Musk Just One of Many “Special Government Employees” in High-Level Roles, Posing Ethics Risks
WASHINGTON, D.C. — A new report found that the Trump Administration has effectively circumvented key anti-corruption safeguards that apply to most federal employees to quickly install at least a dozen people – in addition to Elon Musk – with potentially major conflicts of interest into high-level government jobs.
According to the report, called “Isn’t That Special?”, the Trump Administration has trivialized the discrete, limited government employment designation known as “Special Government Employee” (SGE) into a vehicle for an end run around ethics requirements, evading barriers against self-dealing and eliminating transparency. In addition to Elon Musk, the administration has placed at least a dozen people into a range of high-level influential roles in the Departments of Treasury and Homeland Security, the Office of Personnel Management, helping Musk run DOGE, and within the White House advising the President on issues ranging from foreign affairs to cryptocurrency and AI to health care.
Public Citizen Democracy Advocate Jon Golinger, the author of the report, said the Trump Administration is wildly abusing the SGE designation in an attempt to deceive the American people.
“The abuse of the Special Government Employee designation by the Trump Administration is like handing out licenses for corruption,” said Golinger. “Right now, the public has no way to know whether SGEs like Musk who don’t file public financial disclosure reports or are permitted to oversee themselves are putting the people’s interests ahead of their own. We need urgent reforms to enforce anti-corruption rules for special government employees just as all government employees are required to follow, strengthen conflict-of-interest barriers to prevent financial self-dealing or misuse of insider information and shine sunlight on any potential conflicts through financial disclosure. The public should know who has been given the power and privilege of running the country.”
Public Citizen urged Congress to pass a new bill introduced this week by Senator Elizabeth Warren and Representative Melanie Stansbury, which would expand existing ethics rules to apply to these kinds of SGEs, strengthen conflict-of-interest rules for SGEs, and increase SGE transparency. The bill is S.1491, the SGE Ethics Enforcement & Reform (SEER) Act of 2025.