Elon Musk Tackles Bureaucracy and National Debt

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Elon Musk joins us on The Darrell McLean Show to share his vision for restoring democracy by holding government bureaucracy accountable. We tackle the power wielded by unelected federal agencies and question its impact on the democratic process, with Musk offering compelling insights into the urgency of closing the feedback loop between citizens and their government. The conversation also highlights the national debt crisis, emphasizing the critical need to scrutinize defense spending and ensure transparency in the financial dealings of government officials to safeguard public resources.

We uncover the murky world of federal contracts, spotlighting how conflicts of interest and a lack of transparency can erode public trust. The discussion sheds light on the billions lost to fraud and abuse within government contracts, with ideas on how strategic oversight and regulatory reforms could reduce the national budget deficit. Listeners will gain a deeper understanding of how economic pressures like inflation and rising interest rates affect the daily lives of Americans, and the role of government efficiency in alleviating financial burdens for everyday citizens.

Our exploration doesn't stop at bureaucracy; we venture into the ethical quagmire of politics intertwined with private enterprise. With Elon Musk's business ventures under the Trump administration under scrutiny, we question the ethical concerns of his dual role as a corporate executive and influential government figure. We also examine the firing of inspectors general and the potential implications for oversight and accountability. Join us for an episode packed with thought-provoking discussions on the state of democracy, financial responsibility, and ethical governance.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to the Darrell McLean Show, episode
444,.
Independent Media that will notreinforce tribalism.
We have one planet, nobody isleaving, and let us reason
together.
Today we are going to go oversomething that we got, that a
lot of people wanted a littlebit more transparency from the
head of DOJ Elon Musk as he satdown or stood up in the kind of

(00:24):
wild press conference with thePresident of the United States,
donald John Trump corruption,especially when we found
hundreds of millions of dollarsworth much more than that in
just a short period of time.

Speaker 3 (00:45):
We want to weed out the corruption and it seems hard
to believe that a judge couldsay we don't want you to do that
, so we have to look at thejudges because that's a very
serious I think it's a veryserious violation.
I'll ask Elon Musk to say a fewwords and we'll take some
questions.
Elon, go ahead.
Sure, so at a high level, yousay what is the goal of Doge, or

(01:05):
part of the presidency is torestore democracy.

Speaker 4 (01:09):
This may seem like a democracy.
Well, if you don't have afeedback, it would have to be so
.
It's a gromitous, can bedifficult sometimes.
So if there's not a goodfeedback from the people to the
government, and if you have ruleof the bureaucrat, if the
bureaucracy is in charge, thenwhat meaning does democracy
actually have?
If the people cannot vote andhave their will be decided by

(01:32):
their elected representatives inthe form of the president and
the Senate and the House, thenwe don't live in a democracy, we
live in a bureaucracy.
So it's incredibly importantthat we close that feedback loop
, we fix that feedback loop, andthat the public, the public's
elected representatives, thePresident of the House and the
Senate decide what happens, asopposed to a large, unelected
bureaucracy.
There's no sense that therearen't good people who are in
the federal bureaucracy.
But you can't have anautonomous federal bureaucracy.

(01:54):
You have to have one that'sresponsive to the people.
That's the whole point of ademocracy.
And so if you guys looked at thefounders today and said, what
do you think of the way thingshave turned out?
We have this unelected, fourth,unconstitutional branch of
government, which is thebureaucracy, which has, in a lot
of ways, currently more powerthan any elected representative,
and this is not something thatpeople want and it does not

(02:16):
match the will of people.
So it's just something we'vegot to fix and we've also got to
address the deficit.
So we've got a $2 trilliondeficit and if we don't do
something about the deficit, thecountry's going bankrupt.
I mean it's really astoundingthat the interest payments alone
on national debt exceed theDefense Department budget, which
is shocking, because we've gota lot, we spend a lot of money
on defense, and if that justkeeps going, we're essentially
going to back up the country.

(02:37):
So what I'm going to say islike it's not optional for us to
reduce the federal expenses.
It's essential.

Speaker 1 (02:42):
So just to answer one question which I think is
interesting is I do think that alot of the American public does
not like the unaccountablenature of a lot of the well, I
would say is the admin state.
I think bureaucracy would bealso an appropriate term for it,

(03:03):
I think.
When a lot of it is said anddone, I think the truth is and I
think you've heard me say thisseveral times on this show is a
lot of the bureaucracy is incharge because legislators don't
want to legislate.
They do not categorically wanttheir names next to legislation

(03:24):
that is unpopular, categoricallywant their names next to
legislation that is unpopular.
But the experts have kind oftold them is necessary To
somewhat give authority over toa lot of agencies that Americans

(03:48):
do not actually even know exist, but they are the ones that are
writing a lot of the acts andlegislations upon which
Americans end up having tofollow.
Now, when it comes to thequestion of the debt and deficit
, I think it's very funnybecause it is the American.

(04:09):
Debt and deficit is a lot oftimes is outrageous, but I think
it all depends on the timeperiod you're in whether
Americans or even politiciansthink that that matters.
I remember the former vicepresident, former secretary of
defense, etc.
Dick Cheney famously say debtsand deficits do not matter and

(04:34):
when it comes to the last Trumpadministration, the president
didn't seem to care a lot aboutthe debt and deficit either.
He actually didn't seem to careabout the debt deficit or
actually balancing a budget.
His primary thing was trying tomake a deal and, of course, the
tax cuts that ended uphappening under his

(04:56):
administration.
So the debt, the deficit, theamount of money that we owe to
China and Japan, it is going toeventually have to be dealt with
.
I do think, just looking at theway the budget tends to be
spent, that if you want toreally get to the meat and
potatoes of all this, you'regoing to have to deal with

(05:17):
defense spending.
You're going to have to dealwith the behemoth of the
Pentagon with the behemoth ofthe Pentagon.

Speaker 4 (05:42):
Odd that there are quite a few people in
bureaucracy who have anostensibly salary of a few
hundred thousand dollars butsomehow manage to accrue tens of
millions of dollars in networth while they are in that
position, which is what happenedto USAID.
We're just curious as to whereit came from.
Maybe they're very good atinvesting in which case we
should take their investmentadvice perhaps but it just seems
to be.
Mysteriously, they get wealthyand we don't know why.
Where did it come from?

(06:03):
And I think the reality is thatthey're getting wealthy at the
taxpayer expense.
That's the honest truth of it.

Speaker 1 (06:09):
So you know we're looking at, say, if you look at,
say, treasury, for exampleBefore I let Elon go on with
that point I do think that's agood point.
To look at how people come intogovernment.
You can see what their salariesare and then somehow they amass
a lot of fortune.
I think that is legitimate.
I also think that you have tolook at people in the Congress

(06:32):
and the Senate that you couldsee how much money they make on
paper but see how much they endup taking home every year, and I
think a lot of us know it'sbecause they are insider trading
.
They have a lot of informationabout companies and about stocks
and about everything else thatthe everyday average American
does not have.
You could see many exampleswhere the family of politicians

(06:55):
get rich.
The second they get in theoffice, the politician gets rich
and, of course, people ingovernment positions kind of do
the same thing.
I do think that, just to try tobe honest about it, I think
it's kind of interesting to hearElon saying that they make a
lot of money off the taxpayer'sdime, because if you know

(07:17):
anything about Elon's companies,you know for a fact that the
major company Tesla would noteven be around if it was not
because of an Obama grant thatthey received when the company
was on its heels.
And a large portion of themoney that Elon's company

(07:38):
actually makes is due solely tothe United States government
contracts, which is, I thinkI've said before, the United
States when it comes to thegovernment contracts, and that
should be out of the Pentagonwhere he's doing a lot of these
deals.
That is taxpayer-funded money.

