- World’s richest man and government official Elon Musk accused federal workers of unfairly getting rich off the taxpayer’s dime, citing, without evidence, “quite a few” with a net worth of tens of millions of dollars. Musk’s own companies have accepted over $20 billion in taxpayer funds in the form of contracts, tax breaks, and other subsidies.
As part of his mission to cut government spending, Elon Musk is going after federal workers who he thinks are richer than their government salaries allow them to be, somehow through the use of taxpayer money.
The world’s wealthiest man, who is acting as a special government employee as the head of the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) task force, laid out his thinking in the Oval Office on Tuesday.
“We find it sort of rather odd that there are quite a few people in the bureaucracy who have ostensibly a salary of a few hundred thousand dollars but somehow manage to accrue tens of millions of dollars in net worth while they are in that position,” Musk said.
“I think the reality is they’re getting wealthy at taxpayer expense,” he added.
Neither Musk nor President Trump offered any evidence of corruption or improper enrichment that might explain federal employees allegedly getting rich off their government roles, and DOGE did not respond to Fortune’s request for examples.
But Musk, who did not respond to a request for comment from Fortune, stands to benefit tremendously from taxpayer dollars thanks to tax credits and government contracts.
His space exploration company SpaceX has received over $20 billion from the federal government over the past 15 years, according to federal spending records. SpaceX CEO Gwynne Shotwell has said that the company has $22 billion in government contracts, Reuters reported.
EV company Tesla, whose stock makes up the bulk of Musk’s nearly $400 billion net worth, has benefited from $2.8 billion in tax subsidies or grants, according to subsidy tracker Good Jobs First. The Los Angeles Times calculated in 2015 that Musk’s empire of companies, which includes Tesla, SpaceX, SolarCity and The Boring Company, took in nearly $5 billion in tax breaks.
Tesla, SpaceX, and DOGE did not reply to a request for comment from Fortune.
President Trump on Tuesday indicated he would curtail Musk’s actions “if we thought there was a lack of transparency or a conflict of interest.”
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt previously told Fortune that “Elon Musk is selflessly serving President Trump’s Administration as a special government employee, and he has abided by all applicable federal laws.”
However, Musk’s status as a special government employee means he won’t necessarily be required to publicly disclose his finances—a routine exercise for many public officials. CBS News reported that Musk will keep his finances secret, citing an unnamed White House official.
"The public and agencies deserve a full understanding of Musk's financial interests in order to prevent conflicts when he storms into agencies," Scott Amey, general counsel for the Project on Government Oversight, told the outlet.
Most federal employees are legally barred from participating in government business that affect companies they or family members have an interest in. High-level government workers, including members of the president’s cabinet and agency heads, are required to publicly disclose conflicts of interest.
Traditionally, CEOs from publicly traded companies or other government employees coming from the private sector resign their positions before starting work. In 2016, Trump became the first president to retain ownership of his company while he stayed in office. His net worth, which Forbes estimated at $4.5 billion in 2015, stands at $5.8 billion today, according to the outlet.
