Elon Musk, the world’s richest man, who owns or has major stakes in six different companies — all of which have complex or potentially complex interactions with the federal government — sits at the right hand of the next president.
Both men have made patently clear they care not one whit about ethical rules or norms to guard against conflicts of interest, real or perceived. They both ask Americans to trust them that they’ll act guided by the best interests of the nation, not personal profit or other self-serving motives.
Sure.
There’s nothing wrong with a president having advisors; kitchen cabinets are as old as the Republic. There’s nothing wrong with Donald Trump and Elon Musk trusting and relying on each other. But it is essential that as they do, Americans keep their eyes on the ball under the cups — because while Musk understandably wants to prosper, his competitors and competing priorities demand that the government, up to and including the president, play fair.
Fresh off Musk deep-sixing a compromise bipartisan spending plan, a major test arrives as Trump rejiggers his posture on electric vehicles. Just two years ago, Trump gleefully ranted against cars that get their power via batteries plugged into the grid.
Earlier this year, as Tesla Motors CEO Musk endorsed Trump and made clear he’d be throwing hundreds of millions behind efforts to get him elected, in a nation that now allows essentially unfettered campaign donations from titans of industry, Trump told a Georgia rally, “I’m for electric cars, I have to be because Elon endorsed me very strongly.”
In recent days, Trump has declared his interest in cutting federal subsidies of EVs to boost sales while bolstering their domestic supply chain. What will those moves mean for Musk’s bottom line?
The entanglements only begin there. Musk’s companies have been investigated by the Transportation and Justice and Labor departments. Musk’s SpaceX has $15 billion in federal contracts; it’s a big Defense contractor. Musk’s Neuralink just got FDA approval for human brain chip trials and will no doubt be seeking more.
What was once Twitter and is now X has the power to pump information, and disinformation, into the body politic — including around election time, and to rig its rules to squelch Trump (or Musk) critics.
Musk and fellow billionaire Vivek Ramaswamy are heading up the so-called Department of Government Efficiency, an outside group committed to recommending cuts to supposed wasteful spending.
We’re all for cutting wasteful spending, but can we trust the lens that the two — who haven’t divested from any of their investments — will bring to the endeavor? Look for them to target programs and agencies seen to stand in the way of their own endeavors, and don’t expect them to slash Washington largesse that’s good for their bottom lines.
Trump is worth a few pretty pennies himself, and when he was president the first time, he made a few general noises about walling off the business of governing from the business of his family fortune. There were holes in every promise as foreign governments and the Republican Party and the U.S. government spent millions of dollars at Trump properties, greasing the hand that fed them.
We take it at face value that Elon Musk wants Donald Trump and America to succeed. But mostly he wants Elon Musk and his companies to succeed. The press and watchdog agencies not cowed by the president must maintain constant vigilance. The president of the United States sure as hell won’t.