“Conflicts of Interest So Big They Can Be Seen From Space”*
Musk is dismantling the federal government from inside highly classified chambers, virtual and otherwise, that only the most trusted, qualified, and discerning civil servants have been granted previous access. In addition to the fact that he and his pubescent team of delinquents have access to some of the government’s most protected secrets — including the most secretive information about YOU — some lawmakers expressed concern that Musk and his companies have conflicts of interest with agencies and institutions over which he is taking control, altering, and decimating through the faux government agency D.O.G.E.
FOTUS — whom every thinking person believes is lying whenever hearing his voice — reassured the country that Musk himself will notify us on the odd chance he encounters any interests of the United States that conflict with his own or those of his companies. See The person ruling on Elon Musk’s DOGE conflicts of interest is…Elon Musk (Eleanor Pringle, Fortune, February 6, 2025) (“It’s been left up to the world’s richest man, Elon Musk, to decide if he needs to step out of the room when his work at the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) overlaps with his private interests”).
That should sound familiar because a couple of rightwing Supreme Court justices — who collectively took millions in undisclosed gifts from billionaires with business before the court — gave us the same refrain and, coincidentally, have happened NOT to run into any personal conflicts of interest when ruling on their benefactors’ cases. See, e.g., Alito, Thomas, And The False Truism That No One Is Above the Law (June 25, 2023, by the author).
You may recall that a couple weeks before the election, FOTUS and his team took extraordinary measures to reassure the public that Trump had nothing to do with the “toxic” Project 25, claiming it was a complete mystery to Trump, and his team went so far as to announce that Don Jr. was preparing a list of its architects: “Clearly people working on Project 2025 are blacklisted,” and will be “banned from a future administration.” See Trump team says it will blacklist Project 2025 people in sign of plan’s toxicity (Robert Tait, The Guardian, October 17, 2024).
In the expected reversal of this campaign promise, FOTUS nominated, and the senate just confirmed, the principal author of Project 25 as the Director of the Office of Management and Budget (O.M.B.). Project 2025 Author Russell Vought Confirmed By Senate: Here Are All The Trump Officials With Ties To Policy Agenda (Allison Durkee, Forbes, February 6, 2025) (emphasis added). Vought, who asserts we are living in a post-constitutional time, is the most radical of Trump’s appointees, claiming FOTUS can ignore Congress’s exclusive Article 1 “power of the purse” and that the Congressional Budget and Impoundment Control Act — the law passed in 1974 in response to Nixon’s refusal to spend congressionally approved funds on programs he opposed — is unconstitutional.[i] Faux constitutional scholar Elon Musk, coincidentally, has expressed that same view.
“Now that Vought is officially running the show, he’ll be able to unleash his radical agenda across the federal government. And if the courts stop him, he’s got a billionaire friend with the government’s keys and checkbook: Elon Musk.” Confirmation of Project 2025 Architect Russ Vought Expected to Intensify Lawless Trump Rampage (Jake Johnson, Common Dreams, February 7, 2025).
In a February 6, 2025 essay, adapted from his February 5, 2025 MSNBC episode, Chris Hayes said, “The man Republicans are letting dismantle swaths of the federal government reportedly has a direct personal and financial interest in dismantling. . . . The world’s richest man is continuing to do simply whatever he wants, all while he has billions and billions at stake.” Hayes identified several direct conflicts of interest between the government and Musk’s companies that do business with the United States and are subject to regulation by the very agencies over which Musk is taking control. They include:
· United States Agency for International Development (U.S.A.I.D.) that launched an investigation last year into Musk’s Starlink consoles (discussed further below)
· the Federal Aviation Administration (F.A.A.) that fined Musk’s SpaceX for “skirting launch safety rules,” including using an “unapproved launch control room” (“humanity will forever be confined to Earth unless there is radical reform at the FAA!,” Musk posted on X, and a week later successfully called for the resignation of the F.A.A. chief) (discussed further below)
· the F.A.A. that immediately grounded SpaceX after one if its exploding rockets had a “rapid unscheduled disassembly”[ii] and rained shrapnel over the Turks and Caicos Islands, causing air traffic to be diverted
· the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (N.O.A.A.), the nation’s top weather and climate service, that promotes climate science (a target of Project 25 because it is “harmful to U.S. prosperity”).
Elon Musk is a walking conflict of interest.
