After dropping more than $250 million on his effort to elect Donald Trump, billionaire and Pentagon contractor Elon Musk could now use his power and influence to steer sweetheart deals to his network of companies, Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., warned in a letter sent Monday to the Trump transition team.
Musk, the CEO of X and Tesla who is now worth more than $400 billion, has been named by President-elect Trump as co-chair of an austerity commission dubbed the "Department of Government Efficiency." The nongovernmental DOGE could propose major cuts to social programs and other federal spending, as well as recommend other changes that could benefit Musk personally.
In her letter, obtained by The Washington Post, Warren said Musk may not share the same interests as the American public.
“Putting Mr. Musk in a position to influence billions of dollars of government contracts and regulatory enforcement without a stringent conflict of interest agreement in place is an invitation for corruption on a scale not seen in our lifetimes,” Warren wrote. “As your Transition Team Ethics Plan makes clear, the role of government is not to line the pockets of the wealthiest Americans; a strong, enforceable ethics plan for the world’s richest man is a necessary first step for delivering on that promise.”
Warren's letter comes after Reuters reported earlier this month that the incoming Trump administration may also scrap a crash-reporting requirement for autonomous-driving systems, a move that would benefit Tesla, which reports by far the most incidents.
Karoline Leavitt, a spokesperson for the president-elect, dismissed Warren's concerns with what some indigenous groups consider a racist slur, telling the Post that Musk is part of a "qualified team of innovators, entrepreneurs and geniuses."
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