Elon Musk is Destroying the Government and Protecting His Businesses
An unelected oligarch is gutting critical government agencies and avoiding accountability for his businesses
To say the state of our nation has gotten worse in short order is a massive understatement. For the last several weeks, the Trump administration has consistently shown that it is entirely uninterested in effectively governing the United States. Part of that disinterest is thanks to none other than the wealthiest man on Earth, Elon Musk. Whether it is trying to destroy the Department of Education or the USAID, Elon has repeatedly shown that he is trying to upend the government so it can’t challenge his practices.
The Corruption of Elon Musk
While Elon has long faced accusations of corruption, new reporting by The New York Times suggests that his hostility to the administrative state may be due to his desire to avoid a litany of investigations into his businesses.
The New York Times's Eric Lipton and Kirsten Grind explain:
Mr. Trump and Mr. Musk, the world’s richest man who has been given enormous power by the president, have been dismantling federal agencies across the government. Mr. Trump has fired top officials and pushed out career employees. Many of them were leading investigations, enforcement matters or lawsuits pending against Mr. Musk’s companies.
Mr. Musk has also reaped the benefit of resignations by Biden-era regulators that flipped control of major regulatory agencies, leaving more sympathetic Republican appointees overseeing those lawsuits.
At least 11 federal agencies that have been affected by those moves have more than 32 continuing investigations, pending complaints or enforcement actions into Mr. Musk’s six companies, according to a review by The New York Times.
The events of the past few weeks have thrown into question the progress and outcomes of many of those pending investigations into his companies.The inquiries include the Federal Aviation Administration’s fines of Mr. Musk’s rocket company, SpaceX, for safety violations and a Securities and Exchange Commission lawsuit pressing Mr. Musk to pay the federal government perhaps as much as $150 million, accusing him of having violated federal securities law.
On its own, the National Labor Relations Board, an independent watchdog agency for workers’ rights, has 24 investigations into Mr. Musk’s companies, according to the review by The Times.
Since January, Mr. Trump has fired three officials at that agency, including a board member, effectively stalling the board’s ability to rule on cases. Until Mr. Trump nominates new members, cases that need a ruling by the board cannot move forward, according to the agency.
The Times notes that while none of these cases are dead, they are being stalled. Still, any halt in investigations into one of the most powerful men on Earth should raise eyebrows. Instead, critical agencies such as the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau have had hundreds of consumer complaints about Tesla stalled. Even as Elon holds clear conflicts of interest through his nearly 100 hundred contracts with 17 separate government agencies, he continues to determine policies that violate orders by Congress and the Judiciary.
Defiant Corruption
Even as U.S. District Judge John McConnell directed the White House to withdraw its plans to freeze funds immediately, Trump and his allies continued their plans to gut federal agencies wholesale. Such moves are nonsensical until you consider that, much like Trump, Elon subscribes to conspiracy theories. That thinking allows him to portray any checks on his power as corrupt, even if he pursues his agenda without restraint in the halls of power.
So long as Trump continues to allow Elon to run rampant in government, Elon will continue to pursue whatever he wants, even as he harms the American people. Considering that Trump just fired the Director of Government Ethics, I have a bad feeling that he won’t do anything to challenge him.
