Elon Musk vowed "maximum transparency" in his government work but won't even share his financial disclosures, according to a new report.
The tech billionaire has been invited into President Donald Trump's administration to cut government spending and regulation with his so-called Department of Government Efficiency, but the White House will allow him to file a “confidential” financial disclosure" as an unpaid “special government employee," reported the Washington Post.
Special government employees who are paid at or below the level of federal employees with Senior Executive Service status, according to the U.S. Office of Government Ethics, are not required to file a public financial disclosure report.
They may instead file a confidential report if they are expected to “have a substantial role in the formulation of agency policy," which so far Musk has done.
"As a special govt employee, Musk is limited to 130 days of work a year," noted journalist Natalie Alms. "A former White House ethics lawyer has told me that if Musk exceeds that, you can expect lawsuits to make this financial disclosure public."
A White House official told the post that Musk received an ethics briefing this week, and other DOGE staffers will do the same if they haven't already.
DOGE will also attempt to shield their work behind the Presidential Records Act, according to the group's adviser Katie Miller, which would keep their records sealed until 2034, five years after Trump leaves office and eight years after DOGE is scheduled to disband.
However, that claim will almost certainly face a legal challenge, and some observers noted his secrecy while his DOGE lackeys gain access to sensitive private data for federal employees and taxpayers and feed them into artificial intelligence models.
"So just to recap: Elon Musk has all of your personal confidential data," posted the co-executive director of the activist group Indivisible Guide. "And he will not be disclosing any of his information to the American people. One set of rules for Musk and Trump, one set of rules for the rest of us."