Speaker 4 (07:56):
So a lot of Elon's companies is propped up as well
by the taxpayer Basic controlsthat should be in place but are
in place in any company, such asmaking sure that any given
payment has a paymentcategorization code, that there
is a comment field thatdescribes the payment, and that
if a payment is on the do notpay list, that you don't
actually.
None of those things are truecurrently.

(08:17):
So the reason that departmentscan't pass audits is because the
payments don't have acategorization code.
It's like just a massive numberof blank checks just flying out
the building so you can'treconcile blank checks.
You've got common fields thatare also blank, so you don't
know why the payment was made.
And then we've got this, a trueepisode a do-not-pay list,
which can take up to a year foran organization to get on a
do-not-pay list.
And this we're talking aboutterrorist organizations, we're

(08:39):
talking about known fraud, donot manage any congressional
appropriation, can take up to ayear to get on the list, and
even when it's on the list, thelist is not used.
It's mind-blowing.
So what we're talking here?
We're really just talking aboutadding common sense controls
that should be present thathaven't been present.
So you say, well, how could sucha thing arise?
That seems crazy.
When you understand that reallyeverything is geared towards
complaint minimization, then youunderstand the motivations.

(09:02):
So if people receive money theydon't complain, obviously, but
if people don't receive money,they do complain, and the
fraudsters complain the loudestand the fastest.
So then when you understandthat, then it makes sense.
Oh, that's why everything.
Just, they approve all thepayments at Treasury, because if
you approve all the paymentsyou don't get complaints.
But now we're saying no,actually we are going to
complain If money is spent badly.

(09:22):
If your taxpayer dollars are notspent in a sensible and
approval manner, then that's notokay.
Your tax dollars need to bespent wisely on things that
matter to the people.
I mean these things.
It's just common sense, it'snot.
It's not draconian or radical.
I think it's really just sayinglet's look at each of each of
these expenditures and say isthis actually the best interest
of people?
And if it is, it's proved.
If it's not, we should thinkabout it.
So you know, there's crazythings like just a cursory

(09:45):
examination of Social Securityand we've got people in there
that are 150 years old.
Now, do you know anyone that's150?
I don't.
Okay, they should be on theGuinness Book of World Records.
They're missing out.
So you know, that's the casewhere, like, I think they're
probably dead.

Speaker 1 (09:57):
That's my guess, or they should obviously be a lot
of people.
Now, of course, when you hear aclaim like that, I would like
to, just for the sake of thetransparency of it, all, name
names.
If there's somebody on theSocial Security role that is
still receiving payments and youclaim that they are 150 years

(10:19):
old, I don't think it'll be aprivacy breach of them to say
who it is and to see if thatclaim is true.
And if it's not, if it's justsomebody whose name is on the
roll that they are not receivingany payments, then it's
somewhat irrelevant, right.
But if there is someone stillreceiving payments in, those

(10:43):
payments are being spent bysomeone, well then obviously
it's fraud.
So I do think a lot of what hesaid is correct, but I also like
to name names.
We're not as many as currently.

Speaker 4 (11:01):
So we're saying, well , ok, well, let's, if people can
, can retire, you know, withfull benefits, that would be
good, they can retire, get theirretirement payments, everything
.
And then we were told this isactually a great anecdote,
because we were told that themost number of people that could
retire possibly in a month is10,000.
We're like, well, why is thatmine where we store all the
retirement paperwork?
And you look at a picture ofthis mine We'll post some

(11:27):
pictures afterwards and thismine looks like something out of
the 50s because it was startedin 1955.

Speaker 1 (11:32):
It looks like it's like a time warp.
Now that part of what Elon'ssaying is actually true about
this back in 2014, about howantiquated a lot of the
mechanisms in the governmentwere because of when they were
created.
So this what he's saying aboutthat retirement and how 10,000

(11:54):
people can retire a day and etc.
That is actually very true.

Speaker 4 (12:00):
And then the speed.
The limiting factor is thespeed at which the elevator can
move determines how many peoplecan retire from the federal
government, and the elevatorbreaks down sometimes and nobody
can retire.
Doesn't that sound crazy?
There's like a thousand peoplethat work on this.
So I think if we take thosepeople and say you know what,
instead of working in a mineshaft and carrying manila
envelopes to boxes in a mineshaft, you could do practically

(12:21):
anything else and you would addto the goods and services of the
United States in a more usefulway.
So anyway, so that's an example.
Like at a high level, you cansay how do we increase
prosperity?
Because we get people to shiftfrom roles that are low to
negative productivity to highproductivity roles, and so you
increase the total output ofgoods and services, which means
that there's a higher standardof living available for everyone
.
That's the actual goal.

Speaker 5 (12:46):
Everyone's very quiet .
You're detractors, Mr Musk,including a lot of Democrats.
I have detractors you do, sir Idon't believe it Say that
you're orchestrating a hostiletakeover of government and doing
it in a non-transparent way.
What's your response to thatcriticism?

Speaker 4 (12:57):
Well, first of all, you can ask for a stronger
mandate from the public.
The public voted the majorityof the public voted for
President Trump, won the House,won the Senate.
The people voted for majorgovernment reform.
There should be no doubt aboutthat.
That was on the campaign.
The president spoke about thatat every rally.
The people voted for majorgovernment reform and that's

(13:17):
what people are going to get.
They're going to get what theyvoted for, and a lot of times,
people they don't get what theyvoted for.
But in this presidency, theyare going to get what they voted
for, and that's what democracyis all about.

Speaker 6 (13:27):
Mr Musk, the White House says that you will
identify and excuse yourselffrom any conflicts of interest
that you may have.
Does that mean that you are, ineffect, policing yourself?
What are the checks andbalances that are in place to
ensure that there'saccountability and transparency?

Speaker 4 (13:37):
Well, we actually are trying to be as transparent as
possible.
In fact, our actions to theDoge handle on X and to the Doge
website, so all our actions,are maximally transparent.
In fact, I don't think there'sbeen, I don't know of a case
where an organization has beenmore transparent than the Doge
organization, and so the kind ofthings we're doing are, I think
, very simple and basic.
They're not.
You know what I mentioned, forexample, about Treasury just

(13:58):
making sure that payments thatgo out taxpayer money that goes
out is categorized correctly,that the payment is explained,
that organizations on the do notpay list which takes a lot to
get there that actually are notpaid, which currently they are
paid.
These are not individualjudgment decisions.
These are about simply havingsensible checks and balances in
the system itself to ensure thattaxpayer money is spent well,
so it's got nothing to do with,say, a contract with some
company at all.

Speaker 6 (14:17):
But if there is a conflict of interest when it
comes to you yourself, forinstance, instance, you've
received billions of dollars infederal contracts?

Speaker 1 (14:24):
when it comes to the Pentagon, for instance, which
the president, I know, hasdirected you to look into, are
you policing?

Speaker 6 (14:26):
yourself in that.
Is there any sort ofaccountability, check and
balance in place that wouldprovide any transparency for the
American?

Speaker 4 (14:30):
people.
Well, all of our actions arefully public.
So if you see anything, you saylike, wait a second, hey, you
know that doesn't?
That seems like maybe that'syou know there's a conflict
there.
It's not like people are gonnabe shy about saying that they'll
say it immediately, you'll doit yourself.
Yes, transparency is whatbuilds trust, not simply
somebody asserting trust, notsomebody saying they're
trustworthy, but transparency soyou can see everything that's
going on and you can see am Idoing something that benefits

(14:50):
one of my companies or not?
It's totally obvious and wethought that we would not let
him do that segment or look inthat area if we thought there
was a lack of transparency or aconflict of interest.
And we watched that also.
He's a big businessman, he's asuccessful guy.

