How Elon Musk's White House Job Is Helping Line His Pockets

It seems that Elon Musk’s friendship with President Donald Trump and government cost-cutting job has already saved a boatload of money ― for him.

Just a month into the second Trump administration, Musk has overseen the slashing of thousands of government jobs through his so-called Department of Government Efficiency. That reportedly includes jobs at agencies in charge of investigating and regulating the multiple businesses that have made him the richest person on the planet.

Here’s how else Musk is benefiting.

News reports this week shared that Musk’s DOGE is making huge cuts to federal government teams regulating two of his businesses, Tesla and Neuralink.

Sources told Reuters on Tuesday that last weekend, DOGE oversaw the firing of Food and Drug Administration employees reviewing Neuralink, Musk’s brain implant company. The cuts were reportedly made to a department that oversees clinical trial applications from Neuralink and other brain-computer interface devices.

The Washington Post also reported Thursday that DOGE made cuts to a specialized unit with the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration focused on overseeing the safety of autonomous vehicles like those made at Tesla. The fired employees include an engineer who worked with crash test dummies and a research psychologist who specializes in drunken driving and speeding.

“If the question is, will this affect the federal government’s ability to understand the safety case behind Tesla’s vehicles, then yes, it will,” one fired engineer told the Post. “The amount of people in the federal government who are able to understand this adequately is very small. Now it’s almost nonexistent.”

A review by The New York Times earlier this month found that the federal agencies DOGE has been dismantling have dozens of continuing investigations, pending complaints or enforcement actions into Musk’s six companies.

That includes 24 investigations alone from the National Labor Relations Board and a lawsuit from the Securities and Exchange Commission arguing that Musk owes the federal government up to $150 million.

DOGE has also essentially shut down the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, which was evaluating hundreds of complaints about Tesla, including many about debt collection and loan problems.

The Justice Department said Thursday it’s dropping a case it had brought against SpaceX accusing the company of refusing to hire certain immigrants.

DOJ’s 2023 complaint alleged that from 2018 to 2022, SpaceX blocked asylum recipients and refugees from jobs by saying in job postings and public statements that it could only hire U.S. citizens and lawful permanent residents because of U.S. export control laws.

DOJ said it was dismissing the case without prejudice, meaning the charges cannot be brought again.

The Wall Street Journal reported Wednesday that lawyers for X, the Musk-owned social media platform formerly known as Twitter, have been pressuring advertising conglomerate Interpublic Group to get its clients to spend more advertising dollars on X.

Interpublic leaders, the Journal reported, have interpreted the pressure as a warning that a recently announced $13 billion deal merging Interpublic with rival Omnicom Group could be sabotaged by the Trump administration.

Musk has also been highly critical of companies that stopped advertising on X after he bought it.

“If somebody’s going to try to blackmail me with advertising? Blackmail me with money? Go fuck yourself. Go. Fuck. Yourself. Is that clear?” Musk said at New York’s DealBook Summit in November 2023.