Elon Musk is backing away from his Trump-blessed government gig, but now House Democrats want to see the permission slip that got him in the door.
Democrats on the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee sent a pair of letters to White House Counsel David Warrington and the heads of several government agencies demanding documents related to Elon Musk’s financial disclosures and security clearance, which they argue are legally required for someone in his position.
The demand for financial disclosure is aimed at determining whether Musk is self-dealing, or violating conflict-of-interest rules.
According to the letter, the law requires all federal government employees, even special government employees (SGEs) like Elon Musk, to excuse themselves from any matters in which they have a personal financial interest. In Musk’s case, that might include, say, an automaker leading a team that cut jobs at the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration – the very agency investigating his self-driving tech.
The only exemption to that rule, the Democrats said in their letter, is if the employee had already filed a financial disclosure statement, and it had already been determined that “the interest is either remote or insubstantial enough that it would be unlikely to affect the integrity of the employee’s work.” Given the multiple investigations into Tesla at the NHTSA, it’s safe to assume Musk’s interest in slashing regulatory oversight at the agency may not pass the smell test.
The White House said in February that Musk had filled out a disclosure statement, but that it intended to keep it private.
The Dems aren’t buying it, arguing that if Musk had in fact filled out a financial disclosure statement, his role in Trump’s administration is too high-profile for it to remain confidential. Federal government employees “occupying positions equivalent to those of a member of the Senior Executive Service” are required to make public disclosures, the Dems said, noting that Musk’s role rises to that level, especially given his “enormous influence of the use of [taxpayer] dollars.”
In the other letter, sent to the White House Chief of Staff, Secretary of Defense, Director of National Intelligence, and FBI director, Oversight Democrats demanded to see background investigation and security clearance forms to reassure them that due diligence had been done to ensure Musk’s “extensive ties … to China, Russia, and other foreign governments and officials” didn’t make him a national security risk.
The Democrats claimed Musk’s “growing treasure chest of government contracts,” the “history of his drug use,” and other potential liabilities made him vulnerable to coercion and corruption. Musk has said he doesn’t use drugs except for occasional prescription ketamine to fight depression.
Musk has effectively been running the cost-trimming unit, which was never approved by Congress as an official department, since Trump took office in January. This raises the question of what took the Dems so long to start these inquiries.
The Oversight minority mentioned that it had been investigating Musk’s potential conflicts of interest since last month, and that the Trump administration had “stonewalled the Committee’s efforts,” but the letters offered no reason for the multi-month delay in asking for access to such crucial information.
Musk said last month that he intended to step away from the Department of Government Efficiency in May, which he would be legally required to do as an SGE. Positions like Musk’s are temporary in nature, and SGEs are only allowed to work for 130 days in a one-year period. Given Musk took the helm at DOGE on the first day of Trump’s term on January 20, his last day would be May 30.
It also seems that Tesla shareholders and insiders were getting cranky about Musk’s split attention and the negative fallout from his time in Trump’s orbit, including protests and vandalism at Tesla dealerships. This may have contributed to faltering sales and a 30 percent drop in the EV maker’s shares this year. According to a report in the Wall Street Journal Wednesday, Tesla’s board of directors began quietly looking for possible CEO replacements, although the company and Musk later vociferously denied the report.
DOGE is a way of life, like Buddhism
Then again, Musk’s statements to reporters on Wednesday suggested he might still keep a hand in the government game.
“DOGE is a way of life,” Musk said when asked if he was stepping back from DOGE. “Like Buddhism.”
Meanwhile, the NLRB DOGE whistleblower case deepens
Finally, while not writing it in his capacity as minority leader of the House Oversight Committee, Representative Gerald Connolly (D-VA) also joined Representative Lori Trahan (D-MA) in writing a letter to the National Labor Relations Board warning it that it may have violated federal law by failing to report DOGE’s alleged exfiltration of agency data.
The pair allege that DOGE’s alleged removal of NLRB data from government systems, reported to Congress by a whistleblower, violated provisions of the Privacy Act of 1974 designed to safeguard the data of US citizens.
Additionally, Connolly and Trahan said that NLRB leadership failed to disclose the “breach,” as required under the Federal Information Security Modernization Act (FISMA), despite the alleged incident rising to the level of a “major incident” as defined by the Office of Management and Budget.
The Representatives said that neither the Oversight committee nor the House Education and Workforce Committee had been informed of the incident as of writing.
“It is similarly alarming that NLRB failed to notify Congress even after conducting an internal investigation into the possible breach, demonstrating that you looked into the matter and either did not conclude a ‘major incident’ occurred or failed to comply with FISMA’s reporting requirements,” the pair added.
The letters regarding Musk’s lack of paperwork gave officials a May 15 deadline to respond, while the NLRB letter asked the agency to provide an explanation for its lapses by the following day. None of the parties we contacted for this story responded to questions. ®