We Were Warned
A prescient New York Times article from two weeks before the election identified many of Musk’s potential conflicts of interest were he to become an advisor to the president or an administration insider — which are now coming to fruition. I apologize in advance for quoting most of the article below, but it is timely, well researched and sourced, and squarely on point.
In U.S. Agencies Fund, and Fight With, Elon Musk. A Trump Presidency Could Give Him Power Over Them (October 20, 2024), Eric Lipton, David A. Fahrenthold, Aaron Krolik, and Kirsten Grind warned:
“Elon Musk’s influence over the federal government is extraordinary, and extraordinarily lucrative.
“Mr. Musk’s rocket company, SpaceX, effectively dictates NASA’s rocket launch schedule. The Defense Department relies on him to get most of its satellites to orbit. His companies were promised $3 billion across nearly 100 different contracts last year with 17 federal agencies.
“Two of Elon Musk’s companies [Tesla and SpaceX] account for at least $15.4 billion in government contracts over the past decade.
“His entanglements with federal regulators are also numerous and adversarial. His companies have been targeted in at least 20 recent investigations or reviews, including over the safety of his Tesla cars and the environmental damage caused by his rockets.
“Mr. Trump has vowed to make Mr. Musk head of a new ‘government efficiency commission’ with the power to recommend wide-ranging cuts at federal agencies and changes to federal rules.
“That would essentially give the world’s richest man and a major government contractor the power to regulate the regulators who hold sway over his companies, amounting to a potentially enormous conflict of interest.
“Through a review of court filings, regulatory dockets and government contracting data, The New York Times has compiled an accounting of Mr. Musk’s multipronged business arrangements with the federal government, as well as the violations, fines, consent decrees and other inquiries federal agencies have ordered against his companies. Together, they show a deep web of relationships: Instead of entering this new role as a neutral observer, Mr. Musk would be passing judgment on his own customers and regulators.
“Already, Mr. Musk has discussed how he would use the new position to help his own companies.
“He has questioned a rule that required SpaceX to obtain a permit for discharging large amounts of potentially polluted water from its launchpad in Texas. He also said that limiting this kind of oversight could help SpaceX reach Mars sooner — ‘so long as it is not smothered by bureaucracy,’ he wrote on X, his social-media platform. “The Department of Government Efficiency is the only path to extending life beyond Earth.”
“Earlier this month, he attacked the Federal Communications Commission, which oversees the internet satellites that SpaceX launches. He suggested on X that if the commission hadn’t ‘illegally revoked’ more than $886 million worth of federal funding the company had sought to deliver internet access to rural areas, satellite kits would ‘probably have saved lives in North Carolina’ after a hurricane devastated parts of the state.
“A spokesman for the commission said it didn’t award the money because the company was proposing to provide services in some areas that weren’t actually rural, including the Newark Liberty International Airport. . . .
“Regardless of who is elected president, the deep ties between Mr. Musk and the U.S. government are unlikely to change anytime soon, with agencies becoming increasingly reliant on the vehicles, rockets, internet and other services his companies provide. . . .
“Maya MacGuineas, president of the nonpartisan Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, applauded the idea of an efficiency commission, and said that Mr. Musk’s experience in business could be good preparation to lead it.
“She said Mr. Musk’s formal power would most likely be limited. Previous presidents, going back to Theodore Roosevelt, have tried using committees of business-minded outsiders to rethink government. For their ideas to become law, Congress has to agree. Usually, she said, it does not.
“But a suggestion from Mr. Musk could still be damaging to an agency, if he singled it out to Mr. Trump as an example of waste or mismanagement.
“Legal experts who have studied federal ethics rules and the use of outside business executives as government advisers said Mr. Musk’s interactions with the federal government are so broad it might not be possible for him to serve as a prominent adviser to the president without creating major conflicts of interest.
“Mr. Musk ‘has had very contentious interactions and entanglements with regulators,’ said Kathleen Clark, an ethics lawyer who has served as an adviser to the District of Columbia Attorney General’s office. ‘It is entirely reasonable to believe that what he would bring to this federal audit is his own set of biases and grudges and financial interests.’
“Mr. Musk and his companies often question federal regulations — particularly when they threaten to slow plans to further expand his operations.
