted, Eric Trump, who, like in 2017, will continue to be in charge of the Trump Organization while his father maintains its rights, insists that there will be a “very big wall” between the business and the government. However, his ethics plan won’t stop international business deals, according to the New York Times.
A representative for the Trump Organization did not respond to the Washington Examiner’s request for comment.
According to Mintz, conflicts of interest have at least a “pretty awful” appearance.
” The government has to run in accordance with ethical standards”, he said. ” He’s not off to a good start”.
But Trump, who will never run for president again, faces less danger of criminal prosecution, civil litigation, or impeachment in a second term, according to Claremont McKenna College politics professor John Pitney, with traditional presidential” constraints” centered on “public opinion and respect for established norms”.
” These constraints have little influence on Trump”, Pitney told the Washington Examiner. ” At least half of Americans believe that most politicians are corrupt.” So a common attitude is:’ So what if Trump’s a crook? They’re all crooks.’ And Trump sees himself as a disruptor who is unconcerned with the established rules.
This week, Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA ) wrote to his transition team to ask for more information on how to avoid ethics conflicts with Musk. Trump’s attitude toward conflicts of interest was revealed. The team released its ethics strategy last month, but Warren and Warren argue that federal laws and regulations should apply to Musk, a private citizen.
Musk spending$ 277 million in the lead-up to the 2024 election on Trump and other Republican candidates has already paid dividends, according to Warren, with Tesla’s stock increasing Musk’s net worth by$ 70 billion.
” Mr. Musk’s substantial private interests present a massive conflict of interest with the role he has taken on as your ‘ unofficial co-president,'”  , Warren wrote. The American public has no way of knowing whether the advice he is giving to you in secret is beneficial for the country or just good for his own bottom line right now.
Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, the watchdog that brought up Trump, has also urged him to divest his business interests before his Jan. 20 inauguration, claiming that the unsuccessful lawsuit on emoluments has “likely contributed to his lack of concern about ethics rules.”
According to CREW spokeswoman Jenna Grand, Trump has only expanded his business portfolio since taking office, making him more ripe for corruption, and his company continuing to make foreign deals is a sign that he will not even make the minor ethical concessions he did last time.
In response to Trump’s critics, incoming White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt argued that Trump “has assembled the most impressive and qualified team of innovators, entrepreneurs, and geniuses to advise and staff our government”.
She also emphasized that Trump “didn’t get into politics for profit,” removing himself from his “multibillion-dollar real estate empire to run for office, and foregoing his government salary, making him the first president to actually lose net worth while serving in the White House.”
The Trump-Vance transition will continue to be held to the highest ethical and legal standards, according to Leavitt,” a standard unfamiliar to a career politician whose societal impact is 1/1024th of Elon Musk’s.”
Trump has long taunted Warren’s claim to Native American ancestry. The Washington Examiner‘s request for comment was not received by a spokeswoman for Warren.
Business magnates contribute millions to both Trump’s and Kamala Harris ‘ presidential campaigns, which is not unusual for billionaires to coziness with sitting presidents. Since his election, tech leaders have also been donating to Trump’s inaugural fund.
Democrats have voiced criticism for the degree to which Musk has inserted himself into the political process. He vehemently opposed a House deal to fund the government until March on Wednesday, helping to stifle its future with a number of posts on X.
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In part, the House’s oversight committee will serve as a venue for the party to file its complaints next year as a result of the Democratic scrutiny.
“]Trump ] may feel more emboldened, but that may also make him more reckless”, said Rep. Gerry Connolly (D-VA ), the incoming ranking member. ” There is a law on this land, and we’re going to make sure it’s enforced”.