Speaker 3 (15:02):
That's why we want him doing this.
We don't want an unsuccessfulguy doing this.
Now, one thing also that Elonhasn't really mentioned are the
groups of people that aregetting some of these payments.
They're ridiculous and we'retalking about billions of
dollars that we've already found.
We found fraud and abuse Iwould say those two words as
opposed to the third word that Iusually use but in this case,
fraud and abuse.
It's abusive because most ofthese things are virtually made

(15:24):
up, or certainly money shouldn'tbe said to them, and you know
what I'm talking about.
It's crazy.
So, but we're talking abouttens of billions of dollars that
we've already found, and now ajudge is an activist judge wants
to try and stop us from doingthis.
Why and why would they want todo that?
I can't paint on this.
I can't paint on the fact thatI said government is corrupt and
it is very corrupt.
It's very, very.
It's also foolish.
As an example, a man has acontract for three months and

(15:46):
the contract ends, but they keeppaying him for the next 20
years because nobody ends acontract.
You get a lot of that.
You have a contract that's athree-month contract.
Now, normally, if you're in asmall.
In all fairness it's.
The size of this thing is sobig for three months.
You know it's a consultant.
Here's a contract for threemonths but it goes on for 20
years.
I think I doesn't say that yougot money for 20 years.
You know they don't say it.
They just keep getting checksmonth after month and you have

(16:09):
various things like that andeven much worse than that,
actually much worse, and I guessyou call that incompetence.
Maybe it could be corruption.
It could be a deals made onboth sides.
You know, I guess the money hekicked I think he A tremendous
kickback, because nobody couldbe so stupid to give out some of
these contracts, so he has toget a kickback.
So that's what I got electedfor that and borders and
military, a lot of things.
But this is a big part of itand I hope that the court system

(16:31):
is going to allow us to do whatwe have to do.
We got elected to, among otherthings, fight all of this fraud
and abuse, all of this horriblestuff going on, and we've
already found billions ofdollars, not like a little bit,
billions, many billions ofdollars, and when you get down
to it, it's going to be probablyclose to a trillion dollars it
could be close to a trilliondollars that we're going to find
.
That will have quite an impacton the budget.
And you'll go to a judge wherethey handpick a judge and he has

(16:54):
certain leanings.
I'm not knocking anybody forthat, but he has certain
leanings and he wants us to stoplooking.
How do you stop looking?
I mean?

Speaker 4 (17:10):
we've already found it.
We have a case in new yorkwhere a hotel has paid 59
million dollars, 59 millionbecause of because it's housing
migrants, illegal migrants, allillegal, I believe, just going
for president's comments at ahigh level.
Well, what, how, exactly?
How do you?
What are the two ingredientsthat are really necessary in
order to cut the budget deficitin half from two trillion to
one1 trillion?
And it's really two thingscompetence and caring.
And if you add competence andcaring, you'll cut the budget

(17:31):
deficit in half.
And I fully expect to bescrutinized and get a daily
proctology exam.
Basically, my soldiers camp outthere.
So it's not like I think I canget away with something.
I'll be scrutinized nonstop.
But with the support of thePresident, we can cut the budget
deficit in half, from $2trillion to $1 trillion.
And then, with deregulationbecause there's a lot of
regulations that don'tultimately serve the public good
we need to free the builders ofAmerica to build, and if we do

(17:54):
that, that means you get theeconomic growth to be maybe 3%,
4%, maybe 5%.
And that means if you get $1trillion of economic growth and
you cut the budget deficit by $1trillion Between now and next
year, there is no inflation.
There's no inflation in 26.
And if the government is notborrowing as much, it means that
interest costs decline.
So once the mortgage, the carpayment, their credit card bills
, any of their student debt, themonthly payments drop.
That's a fantastic scenario forthe average American.

(18:17):
I mean, imagine they're goingdown the grocery aisle and the
prices for one year to the nextare the same and their mortgage,
all their debt payments dropped.
How great is that for theaverage?

Speaker 3 (18:28):
American.
We had no idea we were going tofind this much.
And it's open, it's notcomplicated, it's simple stuff.
It's a lot of work.
I can't believe it.
A lot of work, a lot of smartpeople involved, very, very
smart people.
But you're talking about,anyway, maybe $500 million.
It's crazy the kind of numbersyou're talking about.
You know, normally when you'relooking at something you're
looking for one out of 100.
Here you're almost regressingit.

(18:48):
You look for one that's goodand you can look at the title
and you say, why are we doingthis, why are we doing that?
And the public gets it.
You know the public gets it.

Speaker 6 (18:59):
You see the polls the public is saying.
Senator Rand Paul today saidthat doge cuts will ultimately
need a vote in Congress.
Do you agree with that?
Is that the plan?

Speaker 3 (19:05):
I really don't know.
I know this.
We're finding tremendous fraudand tremendous abuse.
If I need a vote of Congress tofind fraud and abuse, it's fine
with me.
I think we'll get the vote,although there'll be some people
that wouldn't vote.
And how could a judge want tohold us back from finding
Congress?
If we do need a vote, I thinkwe'd get a very easy vote
because we have a crack recordnow.
We've already found billions ofdollars of abuse, incompetence

(19:28):
and corruption.

Speaker 6 (19:28):
A lot of corruption.
If a judge does block one ofyour policies part of your
agenda, will you abide by thatrule?

Speaker 3 (19:35):
Well, I don't abide by the courts and then I'll have
to appeal it.
But then what he's done is he'sslowed down up the books.
You know, if a person's crookedand they get caught, other
people see that and all of asudden it becomes harder later
on.
So yeah, the answer is I thinkit's the courts always abide by
it and will appeal.
But appeals take a long timeand I would hope that a judge,
if you go into a judge and youshow them here's a corrupt
situation.

(19:55):
We have a check to be sent, butwe found it to be corrupt.
Do you want us not to give itand give it back to the taxpayer
?
I would hope a judge would saydon't send it, give it back to
the taxpayer.

Speaker 4 (20:05):
If I can add to that, what we're finding is that a
bunch of the fraud is not evengoing to Americans.
So I think we can all agreethat if there's going to be
fraud, it should at least go toAmericans.
But a bunch of the fraud ringsthat are operating in the United
States and taking advantage ofthe federal to 200 million
dollars a year.

Speaker 1 (20:24):
Now, I actually think a lot of that last part was
actually fairly true.
Remember the book that was onour book list a while back, from
the general that we got to talkto that wrote the book why we
Lost?
Talk to?
Uh, that wrote the book why weLost, and this was a book.

(20:45):
This was a book by um GeneralDaniel P Bulger and this is, uh,
his um gripping insider accountof the US wars in Iraq and
Afghanistan and how it all wentwrong.
And in that book he details alot of the, the, the fraud,
waste and abuse that happened inIraq and Afghanistan, including

(21:07):
with some of the contractorswho would bill us for bridge
building and stuff like that,and then have somebody that they
knew would go blow up thebridge right after he got billed
and then say it was the Taliban, when it was actually not the
Taliban, it was just one oftheir cousins and it was
actually not the Taliban, it wasjust one of their cousins.
They talked about how there werepeople who would sit on
recruiting missions and theywould say they recruited said

(21:30):
number of troops and thosepeople didn't exist and it just
be one person pocketing allthese paychecks.
It talked about it, and theywould, of course, have to have
vehicles that they wereallegedly using for all these
troops, and those people didn'texist, so the vehicles actually
weren't being used, they werebeing sold.
So there's a lot of fraud,waste and abuse when it comes to

(21:51):
especially the Pentagon andforeign policy and, of course,
the soft power that was used byUSAID, and so I had no problem
with that.