“One such example was the test launch this month of Starship, SpaceX’s newest rocket. NASA has agreed to pay the company as much as $4.4 billion to take astronauts to the surface of the moon on two future missions — although the dates will depend on when all the equipment is ready. So far, Starship has not flown any humans.
“But the Federal Aviation Administration held up this most recent test launch for weeks, in part because of questions about harm SpaceX has caused to wildlife near its Texas launch site, a delay that infuriated Mr. Musk.
“‘We continue to be stuck in a reality where it takes longer to do the government paperwork to license a rocket launch than it does to design and build the actual hardware,’ SpaceX said in a statement.
“Last month, the F.A.A. started the process to fine SpaceX $633,009 for disregarding license requirements related to two of its Florida launches last year that may have compromised safety, the agency said.
“This was a shift for the F.A.A., which in past instances had not imposed fines when SpaceX ignored the agency’s direct orders. Marc Nichols, the F.A.A.’s chief counsel, said in a statement last month that ‘failure of a company to comply with the safety requirements will result in consequences.’
“Mr. Musk responded on his social media site: ‘SpaceX will be filing suit against the FAA for regulatory overreach.’ The company followed up with a four-page letter to Congress complaining about the F.A.A. which it said had been ‘unsuccessful in modernizing and streamlining its regulations.’
“The list of clashes by Mr. Musk’s companies extends to many other federal agencies. . . .
“Mr. Musk in recent years has particularly attacked the Securities and Exchange Commission, which in 2018 charged him with securities fraud for a series of false and misleading tweets related to taking Tesla private. Mr. Musk had posted on Twitter that he had planned to take the company private at $420 a share, and that he had ‘funding secured’ for a transaction. As part of a later settlement with the S.E.C., he stepped down as Tesla’s chairman and Tesla paid a $20 million fine.
“In a 2022 TED Talk, Mr. Musk lambasted regulators, calling them ‘bastards.’
“Even before getting a formal role in the federal government, Mr. Musk has repeatedly called for a broad effort to strike or weaken federal regulations, and to slash federal spending. ‘If Trump wins, we do have an opportunity to do kind of a once in a lifetime deregulation and reduction in the size of the government,’ Mr. Musk said at a conference in Los Angeles last month.
“If Mr. Musk were to get a senior advisory role in a Trump administration, regulators might have to consider how taking action against one of Mr. Musk’s companies might affect their budget or regulatory authority, even if he did not directly push those agencies to back down, Ms. Clark said.
“The federal government has rules intended to prevent such conflicts. There are 1,019 advisory committees with more than 60,000 members, opining on everything from how pesticides are used on farms to how wild horses in the United States are managed. But these committees each have very narrow jurisdiction, compared to a governmentwide ‘efficiency’ review that Mr. Musk would lead.
“Another criminal law prohibits federal employees and outside advisers who are sometimes considered ‘special government employees’ from ‘participating personally and substantially in any particular matter that affects your financial interests, as well as the financial interests of your spouse, minor child, general partner, an organization in which you serve as an officer.’ . . .
“Mr. Musk has hinted at one government efficiency he would like to see: killing NASA’s Starliner contract with Boeing, his main industry competitor.
“‘The world doesn’t need another capsule,’ he wrote earlier this year, referring to the long-delayed Boeing system, which returned empty this month, after encountering trouble on its first human test flight. (He has not addressed if the proposed efficiency committee would take this up.)
“Mr. Trump has previously faced accusations that he created conflicts when he named certain business executives as advisers.
“That included his appointment of Carl Icahn, the billionaire investor, as a special adviser on regulatory matters in 2017, even as Mr. Icahn was lobbying federal regulators to revamp a rule that would allow a Texas oil refinery he partly owned to save hundreds of millions of dollars. Mr. Icahn ended up stepping down from the unpaid role only months after he was appointed, after broad criticism of the arrangement.
“Richard Briffault, a Columbia University professor of law who has served as chair of the New York City Conflicts of Interest Board, said that there might be an advantage to having Mr. Musk as a formal adviser to Mr. Trump — because that would at least require some disclosure of the advice he was offering.
“‘Having this in public as opposed to having Elon Musk calling up the White House and saying, ‘Hey, this agency is coming down hard on me. Get them to back off,’ — is that even worse?’ Mr. Briffault said. ‘It’s an open question.’”
(Emphasis added.)
