Billionaire Elon Musk will head a government efficiency commission with broad remit if Donald Trump is elected US president, putting him in a position to change the rules of corporate America, including the wide range of industries in which his companies compete.
Trump announced the plan, including Musk’s role, on Sept. 6 and said he wanted to see recommendations for “drastic reforms,” starting with a crackdown on fraud and improper payments, that would target “the entire federal government.” The commission would give Musk, who leads rocket company SpaceX, electric carmaker Tesla, technology companies X and xAI and several others, a chance to plan for the leaner government that Republicans typically advocate, but could see him creating rules that directly affect his own work and wealth.
Musk repeatedly suggested creating a government efficiency commission in a public conversation with Trump on the social media platform X in August, saying government spending should be cut to a sensible level and that Musk himself was willing to help. Trump responded in the conversation that Musk was “the biggest cutter” of jobs.
Presidential commissions have been created on a range of topics, such as when President Joe Biden created one to examine the idea of reforming the Supreme Court, said Nikolas Guggenberger, an assistant professor of law at the University of Houston Law Center whose work focuses on antitrust, law and technology. But Musk’s significant relationships with the U.S. government, worth billions of dollars, make that a different matter.
“He has a big company that sells electric vehicles, he has a big company that sells satellites, he has a social media platform. In all of these areas, you can imagine advice being tainted by the fact that he has strong economic interests,” Guggenberger said.
To be sure, Mr. Trump gave few details about how the commission would work, but he described it as conducting audits and making recommendations, which has been tried before. “There have been many, many audits done and recommendations made for efficiency,” said Cristina Chaplain, a former director of the Government Accountability Office. Plus, changing laws and rules is complicated. While businesspeople can bring a fresh perspective, she added, “that often conflicts with the realities of government operations and the laws and regulations that affect them.”
Musk has chafed for years at what he sees as government inefficiency, and his own companies are heavily regulated: SpaceX must get approvals for rocket launches and new technologies; auto regulators are examining the safety of Tesla’s self-driving technology; and health agencies must approve much of the work done by his brain-implant startup, Neuralink.
Some investors would welcome his influence in Washington.
“Musk cleaned house at Twitter. He would also trim the fat on government spending,” said Triple D Trading analyst Dennis Dick, who has a long position on Tesla, referring to Musk’s massive job cuts when he took over the social media company.
Musk’s views on efficiency in the space sector and elsewhere could trigger actions that hurt rivals, some space industry experts said. That could mean viewing government efforts to prop up multiple rocket suppliers as wasteful, for example.
“There are a lot of people who are nervous about Musk, just because of the policies he promotes, the statements he makes and the fights he gets into with governments,” said Tim Farrar, a satellite industry analyst.
Investors often ask whether Musk is doing too much. “Is he going to spread himself too thin and try to make government efficient, on top of running an electric car company, a space company, the Boring Company and Twitter? Something would have to give,” said Sam Fiorani, vice president at research firm AutoForecast Solutions.
“You can’t imagine that Elon Musk would volunteer to work for a president who was planning to dismantle his business,” Fiorani said, adding that the electric vehicle market could benefit overall.
Musk did not respond to a request for comment, but wrote on the efficiency commission’s X: “This is desperately needed.”
Tom Schatz, president of the watchdog group Citizens Against Government Waste, which grew out of a commission under President Ronald Reagan, said there was precedent for large savings. Plus, bringing in more executives would spread the responsibility.
“With the right team working on this full time, the chairman of these task forces is not the one who works every minute of every day on this,” he said. “With someone of Elon Musk’s stature, it would help bring in other CEOs, other independent, non-governmental people to come in and look at the operations of the federal government.”