Speaker 7 (22:03):
An example of the fraud that you have cited was
$50 million of condoms were sentto Gaza, but after fact-check,
this apparently Gaza inMozambique and the program was
to protect them against HIV.
So can you correct thestatements?
It wasn't sent to Hamas.
Actually it was sent toMozambique, which makes sense
why condoms were sent there.

Speaker 4 (22:18):
And how can we?

Speaker 7 (22:19):
make sure that all the statements that you said
were correct, so we can trustwhat you say.

Speaker 4 (22:22):
Well, first of all, some of the things that I say
will be incorrect and should becorrected.
So nobody can have had athousand.
I mean we will make mistakes,but we'll act quickly to correct
any mistakes.

Speaker 1 (22:30):
Now, of course that becomes part of the problem
because of course the polling isclear Foreign policy does not
poll well with the Americanpublic in general.
So if you were to have a storythat would say $5 million worth
of condoms or $50 million worthof condoms went to the Taliban

(22:54):
and then somebody else says,well, actually $50 million worth
of condoms went to Mozambique,I'm actually not fairly sure if
the American public is going tocare about where the $50 million
went.
I think they're going to bemore upset that $50 million went
, period.
Now.
And the other part is, ofcourse a lot of people will see

(23:15):
the story, the initial story,but not see the correction, and
that is going to then become aproblem in and of itself.
I think I've said before thatDiddy lie gets around the world
before truth even gets out ofbed.

Speaker 4 (23:31):
So you know, I'm not sure we should be sending 15
million bells with the Congressanywhere.
Frankly, I'm not sure that'ssomething Americans would be
really excited about.
That's really a normal numberof comments if you think about
it.
But if it went to Mozambiqueinstead of Gaza, I'm like okay,
that's not as bad.
But still, why are we doingthat, can you?

Speaker 6 (23:45):
talk a little bit about how closely you're working
with agency heads as you'remaking these decisions.

Speaker 4 (23:53):
Yeah, we work closely with agency heads and yeah, so
there are sort of checks inplace.
So it's not just us going inand doing things.
We know, it's in partnershipwith agency heads and I check
with the president to make surethat this is what the president
wants to have happen.
So we talk almost every day andI double-check things to make
sure Is this something?
Mr President, you want us to dothis?
Then we'll do it.

Speaker 5 (24:14):
USAID has been one of your main targets.
Are you concerned at all thatsome of the cuts or that
shutting that agency altogethermay lead to diseases or other
bigger problems starting inother countries that then come
to the United States?
Yeah, so that's an interestingexample.

Speaker 4 (24:25):
So that's something where we work closely with the
State Department and SecretaryRubio and we have, for example,
turned on funding for Ebolaprevention and for HIV
prevention and for HIVprevention.
I love that.
Yes, correct, and we are movingfast.
So we will make mistakes, butwe'll also fix the mistakes very
quickly.

Speaker 6 (24:38):
Do you think that's a worthy cause?

Speaker 4 (24:41):
USAID.
I think that there's someworthy things, but overall, if
you say what is the bang for thebuck, I would say it was not
very good.
There was far too much of whatUSAID was doing was influencing
elections in ways that I thinkwere dubious and do not stand
for the light of day.

Speaker 1 (24:54):
And, of course, when he's talking about influencing
elections, that's the CIApropping up governments,
toppling governments around theworld, which I do agree has been
an awful thing, does that?

Speaker 6 (25:05):
have to follow up to the Pentagon contracts If you
have received billions ofdollars in contracts from the
Pentagon and the president'sdirecting you to look into the
Department of Defense is that aconflict of interest?

Speaker 4 (25:12):
Yes, you're right, I agree with you at the.

Speaker 6 (25:13):
President's request.
Does that present a conflict ofinterest for you?
No, because you have to look atthe individual contract and say
, first of all, I'm not the onefiling the contract.

Speaker 1 (25:20):
It's people at SpaceX or someone who will be filing
the contract, and I'd like tosay, if you see any contract
where I thought that was silly,I'm not the one filing the
SpaceX are going to be doingthings that benefit SpaceX, so
it will be benefiting youdirectly.
So of course, it's your company.
You should not be involved inthe oversight of your own

(25:42):
company when it comes togovernment contracts, and nor
should your staff, because, atthe end of the day, if your
staff benefits, so do you.
If you benefit, so do the boardof directors.
So, in theory, so doeseverybody else, so do the board

(26:08):
of directors, so, in theory, sodoes everybody else.
So there would need to beanother Doge executive that
would have to have a look at the, at the rid of the scam.
I don't think you should beover the government, the part of
the government that regulatesyour specific companies.
I think you just run headlonginto another corruption problem,
because, of course, as we know,as that saying says, absolute

(26:29):
power corrupts absolutely.

Speaker 4 (26:32):
The contract where it was awarded to SpaceX.
That wasn't by far the bestvalue for money for the taxpayer
.
Let me know, Because every oneof them was.

Speaker 5 (26:38):
The President said the other day that you might
look at treasuries.
Could you explain that a littlebit?
What kind of fraud?
Or that question goes to bothof you what kind of fraud are
you expecting to see or do yousee right now in US treasuries?
I think you mean the TreasuryDepartment as opposed to
Treasury bills.

Speaker 4 (26:51):
You also referenced tre.
Well, as I mentioned earlier,really the first part of this is
to make sure we actuallycollect the story of this.
Otherwise I might enjoy this,but it's sticking in my ears.
This has been hot in here sinceI paid.
So the stuff we're doing withthe Treasury Department is so
basic that you can't believe itdoesn't exist already.
So, for example, like Imentioned, just making sure that

(27:13):
when a payment goes out, it hasto have the payment
categorization code.
It's like what type of paymentis this?
You can't just leave the fieldblank.
Currently, many countries, thefield is left blank and you have
to describe what's the paymentfor some basic rationalization.
That also is left blank.

Speaker 1 (27:24):
So this is why you know Pentagon when's the last
time a Pentagon passed an audit?
I mean a decade ago.
Maybe it's a great point.
It's a great point.

Speaker 4 (27:33):
Ben Nagan has failed a lot of audits, so yeah, and
once in a while, the Treasuryhas to test pause payments if it
thinks the payment is going toa fraudulent organization.
Like, if a company ororganization is on a do-not-pay
list, we should not pay it.
I'm sure you would agree.
Like, if it's quite hard to geton that payment, the do-not-pay
list it, but this is someonethat is just like dead people,

(27:54):
terrorists, known fraudsters,that kind of thing we should not
pay them.
But currently we do, which iscrazy.
But currently we do, which iscrazy.
We should stop that and, by theway, hundreds thousands of
transactions like that.
You know, we have a big teamand, for the sake of the country
, I hope that the person that'sin charge and the other people
that report to me that arecharged are allowed to do the

(28:15):
right thing daily picture of hishonest, legitimate and
competent.

