Elon Musk is wearing multiple hats this election season, sparking questions about how his dual role as a tech leader and vocal surrogate for former President Trump could lead to conflicts of interest.
Musk, the owner of Tesla and SpaceX, holds government contracts worth billions of dollars with more than a dozen federal agencies.
While Trump has waffled on whether Musk would be a part of his second administration, the tech magnate has been floated to lead a panel focused on cutting government costs.
Former government officials and ethics experts suggest Musk’s leadership of a new “government efficiency commission,” which could oversee the agencies that grant government contracts and subsidies to Musk-owned companies, could risk the panel’s objectivity and fairness.
Regardless of whether Musk takes on an actual role in the administration, the “optics” of his alliance with Trump will raise questions for voters, according to John P. Pelissero, the director of government ethics at the Markkula Center for Applied Ethics at Santa Clara University.
“A reasonable individual can look at a situation such as that of a very wealthy individual who has government contracts coming into the government where he would be put in a position where he could influence current and future contracts and regulations of his businesses,” he said.
A New York Times analysis published Monday found Tesla, Musk’s electric vehicle company, and SpaceX, his aerospace firm, have inked $15.4 billion in government contracts over the past decade.
NASA and the Department of Defense have the largest contracts with SpaceX, equal to $11.8 billion and $3.6 billion, respectively, over the past 10 years, according to the analysis.
Space Force, the military branch formed under Trump, is a major supplier of these contracts. Just last week, it awarded SpaceX more than $733 million for a new batch of rocket launches.
NASA is an even bigger supplier of grants as it becomes increasingly reliant on SpaceX for government space programs, while Tesla receives millions in government subsidies.
As government agencies continue to work with or regulate his businesses, Musk has taken a major shift into right-wing politics following his endorsement of Trump in July.
Weeks later, Trump pledged to establish a “government efficiency commission” to conduct a complete financial and performance audit of the entire federal government and make recommendations for drastic reforms.
The former president said Musk should lead this commission, and the tech mogul signaled he would be willing to, though it remains unclear exactly what the panel would do.
Musk last month suggested SpaceX could reach Mars “so long as it is not smothered by bureaucracy,” and called Trump’s proposed department “the only path to extending life beyond Earth.”
Musk’s “fortune, making him the richest man in the world, is based on government contracts like SpaceX and subsidized businesses like Tesla,” former Federal Communications Commission (FCC) Chair Tom Wheeler told The Hill.
“If he is that dependent on the decisions of government, he either needs to totally divest in order to do anything in government, or not take the kind of positions that have been promised or been suggested,” Wheeler said, adding the circumstances are “an existential threat for responsible government.”
The FCC is responsible for granting and rescinding broadband subsidies for SpaceX’s Starlink satellite units. Musk criticized the agency this month for what he said was “illegally” revoking some Starlink subsidies.
Pelissero echoed Wheeler, suggesting Musk must put his financial interest in his companies in a blind trust to prevent him from directly influencing the financial outcomes of his ventures.
Musk is not the first to potentially face this crossroads, as it is not unusual for business leaders who have worked with the government to be offered gigs in the White House.
“But … they have to do so in ways that create distance from any conflicts of interest that they might have, and they’d be required to disclose any conflicts of interest while they’re serving in a government position,” Pelissero noted.
Musk has become an increasingly visible part of the Trump campaign in recent weeks. He appeared at a campaign rally alongside Trump earlier this month and kicked off his own campaign swing across Pennsylvania last week.
Last week, he pledged to pay up to $1 million each day to a new Pennsylvania voter who signed the America PAC’s petition to support free speech and the right to bear arms, causing concerns about the pledge’s legality.
Campaign finance records show Musk personally contributed $75 million to the super PAC, which he founded earlier this year.
His campaign involvement, coupled with his ownership of the social platform X, has put the billionaire in a somewhat unprecedented position, Pelissero said.
“Musk is out there campaigning for Trump in a very active way. He’s using his money to significantly help one candidate who’s running for office, and he has this social media platform X, in which he can amplify his views and try to again influence the outcome,” he said.
“There’s free speech to cover all of that, but he has a particularly unique role as the major owner of a social media company in which he can use this not only to benefit Trump, but ultimately to benefit himself.”
While concerns may persist over conflicting interests, the public nature of Trump and Musk’s alliance might mitigate its impact, said Eugene Gholz, a professor at the University of Notre Dame. He noted there is still a considerable risk with Musk’s potential role.
“Some people might fear that Trump and Musk coming into office would change the rules to exempt themselves from such rules. Whether they would or not is a different question,” he said, adding, “They’ve certainly pushed the envelope. But Elon Musk is certainly not hiding his political interest.”
“It’s hard to say that this is some kind of insider backroom dealing. And presidents are entitled to appoint their rich friends to office. Lots of presidents do that.”
Should Trump be reelected and appoint Musk to a senior post, the conflict created could be one that voters deemed acceptable, suggested Gholz, a former Pentagon employee.
“If voters know in advance about a publicly planned conflict of interest, perhaps it is up to those voters to decide to vote against the politician proposing the seemingly corrupt activities,” he said. “And if the voters think that those activities do not constitute ‘corruption,’ then that might matter in some way.”
There are “mandatory recusals in place,” including cooling off periods and blind trust requirements to prevent this, Gholz noted.
“Under the current rules — and it would probably take an act of Congress to change these things — it would clearly be illegal for Elon Musk to award contracts to SpaceX if Elon Musk were a government employee,” he said.
Whether this is adequate protection is a different story. Should Musk recuse himself and authority be handed to his deputy staff, questions could still arise about whether their interests are independent of their boss, Gholz said.
Musk’s ramped-up political activity appears to already be causing issues for SpaceX.
Earlier this month, the majority of the California Coastal Commission denied a request from SpaceX to increase the number of Falcon 9 rockets launched from Vandenberg Space Force Base. While the panel did not attribute the decision to Musk’s political involvement, a handful of commissioners made note of it during a public hearing.
One commissioner said SpaceX is being led by someone who has “aggressively injected himself into the presidential race and made it clear what his point of view is,” while another said Musk is “is hopping around the country, spewing and tweeting political falsehoods and attacking FEMA.”
SpaceX has sued the commission, accusing members of political bias.
