Elon Musk holds a chainsaw which was offered to him during the conservative political action conference at the Gaylord National Resort Hotel and Convention Center Thursday in Oxon Hill, MD.
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On Wednesday, President Trump spoke during a Saudi investment conference in Miami when he gave a cry to the technology of the billionaire Titan Elon Musk, seated with other business leaders and dignitaries of the public.
“He has done a little news lately, very positive news,” said Trump, urging Musk to defend applause.
It was not clear if Musk was there in his role as a leader of Doge – a project to reduce the federal government – or as the man behind X, SpaceX, XAI and Starlink.
Musk is a “special government employee”, ” A role created by Congress in the 1960s This allows the parties of the federal government to bring someone for a specific role, on a temporary basis. With this classification, Musk does not have to decide in his businesses, but he is supposed to follow the laws of conflicts of interest and challenge himself if necessary.
Ethics experts say that continuing to manage their businesses while working for the government, Musk blurs the boundaries between its roles in a way that could affect public confidence. Musk and the White House say they will avoid conflicts of interest.
World leaders meet musk
While the members of the Doge team of Musk continue their march through government agencies looking for waste, Musk himself seems to be everywhere, often alongside Trump but also make solo appearances, as he did Thursday at the conservative political action conference outside Washington, DC
Musk was a surprise guest on the main scene. And as part of his introduction, the president of Argentina, Javier Milei, presented him with a red and chrome chainsaw.
“President Milei has a gift for me,” said Musk while music pumped in the room.
Then Musk agitated the chainsaw with enthusiasm, shouting: “She is the chainsaw for the bureaucracy!”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t9q_udkpymmmmmmm
Elon Musk appears at the conservative political action conference, or CPAC, outside Washington, DC, Thursday.
YouTube
Taking a chainsaw at the bureaucracy is what Musk claims to do with his project known as the Ministry of Effectiveness of the Government.
Video Posted on X Musk and Milei’s watch sitting in front of us and Argentinian flags to pose for a more formal photo, suggesting that they met before Musk went out on stage.
Last week, when Musk met Narendra Modi, the Prime Minister of India, there were questions to find out if he was there as a member of the Trump administration or as CEO of Tesla, who seeks to develop in India. Musk brought three of his children to Reunion, to whom the aid attended the Prime Minister. The configuration looked a lot like a bilateral meeting between the leaders; There were American and Indian flags installed behind them while Musk presented a gift to Modi.
In India, news presenters have enthusiastically speculated the reasons for their meeting. Modi, asked questions about it later at a press conference at the White House, said he and Musk were going back. A White House official did not authorize to speak publicly about the case publicly said that Musk had met Modi in his personal title and not as an employed from the special government. Later, however, Musk was in the oval office to meet Trump with Modi. A press release from the Prime Minister’s office highlighted the roles of Musk as “head of the US Department of Government Effectiveness (DOGE) and CEO of Tesla”.
“The Prime Minister and Mr. Musk discussed the strengthening of collaboration between Indian and American entities in innovation, space exploration, artificial intelligence and sustainable development. Their discussion also addressed opportunities for Deepen cooperation in emerging technologies, entrepreneurship and good governance, “reads the release press.
Had a very good meeting with @elonmusk in Washington DC. We have discussed various problems, especially those who fascinate them, such as space, mobility, technology and innovation. I talked about India’s efforts to reform and promote “minimum government, maximum governance”. pic.twitter.com/7xneqnxerz
– Narendra Modi (@narendramodi) February 13, 2025
Change hats “per hour”
In frequent articles on its X social media site, the pingk ping-pongs between talking about its work has reduced the government and promoting its companies, many of which have government contracts or are regulated by federal agencies. Friday, Musc celebrated The Trump Ministry of Justice has abandoned a prosecution against SpaceX.
“It is essentially a conflict of interest in walking,” said Richard Briffault, specializing in government ethics at Columbia Law School.
Briffault is not the only one to have alarms on large musk companies creating a conflict with his work within the government.
“Musk seems to be in position with the consent of the White House that he can simply change the Obama administrations.
Fox said there was no indication that the normal process to avoid conflicts is followed. For high -level government employees, including those like Musk, which generally implies submitting a financial disclosure report and the conclusion of an ethical agreement with the government’s ethics office to identify conflicts potential and engage in a plan to avoid them.
The White House claims that Musk will deposit a confidential disclosure of its financial interests by the end of next month and has been informed of the requirements of ethics. As a rule, these disclosure is necessary within 30 days of the start of the work.
“The thing that should be concerned with the public is that we don’t know,” said Fox. “Does he take care of our interests as a taxpayers and citizens, or does he take care of his own commercial interests?”
President Trump is joined by Tesla and the CEO of SpaceX, Elon Musk, and his son, X Musk, during an executive decree which signals at the Oval White House office on February 11.
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In an interview with Sean Hannity which was broadcast on Tuesday on Fox News, Trump and Musk minimized the risk. Musk said he had never asked Trump anything “never”.
Musk said that if a conflict was getting, he would reject himself. Trump sounded: “If there is a conflict, you will not be involved. I mean, I wouldn’t want it. And he won’t want it.”
The White House has not provided any example of a musk so far.
All these questions about Musk come when Trump has just dismantled the director of the government’s ethics office, who was only a few months old. Other Dogs on duty have also been dismissed through the government.
“Whatever the railings are there in terms of preventing civil servants from engaging in the self-furer, the application seems to have disappeared,” said Briffault.
The nature of its leadership
With the role of Musk, it is almost impossible for anyone outside to see what he really does. Because Musk works with the president’s executive office, there is no requirement for public disclosure. Musk, however, insists that his work is transparent, because he regularly publishes on social networks on the contracts that Doge claims to have canceled.
In A recent court Contesting the work of the project, the Ministry of Justice said that Musk was not an employee of the United States Doge Service and is not the administrator of the American services. Instead, he said Musk is an employee of the White House office and operates as the president’s main advisor. This description is in contradiction with the way Trump and Musk described his work and Doge’s work.
John Yoo, professor of law at the University of California in Berkeley, said that the idea of bringing an external expert or, for example, a family member to advise the president several times before. At the time, he was even argued the first time Lady Hillary Clinton led health care reform efforts for her husband’s administration. The conservatives continued to block this effort and finally failed, the DC district court determining that Clinton could continue.
“The real rule is to ensure that Hillary Clinton in 1993 or Elon Musk in 2025, all they do is advice,” said Yoo about the decision in the early 1990s. He was committed to the short circuit of DC at the time and said that he remembers it. “As long as they do not have the power to order anyone to do anything, it remains on the legal side of the line.”
Yoo, who was one of the main lawyers of the Ministry of Justice in the George W. Bush administration, said it was the legal line that the White House is trying to walk with Musk, which to any outside observer present as A powerful figure in Trump’s administration.
“And that is why the White House produced this funny statement where they said that Elon Musk has no power,” said Yoo.
This lack of clarity on the authority of Musk makes ethical waters particularly troubled, according to Stephen Gillers, professor emeritus of legal ethics at New York University.
“The hole in which we find ourselves is the product of two facts: we will never know, probably never … exactly what it does,” said Gillers. “(And) even if we knew everything he did, there is nothing we can do on this subject.”
The head of the White House rejected criticism as a supporter, saying that there is no concern in the White House as to Musk will follow strict ethics rules.