Speaker 3 (28:19):
We're looking at just a pretty, but it was a.
That was.
That's what will get.
The military will get education.
It was a great race.
But the u s, a, I, d is reallycorrupt.
That is correct.
It's a competent.
That's really corrupt.
And I can imagine just say, well, maybe corrupt, but you have a
regular to look over the countryand to, as we say, make America
great again.
But you don't have the right togo and look and see whether or
not things are right, thatthey're paying, or that things

(28:40):
are honest, that they're paying,and nobody can even believe
this.
Other people, law professors,they've been saying how can you
take that person's right away?
He's supposed to be running, goto numbers that you're not

(29:00):
going to believe and, as I said,much is incompetence and much
is dishonesty.
We have to catch it and theonly way to catch it is to look
for it.
And if a judge is going to sayyou're not allowed to look for
it, that's pretty safe for ourcountry.
I don't understand how thateven works.
Sir, can you personallyguarantee that the workers who
opt in to resign now will bepaid for September?
Well, they're getting theirmoney, but they're getting a
good deal.
They're getting a big buyoutand what we're trying to do is

(29:21):
reduce government.
We have too many people.
We have office spaces occupiedby 4%.
Nobody's showing up to workbecause they were told not to
and then Biden gave them a fivethe stuff is because of my.
It's his fault.
He allowed this country.
What he did on our border, whathe did on our border is almost
not as bad as what he did withall of these contracts that have

(29:42):
come out.
It's.
It's a very sad day when welook at it.
I can't even believe it, butmany contracts just extend and
they just keep extending andthere was nobody there to
correct it, and that cannot be.
I can't imagine that could beheld up by the court Any court
that would say that thepresident or his representatives
, like Secretary of the Treasury, secretary of State, whatever
doesn't have the right to goover their books and make sure
everything's honest.
I mean, how can you have acountry?
You can't have anything thatway.

(30:02):
You can't have a business thatway.
You can't have a country thatway.
Thank you very much, everybody.
Thank you, thank you everybody.

Speaker 6 (30:07):
I'm going to leave you back to that.
If you want to come over, we'llbe at the White House tonight
at about 10 o'clock.

Speaker 3 (30:13):
If you want to come over, you can say hello.
Did you guys get anythingreturned?
Not much.
No, they were very nice.
We were treated very nicely byRussia.
Actually.
I hope that's the beginning ofa relationship where we can end
that war and millions of peoplecan stop being killed.
They've lost millions of people.
They've lost, in terms ofsoldiers, probably 1.5 million

(30:35):
soldiers in a short period oftime.
We've got to stop that war andI'm interested primarily from
the standpoint of death.
We're losing all those soldiers, and they're not American
soldiers, they're Ukrainian andRussian soldiers, but you're
probably talking about a millionand a half.
I think we've got to bring thatone to an end.

Speaker 1 (30:51):
Thank you.
Let's get a few of theseheadlines in here.
Thank you to a state charge onTuesday for his role to defraud

(31:16):
donors to a non-profit devotedto building a wall on the
country's southern border.
Now Bannon won't serve timebehind bars under the plea
agreement which was laid outduring a hearing in the New York
courtroom on Tuesday.
In exchange for pleading guiltyto one count of scheming to

(31:36):
defraud In the first degree, hereceived a sentence of a
conditional discharge for threeyears Now.
During that time, bannon isforbidden from serving as a
director of any non-profitorganization and any non-profit
in New York, or raise any moneyfor charities with access in the
state.
Now the plea brings an end to amatter that begun during

(32:06):
President Trump's firstadministration, just as Trump
has vowed again to beef upborder barriers in the early
days of his new presidency.
Bannon served as Trump's chiefstrategist for the first seven
months of the Trump presidencyin 2017.
Bannon was charged in Septemberof 2022 for his role in

(32:29):
organizing the organization thatraised millions for an effort
to privately build a wall alongthe US-Mexican border.
He and a group which was calledthe we Build a Wall were
accused of defrauding donors for$15 million in donations.
Dobannon's lawyer said Tuesdayhe didn't personally pocket any

(32:53):
of the money.
Tuesday he didn't personallypocket any of the money.
Now the Trump ally attended thehearing in his usual courtroom
attire a brown jacket, untuckedblack button-down shirt over
gray jeans.
He was charged with two countsof money laundering in the
second degree, two counts ofconspiracy in the fourth degree
and a scheme to defraud in thefirst degree and a conspiracy in

(33:14):
the fifth degree.
Under the plea agreement,bannon entered a guilty plea to
just the first scheme to defraudcharge.
He was all.
He also waived his rights toappeal the case.
Now manhattan district attorneyalvin bragg sent a statement to
cbs news.
This resolution achieves ourprimary goal to protect

(33:38):
charities in New York fromgiving to charitable to fraud.
New York has an importantinterest in rooting out fraud in
our markets, our corporationsand our charities, and we will
continue to do so.
A federal grand jury indictedBannon in a similar case in
August 2020.

(33:58):
Now that prosecution came to anabrupt halt when Bannon was
pardoned by Trump in the finalhours of his first term in
office.
Trump pardon authority extendsto federal matters, meaning he
is not able to pardon Bannon inthis case, which is in the New
York State Court.
Now, bannon served four monthsin federal prison in 2024 after

(34:22):
he was found guilty in 2022 forcontempt of Congress for
refusing to comply with asubpoena to appear before the
House Committee investigatingthe January 6th attack on the
United States Capitol.
He has decried all the casesagainst him, claiming they were
driven by political animus.
Now, the charges against him inNew York were brought by Bragg,

(34:44):
whose office last year obtainedthe only criminal eviction in
American history of a former andfuture president.
In that case, trump was foundguilty of felony counts
falsifying business records in amatter dating back to his first
campaign in 2016.
The case, which Trump hasappealed, promises to put Bragg

(35:08):
and his office at the center ofheightened scrutiny, as Trump
and his senior justicedepartment leaders vowed to
investigate those whoinvestigated him.
Now, 36 hours after RussellVaught took over the Consumer
Protection Bureau, he shut itsoperation.

(35:29):
Sorry, one of Wall Street's mostfeared regulators, with the
power to issue rules onmortgages, credit cards, student
loans and other areas affectingAmericans' financial lives.
Now, the day before, lindaWetzel closed her retirement
home in Southport, northCarolina, in 2012, a cozy place

(35:52):
where she could open the windowsat night and catch an ocean
breeze.
The bank making the loansurprise her with fees she
hadn't expected.
She had scored her mortgagepaperwork and couldn't find the
charge disclosed anywhere.
She had made the payment andthen filed an online complaint

(36:15):
with the Consumer FinancialProtection Bureau.
The bank quickly opened aninvestigation with the bureau
and a month later it sent herfive thousand six hundred
dollars check.
The first thought was thank you.
I was in tears.
She recalled that money was ayear or two of my savings on my

(36:35):
mortgage.
It was not much, but it was mylittle nest egg.
Now she she was refunded a tinypiece of the work the bureau
had done since it was created in2011.
It is actually called back 21billion for consumers $21
billion for consumers.
It slashed overdraft fees,reformed student loan servicing

(36:56):
markets, transformed mortgagelending rules, enforced banks
and money transmitters tocompensate fraud victims.
It may no longer be able tocarry out that work because
President Trump on Fridayappointed Russell Vaught, who
was confirmed a day earlier, tolead the Office of Management
and Budget as the agency'sacting director.

