The Tesla CEO is denying allegations that he has no conflicts of interest as he embarks on a federal firing and cost-cutting campaign.
This time Musk is investigating the very same organisation that is currently taking him to task – and has already fined him €19.8 million for security lapses in a previous case.
The news was broken on a “DOGE SEC” X account with a grey Twitter badge indicating it was a genuine site for Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency operation. The account posted its first tweet on a Monday, seeking the public’s assistance to report any SEC “waste, fraud and abuse.”
As head of Tesla, Musk was involved in a lengthy dispute with the SEC over a series of posts about taking his electric car company private at €420 a share. SEC officials claimed he was deceiving investors with the posts. He and Tesla were both eventually fined €20 million.
There’s a question about whether he properly revealed his ownership share in Twitter before acquiring the platform in 2022.
Allowing him to buy shares of Twitter at artificially low prices before his $44 billion takeover, and causing “substantial economic harm” to investors who were kept in the dark about Musk’s stake.
“It’s just another institution being used for political gain, doing dirty work.” And he’s now investigating it under the backing of Donald Trump.
The DOGE SEC tweet stood out for a couple of reasons: It happened on President’s Day, and it marked DOGE’s first X site for a targeted federal agency. Another site, the Department of Education, @DOGE_ED, also tweeted for the first time on Monday.
site.
An account with a similar name to another X account, @DOGE_USAID, was found, but it was unclear if the restricted account without the X badge was created by DOGE or was a separate entity.
Musk’s DOGE team is responsible for the sacking of thousands of federal workers since Donald Trump’s presidency, while thousands more have been placed on leave as their agencies are “restructured” and in some cases targeted for complete abolition.
Some of these sackings are currently being contested in court, but tens of thousands of Americans – including some who have recently moved to Washington D.C. for new positions – are now out of a job.
Bureaucrats at the Internal Revenue Service in the US are trying to cut costs and are seeking access to a highly sensitive system containing private information about American taxpayers, including their Social Security numbers and bank account details.
It’s reported that officials are expected to sign a memorandum “imminently” to grant DOGE officials access to agency datasets and tax systems, including the Integrated Data Retrieval System.
The capital area is not the only place that’s been dealt a blow by the federal spending cuts and the cancellation of various government programmes. The cancelling or putting on hold of grants and other federally funded initiatives has had a significant impact on research centres, national parks and other government-funded facilities, organisations and projects across many states.
Last week, a large number of experts in charge of overseeing America’s nuclear arsenal were suddenly let go, just the latest example of cutting loose staff without thinking things through first. The team led by Musk was having a hard time rehiring these specialists on Friday. It was said to be challenging to track down the laid-off experts to rehire them as their contact details had been removed from the National Nuclear Security System.
Musk could directly profit financially from the work of his DOGE team.
Musk’s private space flight company might come out on top if DOGE’s cuts affect NASA, particularly if NASA, which was audited by Musk’s team just last week, has its finances scrutinised. Tasks that NASA can no longer complete due to Musk’s involvement could presumably be taken over by SpaceX, with the work being funded by taxpayers.
“They are going to examine our payments, similar to what they’ve done at other agencies,” said NASA administrator Janet Petro to the press last week.
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