Billionaire , Elon Musk , does have a fascinating part within the , Trump presidency, but the headline that allows him to assist in the state has drawn the ire of ethics watchdogs for years.
Musk is protected from normal ethics disclosures thanks to his position as a specific government employee, a flaw that has been used by administrations from both parties for the past decade.
According to Richard Painter, the deputy ethics attorney for previous President George W. Bush from 2005 to 2007,” special federal workers have been a pain in the neck since Day One.” They deal with problems that might be affecting their businesses, but there are no people financial records to record them.
For Musk, the world’s richest man, the possible conflicts of interest are massive. He has had numerous dealings with authorities that oversee his businesses because he is a big state company.
As a unique state staff, Musk is excluded from some disclosure rules required of full-time people, or what Painter describes as the “SGE reporting gap”.
Specific federal employees are paid or unpaid for no more than 130 nights of subsequent paid time. They are supposed to give critical but , limited , service to the government , that might be absent among an agency’s regular people.
However, some presidents have brought in particular federal employees for many broader purposes, usually high-profile director roles, which have attracted scrutiny from ethics officials.
Before she finally joined the management full-time in the lead up to the midterm elections in 2022, the Biden White House hired best communications director Anita Dunn double as a specific government worker. She was paid just below the publication threshold, keeping her clientele list private and have a sizable asset investment.
Prior to the midterm elections, former president Joe Biden’s chief of staff and one of his most wealthy colleagues, Jeff Zients, was even hired as an unpaid unique government employee.
Although Presidents from both parties have used the loophole, Painter contends that any Democratic criticism of Musk would have little impact on special government employees because they were never intended to be powerful people with the ear of the president and significant administrative influence.
Keith Noreika was hired as a special government employee to run the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency before Zients and Dunn, which attracted criticism from the previous Trump White House. Hillary Clinton previously raised eyebrows in her campaign as secretary of state by hiring Huma Abedin as a special government employee, which allowed Abedin to work at the Clinton Foundation while advising her at State.
Given that he has pledged to overhaul large swaths of the government and has hired his own staff at the Department of Government Efficiency, Musk’s problems may be greater than those of anyone else before him.
According to Scott Amey, general counsel at the Project on Government Oversight,” Musk should overreach any of the transparency rules and recuse himself from meetings that violate his companies ‘ contracts and regulatory interests.” In order to avoid infringing on the public’s trust, please disclose who is on the DOGE team, who they are meeting with, and all of their work.
The White House contacted The Washington Examiner to inquire whether Musk’s critics will win or lose in the next 130 days. Officials sent a statement from press secretary Karoline Leavitt, but they did not respond directly to those inquiries.
Elon Musk, a special government employee, has complied with all applicable federal laws, according to Leavitt.
Jeff Hauser, executive director of the Revolving Door Project, argued that Musk’s ethical matters extend beyond his status as a large government contractor.
Tesla, Musk’s electric vehicle company, is the subject of a National Highway Traffic Safety Administration investigation into traffic accidents that may have been caused by self-driving technology. Musk and the Federal Aviation Administration both filed lawsuits against the National Labor Relations Board, and the Federal Aviation Administration also proposed civil penalties against SpaceX.
According to Hauser,” His appointment as an SGE raises a significant number of ethical issues,” as well as the breadth of executive branch access he appears to have.  ,
The fact that wealthy people such as Dunn, Zients, and Musk are able to circumvent ethics disclosures by accepting relatively low pay is also problematic, Hauser added.
” We think the idea that if you’re rich enough, you can essentially buy opacity over transparency is a real problem”, he said.
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For the moment, Painter said he could find himself in trouble if proof that Musk had worked for more than 130 days was revealed. However, for now, critics may have little recourse to Musk’s special government status.
Someone will go to court and demand to see his financial disclosure forms if he goes to 131 days and says,” He’s really a full-time employee.”