(37:17):
Vaught was an author of Project2025, a conservative blueprint
for upending the federalgovernment that called for
significant changes, includingabolishing the Consumer
Protection Bureau.
So in less than 36 hours.
Vaught threw the agency intochaos.
On Saturday he ordered theBureau's 1,700 employees to stop

(37:41):
nearly all their work andannounced plans to cut the
agency's funding.
Then, on Sunday, he closed theBureau's headquarters for the
coming week.
Workers who tried to retrievetheir laptops from the offices
were turned away.
Employees said the bureau hasbeen a woke and weaponized
agency against disfavoredindustries and individuals for a

(38:03):
long time.
Mr Vaught wrote on X on Sunday.
This must end Crafted byCongress.
In the aftermath of the housingcrisis that set off the Great
Recession, the ConsumerProtection Bureau became one of
Wall Street's most fearedregulators, with the power to

(38:23):
issue new rules and penalizecompanies for breaking them
around mortgages, credit carddebts, student loans, credit
reporting and other areas thataffect the financial lives of
millions of Americans.
The Bureau's actions made it alightning rod for criticism from
the banks and Republicanlawmakers that put it squarely
in the Trump administration'scrosshair.
The agency's foes have longcalled for its elimination,

(38:45):
which only Congress has thepower to do.
Elon Musk, the billionaireleader of the government
efficiency teams that hascreated havoc throughout the
federal government, posted cfpbrest in peace on social media on
x on friday.
A few hours earlier, hisassociates had gained access to
the consumer perception bureau'sheadquarters and the computer

(39:06):
systems.
Now the national treasuryemployees union, which
represents the bureau employees,filed a lawsuit against Mr
Vaught on Sunday night.
Granting must teams access tothe employee records violated
the Privacy Act of 1974, a lawregulating how government
handles individuals personalinformation.
The union said it is in anon-compliant which is filed in

(39:30):
federal court in Washington.
Now agency workers fear theiremployment data could be used
for online harassment or toblackmail, threaten or
intimidate them.
The complaint, it said Workersare also concerned about the
disclosure of the personalhealth and financial details.
The union added.
The union filed a secondlawsuit the acting director over

(39:51):
his efforts to freeze agencieswork vaults orders illegally
infringe over his efforts tofreeze agencies work vaults
orders illegally infringe, theunion said, of congress's
authority to set and fund themissions of the consumer bureau.
Representatives of the consumerbureau and the budget office
did not respond to requests forcomment.
During the first trump'sadministration, where
republicans control bothchambers of congress, lawmakers

(40:12):
failed to amass enough votes toabolish the agency.
Some have indicated that theywould try and would like to try
again.
Senator Bill Hagerty, aTennessee Republican who serves
on the Senate Banking Committee,called the Bureau, a rogue
agency.
On Sunday on CBS News programFace the Nation.
It has been basically areckless agency that's been

(40:34):
allowed to go way beyond themandate.
I think it was that wasoriginally intended.
He said it's time to rein it in.
Senator Elizabeth Warren, aDemocrat from Massachusetts who
fought for the agency's creationand who describes herself as
his mom on X biography, hasspent the last decade battling
attempts to dismantle theConsumer Protection Bureau.

(40:55):
Last decade battling attemptsto dismantle the consumer
protection bureau, presidenttrump campaigned on helping
working families, but russvought just told wall street
that it is open season to scamfamilies, she said on sunday in
a written statement.
What vought is doing is illegaland dangerous and we will fight
back.
Many of the agency's actionshave directly affected americans
pocketbooks.

(41:15):
Its rules overhaul the market,curbing the kinds of subprime
loans that set off the housingcrisis.
Pressure from the Bureau ledmajor banks to reduce or
eliminate their overdraft fees,and a recently finalized rule
would cap the cost of those feesat $5.
Those fees at five dollars.

(41:43):
The agency's recently adoptedrules to eliminate medical debt
from credit card reports andlimit the most credit card late
fees to eight dollars or lessper month, but the lawsuits have
delayed those rules from takingeffect.
Dissatisfaction created theConsumer Protection Bureau and
people's dissatisfaction createdTrump, said Shannar Shikari,

(42:04):
law professor of the Universityof California Davis.
Trump's team has given priorityto attack specific agencies
like the US Agency forInternational Development and
the Consumer Bureau that servevulnerable populations, mr
Shikari said, while throwingalot of federal support and
cheering to agencies likeImmigration, customs and
Enforcement, which hasintensified its immigration
crackdown.
While the bureau cannot beshuttered without congressional

(42:26):
action, its direction has thepower to radically alter its
approach Now, during Trump'sfirst home, he appointed Mick
Mulvaney, then a director of theBudget Office.
Trump's first home, heappointed Mick Mulvaney, then a
director of the budget office,now leads as the Bureau's acting
director.
Mulvaney called the agency ajoke in a sad kind of way and
sharply co-tailed itsenforcement actions and
rulemaking work.
The agency's power has swunglike a pendulum.

(42:49):
It moved aggressively whenDemocrats held the White House,
but pulled back during Trump'sfirst term.
Mulvaney and his trumpappointed successor, uh, caitlin
kringer, put the bureau into akind of hibernation, gutting
rules that would have wiped outmuch of the payday lending
market and slashing the bureau'senforcement actions.
But several current agenciesemployees who spoke confidently,

(43:11):
uh, for fear of retribution,said votes order on saturday
stretched beyond what occurredduring the last trump
administration.
His instructions to cease allsupervision and examination
activities caused particularalarm.
While other federal agencies,including the federal deposit
insurance corporation, thefederal reserve and office of

(43:32):
the Computer and Currency, alsooversee banks, the Consumer
Bureau is the sole regulator forbank non-lenders.
Now those companies hold alarge share of the market,
coming in at $13 trillion alonewhen it comes to the mortgage

(43:53):
market.
Vaught also said he intended tocut off the Consumer Bureau's
funding, which comes directlyfrom the Federal Reserve,
outside the usual congressionalappropriations process.
The agency's budget for the2025 fiscal year calls for
around $800 million in annualspending and the Fed transferred
$245 million to the Bureau inJanuary to fulfill its latest

(44:16):
request.
Vaught wrote on X that he hadbeen.
He told the Fed that the Bureauwould not be taking its next
funding draw because it's notreasonable or necessary to carry
out its duties.
Adam Leviathan Levitin, aprofessor at Georgetown law who
specializes in financialregulation, said on Sunday the

(44:39):
false orders might be illegal.
Some of the federal laws thatgovern the consumer Bureau order
it's to supervise specificentities.
That work has had.
Work does not appear to bediscretionary, he said.
Now the acting director has theability to seriously hobble the
Consumer Financial ProtectionBureau through a bunch of slow

(45:01):
bleeds, but he's trying to skipall the necessary steps and just
go for an immediate death blow.
He may not have the legalability to actually do that, but
I'm not sure how much that isgoing to matter.
A lot of the way Trumpadministration has been dealing
with regulatory agencies is akind of um blitzkrieg tactic,
where a key component iscreating fear, uncertainty and

(45:24):
chaos.
A rally on Saturday outside ofthe bureau's headquarters,
organized by its staff union,drew a few hundred participants.
A Maryland resident who askedthat her name be withheld for
fear of retribution, saidTrump's allies attended with her
husband, a federal worker whoseworkers who support the agency
and employees.

(45:44):
I don't think people understandwhat the Consumer Financial
Protection Bureau does.
She said the administrationsaid they are closing it because
of fraud, but the Bureau'sliteral job is to protect people
from fraud and drunk fees andpredatory lending.
Uh weed soap.
The retiree who used her fivethousand six hundred dollar

(46:05):
refund to replace the floors inher home said the quick action
of her uh complaint made herfeel empowered.
It was such a relief relief tohave the government saying what
the bank did was wrong.
This is not the rule of law,she said.
I got a question today thatactually somewhat coincides with

(46:29):
the way I was going to end theshow.
Kind of perfectly ended it thatway.
Question from longtime listenerand Patreon, gene.
Please name the governmentagencies investigating Elon Musk
and why he is a focus.
Thank you, mr McClain.
So at least 11 federal agenciesthat have been affected by Musk
.
Those moves have more than 32continuing investigations

(46:53):
pending complaints enforcementactions into Musk's six
companies.
Now there was a long, detailedstory out of the New York Times
that we're going to go over nextabout this conflict of interest
.

Speaker 8 (47:10):
Look, these damn billionaires are making their
moves right out in the open.
Look at Elon, please.
No, just look.
He invested $288 million to buyan election for Donald Trump,

(47:35):
for Donald Trump, and now he isright here to collect on that
investment.
Elon Musk owns X, which hasbeen losing money like crazy.
So Elon has a plan for a newpayment platform called X Money.

