WASHINGTON (WS News) – In picking billionaire Elon Musk to be “our cost cutter” for the U.S. government, President-elect Donald Trump won’t be the first American president to empower a business tycoon to look for ways to dramatically cut federal regulations.
President Ronald Reagan tapped J. Peter Grace to lead a bureaucratic cost-cutting commission in 1982. Still, the chemical business magnate had fewer conflicts of interest than the world’s richest man does today.
Musk’s SpaceX holds billions of dollars in NASA contracts. He’s CEO of Tesla, an electric car business that benefits from government tax incentives and is subject to auto safety rules. His social media platform X, artificial intelligence startup xAI, brain implant maker Neuralink and tunnel-building Boring company all intersect with the federal government in various ways.
“There’s direct conflicts between his businesses and government’s interest,” said Ann Skeet, director of leadership ethics at Santa Clara University’s Markkula Center. “He’s now in a position to try and curry favor for those enterprises.”
Musk is also more influential, having pumped an estimated $200 million through his political action committee to help elect Trump, made himself a fixture at Mar-a-Lago since the presidential election and is on regular speaking terms with like-minded political world leaders, from Argentina’s President Javier Milei to Italy’s Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni.
Trump has said Musk and former GOP presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy will lead a new “Department of Government Efficiency,” or DOGE, — a joke name that references the cryptocurrency Dogecoin and appeals to Musk’s sense of humor.
“We finally have a mandate to delete the mountain of choking regulations that do not serve the greater good,” Musk said Wednesday on X.
Trump has said that Musk and Ramaswamy will work from outside the government to offer the White House “advice and guidance” and will partner with the Office of Management and Budget to drive structural reform — some of which could only be done through Congress.
“If it’s a commission, it’s outside the government” and Musk could not have a White House office or official government title, said Richard Painter, a White House ethics lawyer during the George W. Bush administration. “Then, the president takes the advice or doesn’t.”
If it were a true government agency, however, Musk would run afoul of federal conflict of interest laws unless he divested from his businesses or recused from government matters involving them, Painter said.
Trump could grant a rare waiver exempting Musk from those laws, a move that has been politically unpopular in the past, Painter said.
Tesla, SpaceX and X didn’t immediately respond to requests for comment Wednesday about whether Musk would recuse himself. The Trump transition team also didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.
However it is structured, Musk’s ideas are expected to have an influence.
