Three months after President Donald Trump announced Elon Musk would head up a cost-cutting initiative, and nearly a month after its official creation, the White House has not made public an ethics form disclosing the tech billionaire’s finances or his conflicts of interest.
Trump has classified Musk in a category of temporary federal worker that is required to fill out the same ethics form as Cabinet officials, according to ethics law experts who spoke to USA TODAY. And he’s required to file it publicly, they said.
But while confirmed appointees who run other agencies for Trump have not only filled out disclosure forms but reached agreements to divest from their conflicts of interest, the federal ethics website doesn’t show any such disclosure or agreement for Musk.
Ethics forms filed by cabinet members including Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem are already available to the public.
Elizabeth Horton, a spokesperson for the Office of Government Ethics, said her office does not discuss specific individuals.
“He is filing the proper financial disclosure, and he is complying with all applicable federal laws,” Karoline Leavitt, Trump’s press secretary, said of Musk on Wednesday. “We’re very confident with the ethics and the guardrails that have been put in place here.” The White House did not respond to an inquiry asking if Musk had completed the task.
Requirements for special government employees
The White House announced Feb. 3 that Musk would be designated as a special government employee. That’s someone who works for the federal government, but only for about a third of the year. His Department of Government Efficiency is based inside the White House.
“People who exercise power in the executive branch, who have a discretion and can affect the financial well-being of others in the executive branch, have to file publicly available financial disclosure forms,” said Kathleen Clark, an ethics professor at Washington University School of Law in St. Louis. “And that has not happened.”
Richard Briffault, a professor at Columbia Law School who previously served on New York City’s conflicts of interest board, had the same read of federal law. He said Musk is required to file ethics disclosures publicly, just like Cabinet appointees.
Briffault said special government employees can get waivers from filling out financial disclosures if it’s unlikely the person’s government work or outside employment would create a conflict of interest. “It strikes me that given his widespread interest, that probably would be a hard standard to meet,” he said of Musk.
At a press conference Wednesday, Leavitt did not confirm or deny whether Trump signed a waiver for Musk.
On Monday morning, Sen. Adam Schiff, a Democrat from California, said he’d sent letters to the ethics office and the White House asking whether Musk has filled out a financial disclosure, and whether an official in the White House issued a waiver.
“If Elon Musk is now a government employee, he is subject to conflicts of interest law,” Schiff wrote on X, which Musk owns. “Requirements he seems to be completely ignoring. The American people deserve answers and accountability.”
Later that day, Trump fired the head of the Office of Government Ethics, who was confirmed under former President Joe Biden. The agency maintains a public database of financial disclosure forms and ethics agreements that top government employees have filed, including Trump’s Cabinet appointees.
Clark said there are thousands of government employees, such as those who oversee grant contracts, who are allowed to file their financial disclosures confidentially. Even more don’t have to file forms at all.
But she said Musk doesn’t fit either category.
“There is no more powerful person in the federal government right now actively exercising power than Elon Musk,” she said.
Musk, Trump respond to ethics concerns
In the Oval Office on Tuesday, Musk said members of the public would be outspoken if they saw him taking actions that present a conflict of interest. “I mean, you can see,” he said. “Am I doing something that benefits my companies or not? It’s totally obvious.”
Trump added, “We would not let him do that segment or look in that area if we thought there was a lack of transparency or a conflict of interest, and we watch that also. He’s a big businessman. He’s a successful guy. That’s why we want him doing this. We don’t want an unsuccessful guy doing this.”
