Is it all a Grift? How Elon Musk Will Get Richer from DOGE

How the World’s Richest Man Is Gaming the System, And Getting Away With It. And What You Can Do.

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When news broke that the State Department planned to purchase $400 million worth of armored Teslas, Elon Musk called it a “hit job” on X, claiming he had no knowledge of it. Then, in the blink of an eye, Tesla’s name vanished from the government procurement document.

This was a blip in the news cycle, but also a glaring example of Musk’s deep entanglement with government contracts, and how quickly he can manipulate the narrative.

His reaction was a perfect demonstration of his preferred method for handling conflicts of interest: let the public discover the grift, let them rage online, and maybe, just maybe, he’ll address it. Maybe he will be called out on it and action will be taken to cancel a contract. Or maybe not. These days it often feels like anything can happen.

This is not ethics compliance, nor is it governance. It’s a billionaire deciding, in real time, which government watchdogs get to bark and which get muzzled. It’s the world’s richest man testing the waters to see what he can get away with.

Musk’s business empire, spanning Tesla, SpaceX, Neuralink, X (formerly Twitter), and more, is deeply intertwined with government contracts and regulatory oversight. Here are just a few examples.

According to the NY Times, “At least 11 federal agencies that have been affected by those moves have more than 32 continuing investigations, pending complaints or enforcement actions into Mr. Musk’s six companies.”

New York Times

Here are just a few:

• The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration has been investigating Tesla’s autopilot failures.

• The Department of Transportation fined Neuralink over biohazardous material violations.

• The National Labor Relations Board pursued multiple labor complaints against X and Tesla.

• In January 2025 The Securities and Exchange Commission filed a lawsuit accusing Musk of violating federal securities law that could make him pay up to $150 million.

Musk isn’t just going to give himself contracts, that would be a far too simple plan. He is playing a long game by worming his way into the inner workings of the world’s largest superpower.

What we keep hearing from Musk and Trump is that they are cutting waste and fraud. But I can say the sky is green. I can say I’m a billionaire. I’m a supermodel! Just because I say them it doesn’t mean those things are true! This is political doublespeak. What they are doing is cutting entire agencies, de-regulating through firing and slashing any programs with words they don’t like.

Their version of “waste-cutting” isn’t about efficiency—it’s about gutting regulatory agencies that stand in their way. Entire government offices are being dismantled simply because their mission includes words like “climate,” “gender,” or “diversity.”

But it’s more than ideological cleansing. It’s about power. And profit, especially for Musk.

No one should think that Elon Musk is eviscerating multiple government agencies in the name of altruism or for the actual public good.

And the question we need to be asking is: what does he stand to gain from the work of DOGE? What does he have to gain from getting access to massive amounts of data on every single American citizen? Which federal regulators will be too terrified of him and his minions to actually regulate or investigate any of his businesses?

As many mainstream media outlets normalize Musk squatting in the Oval office by posting cute videos of his son X accompanying daddy to work, which I would argue Musk did simply to distract from his false claims of fraud within the government this week and the dismantling of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, the very agency that would have significant power to regulate his exponential business growth.

Sidebar: X’s mother Grimes said she had no idea her son was there or that all of this was so public. She only learned he was in the Oval Office from a random X user. "He should not be in public like this," the singer wrote on X. "I did not see this, thank u for alerting me. But I'm glad he was polite. Sigh."

Let’s Talk About What’s Happening With the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and How it Could Benefit Musk

Earlier this week Musk took aim at the CFPB, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. This is the agency that is charged with overseeing financial products and services offered to consumers, including credit cards, mortgages, loans, and banking products.

This dovetails with Musk’s new business venture.

X recently released details of their new payment system X money, a long stated goal of Musk, a co-founder of Paypal. According to the NYTimes:

These types of digital payment platforms, which other tech companies like Apple and Meta also run, have come under intense scrutiny by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.

And at X, one of the most promising ways Mr. Musk can increase profits is through a payments business, which could charge fees for transactions. Building out that business would be easier without having to contend with a regulator like the consumer bureau, which has a recent track record of bringing cases against payment companies.

Musk's team infiltrated the CFPB, accessing internal computer systems for human resources, procurement, and financial operations. They took control of the bureau's social media accounts, locking out existing employees and all of the CFPB's work has been ordered to stop, including investigations and the implementation of new rules.

This is an ongoing story, since I wrote this draft (yesterday) there is news that in response to emergency litigation from Democracy Forward, the Trump Administration has been blocked from moving CFPB funds to the federal reserve. Also Wired reporter Makenna Kelly reported on BlueSky that “every technologist CFPB hired to investigate Big Tech was fired this evening. That’s somewhere between 70-100 people.”

DOGEing the Competition

Musks’ government takeover also gives him access to proprietary information about his competitors.

Musk's DOGE team has reportedly accessed confidential information about financial institutions, including banks and other entities regulated by the CFPB. This data could reveal competitors' business strategies, contracts, and market activities, potentially allowing Musk to tailor his own ventures, such as X Money, to outmaneuver them.