As FOTUS and his cohorts flooded the zone to overwhelm and distract, Musk undertook the worst of the predictions in the Times article above, and if he succeeds will control both sides of every interaction between the government and his companies.
That creates a series of conflicts of interest so large they can be seen from space.
R.VanWagoner https://medium.com/@richardvanwagoner publishes. https://richardvanwagoner.medium.com/subscribe
**My brother the very talented fiction writer and novelist, Robert Hodgson Van Wagoner, deserves considerable credit for offering both substantive and technical suggestions to https://medium.com/@richardvanwagoner. Rob’s second novel is a beautifully written suspense drama that takes place in Utah, Wyoming, and Norway. This novel, The Contortionists, which Rob himself narrates for the audio version, is a psychological page-turner about a missing child in a predominantly Mormon community. I have read the novel and listened to the audio version twice. It is a literary masterpiece. The Contortionists is not, however, for the faint of heart.
***Richard J Van Wagoner is my father. His list of honors, awards, and professional associations is extensive. He was Professor Emeritus (Painting and Drawing), Weber State University, having served three Appointments as Chair of the Department of Visual Arts there. He guest-lectured and instructed at many universities and juried numerous shows and exhibitions. He was invited to submit his work as part of many shows and exhibitions, and his work was exhibited in many traveling shows domestically and internationally. My daughter Angela Van Wagoner, a professional photographer, photographed more than 500 pieces of my father’s work. The photographs of my father’s art reproduced in https://medium.com/@richardvanwagoner are hers.
[i] Vought Would Defy the Law, Congress, the Supreme Court, and the Constitution (Coalition for Sensible Safeguards, January 30, 2025):
“WASHINGTON, D.C. — The Coalition for Sensible Safeguards (CSS), EDF Action (advocacy partner of the Environmental Defense Fund), the Project On Government Oversight (POGO), and dozens of signatories sent letters today calling on the Senate to reject President Donald Trump’s nominee to direct the U.S. Office of Management and Budget (OMB), Russell Vought. Vought is entirely unfit to serve as OMB director, the groups said.
“The three letters and dozens of signatories reflect a groundswell of opposition to Vought from both the public and lawmakers in both parties who were alarmed by the brazen lawlessness displayed at his two confirmation hearings. At both hearings, Vought repeatedly asserted that when it comes to federal spending, he will advise President Trump to pursue actions that would apparently defy the law, Congress, Supreme Court precedents, and the U.S. Constitution — challenging the courts to stand in the way. In light of his remarks, a vote to confirm Vought is a vote to eliminate one of the oldest and most important checks and balances in the American system of government that stops presidents from becoming dictators.
“‘Vought was a key architect of the Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025, a dangerous policy blueprint that calls for concentrating extraordinary power in the Office of the President, thereby defeating our Constitution’s system of separation of powers and checks and balances,’ the CSS letter reads. ‘Of particular alarm, he was the lead author of the chapter regarding OMB and regulatory policy, where the dangerous vision of unprecedented presidential power is articulated. If implemented, his radical and extreme ideological opposition to regulations that protect consumers, workers, the environment, and public health and safety will hurt Americans and their families and lead to more deregulatory disasters.’
“‘Beyond Vought’s plans to dismantle the performance-based civil service, Vought believes that “we are living in a post-Constitutional time.” This translates into support for a series of policies that would make the president ever more powerful at the expense of Congress and the judiciary,’ POGO’s letter reads. ‘Vought again affirmed his opinion that the Congressional Budget and Impoundment Control Act — ironically the very law that created the Senate Budget Committee — is unconstitutional. It’s safe to assume Vought will assist President Trump to undermine and subvert Congress’s power of the purse.’
“‘Vought is not a run-of-the-mill nominee,’ the letter signed by EDF Action and others reads. ‘His previous actions while leading OMB and his well-documented plans in Project 2025 for remaking how the federal government functions demonstrate his intent to chart a reckless path that will impact every area of US policy from reproductive health to the environment, from national security to Medicare and Medicaid. His record serves as a clear warning sign that he will continue to try to upset the constitutional balance of powers by working to expand executive powers to push a radical agenda without accountability.’”
(Emphasis added.)
[ii] The Atlantic’s Charlie Warzel cleverly played on SpaceX’s euphemism for “exploding” in his February 3, 2025, The ‘Rapid Unscheduled Disassembly’ of the United States Government: Elon Musk’s bureaucratic coup is under way.