(47:56):
Elon wants X Money to touchevery part of your financial
life.
But Elon has got a problem thefinancial cops.
The CFPB is there to make surethat Elon's new project can't

(48:21):
scam you or steal your sensitivepersonal data.
So Elon's solution Get rid ofthe cops.

Speaker 2 (49:09):
Kill the CFPB, the CF , thank you.
This article is by Eric Liptonand Kirsten Grind and read by an
automated voice.
President Trump has been inoffice less than a month and
Elon Musk's vast business empireis already benefiting, or is
now in a decidedly betterposition to benefit.
No-transcript.

(49:49):
Mr Musk has also reaped thebenefit of resignations by
Biden-era regulators thatflipped control of major
regulatory agencies, leavingmore sympathetic Republican
appointees overseeing thoselawsuits.
At least 11 federal agenciesthat have been affected by those
moves have more than 32continuing investigations,
pending complaints orenforcement actions into Mr

(50:12):
Musk's six companies.
According to a review by theNew York Times, the events of
the past few weeks have throwninto question the progress and
outcomes of many of thosepending investigations into his
companies.
The inquiries include theFederal Aviation
Administration's fines of MrMusk's rocket company, spacex,
for safety violations and aSecurities and Exchange

(50:35):
Commission lawsuit pressing MrMusk to pay the federal
government perhaps as much as$150 million, accusing him of
having violated federalsecurities law.
On its own, the National LaborRelations Board, an independent
watchdog agency for workers'rights, has 24 investigations
into Mr Musk's companies.

(50:55):
According to the review by theTimes, since January, mr Trump
has fired three officials atthat agency, including a board
member, effectively stalling theboard's ability to rule on
cases.
Until Mr Trump nominates newmembers, cases that need a
ruling by the board cannot moveforward.
According to the agency, overat the Consumer Financial

(51:16):
Protection Bureau, a publicdatabase shows hundreds of
complaints about the electriccar company Tesla, mostly
concerning debt collection orloan problems.
The agency has now effectivelybeen put out of commission, at
least temporarily, by the Trumpadministration, which has
ordered its staff to put a holdon all investigations.
The Bureau also is an agencythat would have regulated Mr

(51:40):
Musk's new efforts to bring apayment service to X CFPB rip.
Mr Musk wrote in a social mediapost last week as the Trump
administration moved to closedown the bureau.
Mr Musk not only has numerouscontracts that are overseen by
multiple government agencies,including space, media,
financial securities and highwaysafety.

(52:01):
He and his team also have anextraordinary position, created
by Mr Trump, that allows him toreview the spending and staffing
of every department in theexecutive branch through his
cost-cutting initiative calledthe Department of Government
Efficiency.
Traditional federal conflict ofinterest rules seem almost
antiquated if Mr Musk isdetermined to be involved in

(52:23):
specific decisions aboutagencies his companies do
business with.
That is why Mr Musk's role isso concerning to former White
House ethics lawyers inDemocratic and Republican
administrations alike.
None of the investigations orlawsuits involving Mr Musk and
his companies, at least so far,have formally been dropped since

(52:44):
the start of the newadministration, according to
more than a dozen current andformer federal officials
interviewed by the Times.
The Times also found noevidence that Mr Musk directly
ordered that an investigationinto one of his companies be
shut down or stalled.
The shifts at the agencies inmany cases reflect changes in
national priorities that comewith a president who has long

(53:06):
complained that governmentregulation has been too
aggressive, a view widely heldin the business community.
But the upheaval at federalagencies represents one of the
first tests of a wide range ofconflicts of interest Mr Musk
has brought to the White House,including 100 contracts with 17
federal agencies.
Mr Musk controls six companies,including Tesla, which is

(53:29):
publicly traded.
He is the founder of SpaceX,the artificial intelligence
startup, xai, the Boring Company, a tunneling venture, and
Neuralink, which is developingbrain-computer implants.
All of those are private.
He also owns the social mediaplatform X, formerly Twitter.
Mr Musk's company has secured$13 billion in contracts over

(53:50):
the past five years, makingSpaceX, which collects most of
that money, one of the biggestgovernment contractors.
There is already talk duringthe Trump administration of
expanding these deals,particularly at the Air Force.
Mr Musk has had a long andcontentious relationship with
regulators of his companies.
He is called the SEC bastards,and SpaceX has sued the NLRB,

(54:13):
arguing it's unconstitutionalafter the agency had alleged
that the company had mistreatedand illegally fired some workers
.
If the rules are such that youcan't make progress, then you
have to fight the rules, mr Musksaid in an authorized biography
published in 2015.
Democrats in Congress andoutside lawyers who specialize

(54:33):
in government contracting andethics have questioned Mr Musk's
position, saying that theycannot identify a time in
American history when acorporate executive with so many
regulatory matters, as well asbillions of dollars in federal
contracts, has had such powerover government operations.
Mr Musk's dual roles running afor-profit corporation while

(54:55):
serving in public office notonly creates glaring conflicts
of interest that pose graverisks for America's most sacred
institutions, but may alsoviolate federal law.
Senator Richard Blumenthal, aConnecticut Democrat who is the
ranking member of a Senateinvestigations panel, wrote in a
letter to Tesla's generalcounsel and board chairman this

(55:15):
month.
Mr Blumenthal sought answers asto how the company is dealing
with the apparent conflicts.
Mr Trump, speaking withreporters before he attended the
Super Bowl on Sunday, said MrMusk is not gaining anything in
the role.
White House officials last weekadded that it is up to Mr Musk
to police his own actions.
If Elon Musk comes across aconflict of interest with the

(55:38):
contracts and the funding thatDoge is overseeing, then Elon
will excuse himself from thosecontracts.
The White House press secretary, Caroline Leavitt, said Mr Musk
, his companies and aspokeswoman for the Department
of Government Efficiency did notrespond to requests for comment
.
However, in comments from theOval Office with Mr Trump on

(55:58):
Tuesday, mr Musk defended hisinvolvement in Pentagon
contracting and said he wasconfident he did not have
conflicts because employees atSpaceX submit the bids, not him
personally.
Mr Musk added that if anyonecan find a contract that was
awarded to SpaceX and it wasn'tby far the best value for money
for the taxpayer let me know,because every one of them was

(56:22):
SpaceX, tesla and Safety.
Spacex's launch of its FalconHeavy rocket in July 2023 from
the Kennedy Space Center inFlorida gained little national
attention, but in its own way,it was historic.
The company was putting a10-ton satellite the largest
ever sent into what is calledgeostationary orbit 22,000 miles

(56:42):
above Earth.
To the public, the launch wentoff without a hitch, but behind
the scenes a conflict betweenSpaceX and the FAA had been
playing out.
Documents show the agency hadtold SpaceX as the countdown to
the launch was underway that anew facility SpaceX had built to
fill the rocket engines withfuel had not yet passed all the
required safety checks.

(57:03):
Spacex went ahead anyway.
The FAA proposed a $283,009fine.
That move, along with a secondproposed fine from the FAA,
infuriated Mr Musk, who hadcalled the enforcement action
unjustified and improperpolitically motivated behavior.
Mr Musk later demanded theresignation of the agency's head

(57:25):
, michael G Whitaker.
Mr Musk got his wish when MrWhitaker, a lawyer with decades
of experience in the aviationindustry, resigned on the last
day of the Biden administration,even though he had been
unanimously confirmed only inlate 2023 to a five-year term
with bipartisan support in theSenate.

