As the public face of President Donald Trump’s Department of Government Efficiency, billionaire tech CEO Elon Musk has an expansive portfolio that spans across the many levers of government — and that could intersect with his wide range of business interests.
But unlike another high-profile “special government employee” working in Trump’s White House, AI and crypto czar David Sacks, there’s no evidence that Musk has obtained a conflict of interest waiver. Such a waiver would outline the steps he’s taken to avoid overlaps between his business interests and his government work, include an explanation from the White House counsel about why they feel comfortable with Musk’s arrangement, and it would identify areas where Musk has the green light to weigh in despite his business holdings.
Instead, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told NBC News that Musk has already pledged he’d avoid potential conflicts of interest and like all Trump-appointed “special government employees,” he’s “abiding by all applicable laws.”
“For concerns regarding conflicts of interest between Elon Musk and DOGE, President Trump has stated he will not allow conflicts, and Elon himself has committed to recusing himself from potential conflicts. DOGE has been incredibly transparent about what they’re doing, posting daily updates on X and updating their website,” Leavitt said in a statement to NBC News.
“It’s standard practice for Administrations to hire individuals as Special Government Employees to focus on specific issues, based on their outside experience, for a limited period of time,” Leavitt continued, adding, “All SGEs are filling out the appropriate paperwork, receiving briefings on ethics rules, including the conflict of interest rules, and abiding by all applicable federal laws.”
The White House first publicly acknowledged Musk’s position on Feb. 3, announcing he’d serve as a “special government employee,” a designation used by presidents over the years to allow outside experts to lend their knowledge to the government without having to ditch their private-sector jobs. The administration has sworn under oath that Musk is a “senior adviser to the president,” not a DOGE employee, though Trump has repeatedly emphasized that Musk is running the show there.
It’s no secret that Musk’s broad business portfolio, which includes the space company SpaceX and the electric vehicle company Tesla, intersects with a slew of government regulators and potential government contracts. That’s why Democrats and others have raised concerns about how the government and Musk will ensure those conflicts don’t creep into official administration decisions.
Earlier this month, Musk told Fox Business that DOGE is “pretty much” in every federal department. In one example of the convergence of Musk’s business interests and the federal government, Starlink, his satellite internet service, is being considered for use in more and more places across the federal government. Musk businesses like Tesla and SpaceX have received billions in government subsidies and contracts, and his interests have been involved in key regulatory battles with the federal government over the years.
Musk’s Tesla also relies heavily on China both for production and as a market — a relationship that came up Friday after Musk received a briefing at the Pentagon that included a discussion on China. During a conversation with reporters in the Oval Office hours later, Trump denied a report that the briefing would include military plans related to a hypothetical war with China, calling Musk a “great patriot” and saying that Musk’s business dealings with China would be a reason not to show him something like that.
“I don’t want to show that to anybody, but certainly you wouldn’t show it to a businessman who is helping us so much. He’s a great patriot. He’s paying a big price for helping us cut costs, and he’s doing a great job. He’s finding tremendous waste, fraud and abuse,” Trump said.
“But I certainly wouldn’t want — you know, Elon has businesses in China, and he would be susceptible, perhaps, to that, but it was such a fake story,” Trump continued.
The restrictions around ‘special government employees’
As a “special government employee,” Musk is subject to a series of legal restrictions and guardrails aimed at protecting the American people from concerns about conflicts of interest or an outside adviser making financial gains from their advice to the president.
Federal law bars all employees of the executive branch from “substantially” participating in a “particular matter” where they, their immediate family or business partners have a “financial interest,” though that matter must have a “direct and predictable effect on that interest” to be forbidden.
If Musk sat on certain kinds of government committees, he could receive a waiver if it was deemed that the need for his services outweighed conflict concerns. But Musk is not publicly linked to a committee that would qualify.
With no indication he qualifies for that kind of waiver, Musk could also receive a conflict of interest waiver under a stricter standard: that “the financial interest is not so substantial as to be deemed likely to affect the integrity of the employee’s services.” But it’s not clear whether Musk sought, or received, any conflict of interest waivers.
In response to an NBC News inquiry about a potential waiver for Musk, the White House Counsel’s office replied that “the White House has no disclosures responsive to your request.” And while some ethics documents are not immediately available for release, instead becoming public weeks after submission, the White House press office did not directly address whether Musk has sought or received a conflict of interest waiver that has not yet been released publicly.
Another special government employee, Sacks, did receive a conflict of interest waiver, which has been posted publicly on the White House’s public disclosure portal (releasing these documents publicly upon request is mandated by federal law). That 11-page memo, written by White House Counsel David Warrington, provides a roadmap to the kinds of conflict of interest rules that govern special government employees. The memo shows how Sacks has sought to divest his assets to satisfy the White House’s lawyers, and it demonstrates why he is receiving a conflict of interest waiver in the first place that allows him to participate in “certain particular matters regarding regulation and policy related to the digital asset industry.”
“By its very nature, the position of Special Advisor for AI and Crypto requires an appointee with extensive and hands-on experience in financial technology and innovation, with intimate knowledge of the digital asset industry. It would be exceedingly difficult to find such expertise if financial technology executives, software company founders, and venture capital investors in the digital asset industry for excluded from the position,” Warrington wrote in the memo granting Sacks a “limited” conflict of interest waiver.
“A core impetus for the nation’s modern conflict of interest laws … was a recognition that in matters of technology, science, and innovation, the Government required leaders from the private sector to lend their knowledge and experience to the shaping of national public policy,” Warrington added.
Neither Sacks nor Musk has to file a public financial disclosure. (The disclosures they have to file are allowed to remain private unless they begin drawing a substantial government salary.)
A White House official told NBC News that the White House Counsel’s Office vets all “special government employees” and advises them of the limits of where they can and can’t participate. And the official added that the outside business interests of “special government employees” is a feature, not a bug, as the whole point of the status is to allow successful people to lend their expertise to the federal government.
But the lack of a public waiver, combined with Musk’s sprawling business interests and impact across the federal government, raises concerns from some ethics officials, including those who have been critical of Trump and his administration over conflict of interests in the past.
“A conflict of interest waiver for Musk could not be justified,” Walter Shaub, the former director of the United States Office of Government Ethics who resigned a few months into Trump’s first term, wrote in an email. “Elon Musk is the world’s richest individual who is a government contractor. The American people have every reason to want their tax dollars and the resources of their national government to serve only their interests, not the interests of billionaire government contractor who now seems to have stuck his fingers in everything the government does.”
