Trump Reclassifies Elon Musk To Shield Him From Ethics Rules

The Trump administration announced this week that Elon Musk was officially a “special government employee.” That may not seem like much, but this designation actually shields Musk from the disclosure rules that other government officials are required to follow, meaning that the potential for corruption and compromise is virtually limitless now. Ring of Fire’s Farron Cousins explains what’s happening.

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*This transcript was generated by a third-party transcription software company, so please excuse any typos.

Donald Trump's press secretary, Caroline Levitt, announced this week that, yes, Elon Musk is in fact designated as a special government employee. And that's not just, you know, oh, he's, he's special, or he's our good little special guide. No, that is actually an official designation from the federal government that essentially allows Elon Musk to get around any ethics laws at all. In fact, as a special government employee that does not receive compensation, he is exempted from federal criminal ethics rules regarding financial disclosures, regarding disclosing conflicts of interest. He doesn't have to do any of that as a special government employee, Elon Musk has said he's not taken a salary, Trump's not paying him. And the rules for special gov, uh, special government employees are if you make less than the average federal worker, you don't have to do the financial disclosures, you don't have to do the conflict of interest stuff because you know you're making so little.

Or in the case of Elon, nothing at all. So what do we have to worry about? The one thing they do have to do is they can file financial disclosures privately and nobody can see 'em. So we won't get to know what's on Elon Musk's financial disclosure forms, and I'm willing to bet that is probably why they have given him this designation. So here's what's going on right now. Uh, for all of those who, you know, maybe you didn't pay attention to the news for five seconds and you missed 8,000 stories, because that seems to be how fast the stories are coming today. But today, Elon Musk has effectively seized control of the federal government. He and his little goon squad of all basically children under the age of 25, have basically taken over the computer system for the United States Treasury. That, of course, gives them access to trillions of dollars worth of financial information and transactions. They, they have basically launched this soft coup from within the milit, uh, the government itself, excuse me. And they have access to everything. And access also means ability to shut things down. That is, of course, very terrifying, and it becomes even more terrifying when Elon Musk himself doesn't have to follow ethics rules. We don't get to know what his conflicts of interest are as a guy that's slashing the government's budget, while also receiving federal funding from the government. I mean, we all know what his conflicts of interests are,

But now

He gets to

Keep it in the dark. We're not gonna know the amounts. We're not gonna know what the hell's going on,

All because of this special designation that this White House has officially given to him.