Musk may also have visibility into federal contracts held by competitors, which could provide him with a competitive edge in industries where his companies operate, such as aerospace (SpaceX) and automotive (Tesla).

Senator Elizabeth Warren has warned that Musk's access to CFPB data could allow him to "knock his competitors out" by exploiting their confidential information. She described this situation as an unprecedented conflict of interest that undermines fair competition

Data Gold Rush

We know a few things about DOGE:

• They’re hiring computer programmers, not accountants, to conduct financial audits.

• They want to replace government workers with AI wherever possible.

• They’re accessing huge datasets on Americans.

Billionaire Larry Ellison, a close Musk ally, recently said: “We need to unify all the national data, put it into a database where it's easily consumable by AI.” That means one thing: total control over information—including your information.

There’s extensive litigation over DOGE’s access to data sets. As I talked about earlier this week, his minions have in fact been banned from altering them by the courts. But I’m concerned about what is happening behind closed doors in buildings helmed by Trump loyalists. Musk’s influence over DOGE gives him proximity to previously untapped streams of data, from financial transactions to regulatory filings to government audits. With Musk at the helm, government data could become an asset to be mined, monetized, and manipulated for corporate gain.

Destroying Ethics Compliance

On Monday Trump removed David Huitema, the head of the Office of Government Ethics from his post, taking out yet another government watchdog who should have authority over regulating the actions of this administration.

Huitema said he was unaware of any specific agency action that would have precipitated Trump’s decision. “My sense is that the president doesn’t want OGE or really anyone with an independent voice to address concerns that are raised,” he said.

Earlier this week, the White House confirmed that Musk's financial disclosures will remain confidential, limiting public oversight, because Musk is serving as an unpaid “special government employee.” He is criminally prohibited from engaging in actions that directly benefit himself unless he has an ethics waiver…which seems like a meaningless barrier in this day and age. Whatever loyalist replaces Huitema would likely grant a waiver, and the Attorney General would of course never bring charges.

“There has never been a White House staffer with the vast potential for conflicts like Mr. Musk, the world’s richest person and the head of leading companies in electric vehicles, space exploration and artificial intelligence.” New York Times

The press and Congress can speculate on Musk’s various income streams from his many businesses and how they will benefit from his government work, but he won’t make any official financial disclosures that would make a true audit possible.

The irony of someone claiming to care about transparency and efficiency, yet providing none to the American people, is rich.

The Well is Poisoned

This isn’t just a Musk problem. This is a systemic unraveling of government oversight. It’s the intentional erosion of accountability, and it’s happening right in front of us.

The government is a behemoth. One of the reason’s Musk’s proposal that ethics compliance be run like X community notes is because it’s an impossible task of whack-a-mole. Additionally, Trump has been set on destroying the media, the people who would normally be tasked with investigating fraud and breaches of ethics. Much of what is happening is happening behind closed doors.

Congressman Dan Goldman wrote a letter this week about how people employed at the DOJ to prosecute Trump are now getting fired by the lawyer who defended him.

As Sen. Corey Booker wrote on Threads this week:

We’re barely three weeks in, but Trump is laying the groundwork to allow staggering levels of corruption to occur.

Booker continued: Trump has halted enforcement of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act which prevents companies from paying cash bribes to foreign officials. He’s got rid of EO 13989 which prohibits political appointees from accepting gifts from lobbyists. He’s fired nearly every Inspector General in the Federal Government.

Donald Trump and his associates have no interest in draining the swamp.

They are filling it.

They're conspiring to make it vastly easier to cash in on the government while you pay the price.

What Can We Do About It?

1. Demand Transparency: Call your representatives and demand Congressional action to ensure Musk is required to do full financial disclosures. (8 Democrats wrote this letter, we need folks to be louder and for Republicans need to act)

SCRIPT: Hello, my name is [NAME] and I am a constituent. I’m calling to ask you to close the loophole that allows Elon Musk to avoid disclosing his finances. The American people deserve transparency.

2. Support Investigative Journalism: Outlets like ProPublica and The Lever are exposing these schemes. Support their work.

3. Don’t Line Musk’s Pockets: Your dollars and your attention matters. Boycott Musk’s products. Stop using X, don’t buy or rent a Tesla.

4. Resist the Normalization of Billionaire Power Grabs: Musk’s son at the White House shouldn’t be a feel-good story, it should be a warning sign. Speak out against it in social media posts, leave comments on stories when media organizations normalize this. Musk bringing his kid to the White House was just a distraction and we should all be calling it exactly that.

5. Share About the Grift: Share this story or facts from it on social media. Musk’s game isn’t about ‘waste and fraud,’ it's about lining his pockets.

Elon Musk, the world’s richest man, now holds an unelected government position with no financial disclosure requirements. If that doesn’t set off alarm bells, what will?