Musk Will Not Participate in Space-Related Government Decisions: Trump

President-elect Donald Trump speaks alongside Elon Musk (C) and Senate members including (L-R) Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas), Sen. Kevin Cramer (R-N.D.) and Rep. Ronny Jackson (R-Texas) before attending a viewing of the launch of the sixth test flight of the SpaceX Starship rocket in Brownsville, Texas, on Nov. 19, 2024. Brandon Bell/Getty Images

Elon Musk will be kept away from government decisions involving space, President Donald Trump said on Feb. 18.

“I will not let there be any conflict of interest,” Trump told reporters at the White House in Washington.

He said later: “I told Elon, any conflicts you can’t have anything to do with that. So, anything to do with possibly even space, we won’t let Elon partake in that.”

Musk added during an evening appearance on Fox News, “I’ll recuse myself if it is a conflict.”

Musk owns several companies that have contracts with the U.S. government including SpaceX, which manufactures spacecraft, and Tesla, which produces electric vehicles.

Musk and Trump have said he’s leading the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), which the president has directed to work with agency heads to identify waste and cut costs.

Officials have said that Musk would determine himself if there were any conflicts of interest.

White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters earlier in February, “If Elon Musk comes across a conflict of interest with the contracts and the funding that DOGE is overseeing, then Elon will excuse himself from those contracts.”

Lawmakers have raised concerns about Musk’s work. Sen. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) recently wrote to White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles, stating that as a special government employee, Musk is subject to federal conflict of interest laws that bar government workers from participating in matters in which they have a financial interest.

“Mr. Musk’s compliance with federal conflicts of interest and other related obligations remains unknown to Congress and the public. For instance, unless you or another senior White House official, in consultation with the Office of Government Ethics, provided a written waiver prior to Mr. Musk’s appointment as a special government employee, Mr. Musk may have violated the federal criminal conflict of interest statute by undertaking acts otherwise prohibited by law,” he wrote.

Schiff is among the politicians who have called for the White House to release Musk’s financial disclosure report. The White House has not yet released it.

In court filings on Monday, government officials reiterated that Musk is a special government employee and described him as a senior adviser to the president. They said he is not an employee of DOGE, nor is he DOGE’s administrator.

“Mr. Musk can only advise the President and communicate the President’s directives,” White House official Joshua Fisher wrote.

“Elon is, to me, a patriot,” Trump said on Wednesday. “So you could call him an employee. You could call him a consultant. You could call him whatever you want, but he’s a patriot.”