New York Times journalist Eric Lipton explains how Musk's companies are benefiting as he cuts federal jobs and agencies, and reporter Teddy Schleifer explains how Musk's political views turned right, and why he thinks the billionaire's relationship with Trump might actually last.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy
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This is Fresh Air. I'm Terry Gross. A new investigation into conflicts of interest posed by Elon Musk overseeing the drastic cost-cutting and dismantling of some federal agencies was published yesterday afternoon in the New York Times online. A few hours later, Musk and President Trump held a joint press conference during which they insisted Musk was operating with full transparency.
Trump said he wouldn't allow Musk to look into areas that posed a conflict of interest. Musk controls six private companies, including SpaceX, Tesla, and X, formerly Twitter. He gets billions of dollars from the federal government. My guest Eric Lipton, along with Times reporter Kirsten Grind, spent the past year investigating Musk's business with the federal government.
they learned that at least 11 federal agencies have more than 32 continuing investigations, pending complaints, or enforcement actions into Musk's companies. Yesterday, before the Trump-Musk press conference, I spoke to Lipton about what the investigation uncovered. Eric Lipton, welcome to Fresh Air. You're a reporter looking into these conflicts of interest.
Is there anyone in an official capacity in the Trump administration or in Congress or in any other official capacity who is doing an investigation into possible conflicts of interest between Elon Musk and the departments and agencies that he is cutting jobs and costs?
That's the somewhat startling thing to me as a reporter at this moment is that there's really no one else beyond us, the team that's working on it from the New York Times and other journalists. Because just in the last few days, Trump fired the head of the Office of Government Ethics. He's removed the inspectors general across the government, at least 17 of them.
The Congress is controlled by Republicans, so therefore the Democrats who might be more critical of him don't have subpoena power, and they don't really therefore have significant investigative powers. And the Department of Justice is controlled by someone who's completely loyal to Trump.
So there really is not much of an investigative capacity or an investigative desire beyond reporters that are attempting to drill into this without subpoena power.
And the Office of Government Ethics, which you mentioned, Trump just fired the head of it this week. That office had pending requests to investigate Musk for conflicts of interest. On what grounds?
That's right. I mean, really, there's never been anything quite like Elon Musk. This is a guy whose companies just last year in 2024 received $3.8 billion worth of federal government contracts from And in the last five years, $13 billion worth of contracts. He has investigations pending of his various corporate entities in the dozens.
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