(57:46):
With Mr Trump back in the WhiteHouse, mr Musk's allies saw an
opening to revoke the proposedFAA fines and also to force the
agency, which is charged underlaw with ensuring that rocket
launches do not endanger thepublic or cause undue harm to
the environment, to speed up itsSpaceX approvals.
The confirmation hearing lastmonth of Sean Duffy for

(58:06):
Transportation Secretary,created a moment to ask for the
fine to be withdrawn.
If confirmed, will you committo reviewing these penalties and
, more broadly, to curtailingbureaucratic overreach and
accelerating launch approvals atFAA's Commercial Space Office?
As Senator Ted Cruz, republicanof Texas, where SpaceX is
moving its headquarters, mrDuffy, who has since been

(58:29):
confirmed, replied I commit todoing a review and working with
you and following up on thespace launches and what's been
happening at the FAA.
With regard to the launches,katie Thompson, who recently
left the agency, where sheserved as deputy administrator
and previously chief of staff,said she found Mr Musk's
involvement as a federalgovernment official very

(58:50):
troubling, given what she calledMr Musk's clear conflicts of
interest.
The FAA's actions are supposedto be driven by safety, she said
.
Officials at the FAA'sCommercial Space Division, which
directly regulates SpaceXlaunches, said in a statement to
the Times that it had not seenany recent cuts in its staff of
approximately 160, and that thestandards it uses to evaluate

(59:14):
SpaceX permit requests had notchanged.
Even seemingly small staffchanges could benefit Mr Musk's
multi-billion dollar businessoperations.
The full-time fish and ampwildlife agency Wildlife
Biologist assigned to helpmonitor the federal lands near
the SpaceX launch site for anydamage to threatened species
habitats after launches recentlywas transferred to a post

(59:36):
elsewhere in Texas.
The service is currentlycovering the workload with
existing staff, the agency saidwhen asked about the transfer by
the Times, this response wasderided by local
environmentalists who said thatthey have relied on the agency
to help protect nearby coastalestuaries, considered some of
the most important bird habitatsin the world.

(59:57):
What is happening is more orless a capitulation.
They are tiptoeing aroundbecause of Trump and Musk, said
Jim Chapman.
Leader of a South Texascommunity group, called Save RGV
short for Rio Grande ValleyShifts at the SEC and FEC.
Changes in leadership at theSecurities and Exchange
Commission, which sued Mr Muskin January shortly before Mr

(01:00:21):
Trump returned to the WhiteHouse, will almost certainly
result in an outcome morebeneficial for Mr Musk.
Lawyers involved in the casesaid the SEC determined that Mr
Musk underpaid by at least $150million for the Twitter stock he
purchased in 2022 before movingto formally take over the
company, because he illegallyfailed to file a disclosure on

(01:00:43):
time that he had alreadypurchased 5% of the company.
If that notice had been filed,the stock would almost certainly
have risen in value and costhim more to acquire.
The agency said Mr Musk calledthe agency a totally broken
organization.
In response toa post on Xregarding the SEC's lawsuit, mr

(01:01:04):
Musk for months repeatedlyrebuffed efforts by agency
investigators to interview him,agreeing only a few months
before the end of the Bidenadministration to answer
questions in person, delayingthe investigation.
The agency is overseen by afive-member commission which
must sign off on litigation andsettlements.
The two Republicans objected tothe planned lawsuit, but they

(01:01:27):
were in the minority at the time.
Now, with the departures of twoDemocrats, republicans have a
majority and two lawyers whohave participated in the
deliberations said they expectthat the matter will be settled
with a modest fine.
Mr Trump's effort last week toremove the chairwoman of the
Federal Election Commission alsocould affect Mr Musk.

(01:01:48):
The agency has received severalcomplaints involving Mr Musk,
including one from PublicCitizen, a nonprofit group,
saying that he violated federallaw by offering voters in swing
states $1 million each toencourage voter registration.
Challenged Mr Trump's effort toremove her.

(01:02:14):
If her seat were empty, itwould be less likely that the
four remaining members of thecommission would agree to open
any new investigation or approvesettlements, said Daniel Weiner
, a former lawyer at the agency,as any such move requires four
votes.
Workers' Rights At two federalwatchdog agencies for workers.
The actions by Mr Trump have aclear effect on Mr Musk's
business empire, as well ascountless other companies that

(01:02:37):
have matters before them.
The firings at the agencies theNational Labor Relations Board
and the Equal EmploymentOpportunity Commission mean
neither has a quorum on itsboard to decide cases.
One of the many NLRBinvestigations involves Mr
Musk's company's sweeping jobcuts in 2022 at his social media

(01:02:57):
platform.
X then called Twitter.
Twitter employees at the timebanded together to talk about
what was going on at work onSlack software and on the
messaging app Signal.
Twitter tried to get a hold ofthe communications and even
surveilled some employees.
According to copies of the NLRBcharges obtained through public
records requests, the matter isbeing reviewed by NLRB staff,

(01:03:21):
but the board's currentconstruct could trouble its path
forward or prevent a decisionagainst X from being enforced.
Even if Mr Trump replaces theabsent board member, that would
be likely to significantly shiftthe balance of the board more
Republican.
According to four peoplefamiliar with the agency,
shannon Liss Reardon, a lawyerrepresenting the Twitter workers

(01:03:42):
, said she is worried that thechanges at the NLRB could affect
those specific charges.
If I were a betting person.
This is not exactly where I'mhanging my hat today.
She said In 2023,.
The EEOC separately sued Teslaalleging widespread and ongoing
racial harassment of its Blackemployees and retaliation.

(01:04:03):
The litigation has been a thornin Tesla's side.
Last year, a judge ruledagainst the company's move to
dismiss the lawsuit, despite thecompany's argument that Black
workers can and do thrive atTesla.
While the case is movingforward, mr Trump is expected to
appoint new commissionersrepresenting a shift in the
agency's approach to workers'rights and a potential dismissal

(01:04:25):
of the matter.
A spokesman for the EEOC saidthe agency would not comment on
current litigation.
Fired watchdogs In his firstweek, mr Trump fired at least 17
inspectors general who arecharged with investigating waste
and corruption within their ownagencies.
The mass firing, a move thatmay have violated federal law,

(01:04:48):
may benefit Mr Musk.
Among the dismissed inspectorsgeneral was Phyllis Fong at the
Agriculture Department.
Her agency had opened aninvestigation in 2022 into Mr
Musk's brain implant startup,neuralink, and the inquiry was
in progress as of late last year, according to two people
familiar with it.
Reuters reported last monththat the investigation was

(01:05:11):
continuing.
Reuters reported last monththat the investigation was
continuing.
In December, mr Musk posted aletter from his lawyer on X that
claimed that the SEC had alsoreopened an investigation into
Neuralink.
Both investigations arose aftera nonprofit Physicians Committee
for Responsible Medicinediscovered through a public

(01:05:34):
records lawsuit in 2021 thatNeuralink had allegedly
mistreated dozens of testmonkeys.
Ryan Merkley, the nonprofit'sdirector of research advocacy,
said in an interview theysuffered from infections,
internal bleeding and there weresurgical mistakes that were
made where devices that werescrewed to the skull came loose.
Mr Merkley said Mr Musk hasdenied the mistreatment of
monkeys at Neuralink and thecompany was not cited after a

(01:05:56):
USDA review.
The USDA inspector general'soffice didn't return requests
for comment.
On Monday, mr Trump fired thehead of the Office of Government
Ethics, an independent agency.
The office had pending requeststo investigate Mr Musk based on
allegations raised by Democratsin Congress last week that Mr

(01:06:17):
Musk's role as a federalgovernment official creates an
unavoidable conflict of interest.
The letter, signed by 12 HouseDemocrats, said the American
people deserve assurances thatno individual, regardless of
stature, is permitted toinfluence policy for personal
gain.
Jessica Silver Greenberg andAaron Crowley contributed

(01:06:38):
reporting.
Kirsten Noyes contributedresearch.