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Whereas considerations had been already swirling about Elon Musk’s involvement within the Trump administration, the primary potential battle of curiosity has popped up.
Musk’s Division of Authorities Effectivity (which he runs with Vivek Ramaswamy) put out the decision Thursday for “tremendous high-IQ small-government revolutionaries prepared to work 80+ hours per week on unglamorous cost-cutting.” As interesting as that job would possibly sound (oh, it’s seemingly unpaid additionally), the potential battle got here within the directions about the best way to apply.
Potential candidates are being instructed to ship their resumes to the DOGE account on X through direct message. Beneath Musk’s adjustments to that platform, nevertheless, solely premium subscribers are in a position to ship DMs to the DOGE account. These run from $8 to $16 per 30 days.
Put one other means: To even be thought-about for a job within the division (and the location mentioned solely the highest 1% of resumes shall be reviewed by Musk and Ramaswamy), candidates must make a monetary contribution to certainly one of Musk’s companies.
That’s simply the potential tip of the iceberg, after all. For instance, Musk additionally runs SpaceX, which has contracts with the federal authorities.
Whereas Musk has mentioned “all actions of the Division of Authorities Effectivity shall be posted on-line for optimum transparency,” it’s unclear if the 2 leaders of it must file monetary disclosures. And the potential for one or each removing authorities laws that influence their companies has ethicists involved.
“If Musk and Ramaswamy are ready the place they’ll affect governmental selections and if a few of these selections might influence their companies, then there may very well be a hazard of unlawful conflicts of curiosity,” Noah Bookbinder, the president of Residents for Accountable Ethics instructed ABC Information. “Different legal guidelines and guidelines may be at difficulty right this moment relying on what they do and the way this ‘Division’ works.”
Representatives for X and the Trump transition staff didn’t instantly reply to requests for remark.