The New York Times reports:

President Trump has been in office less than a month, and Elon Musk’s vast business empire is already benefiting — or is now in a decidedly better position to benefit.

Mr. Trump and Mr. Musk, the world’s richest man who has been given enormous power by the president, have been dismantling federal agencies across the government. Mr. Trump has fired top officials and pushed out career employees. Many of them were leading investigations, enforcement matters or lawsuits pending against Mr. Musk’s companies.

Mr. Musk has also reaped the benefit of resignations by Biden-era regulators that flipped control of major regulatory agencies, leaving more sympathetic Republican appointees overseeing those lawsuits.

At least 11 federal agencies that have been affected by those moves have more than 32 continuing investigations, pending complaints or enforcement actions into Mr. Musk’s six companies, according to a review by The New York Times.

The events of the past few weeks have thrown into question the progress and outcomes of many of those pending investigations into his companies.

The inquiries include the Federal Aviation Administration’s fines of Mr. Musk’s rocket company, SpaceX, for safety violations and a Securities and Exchange Commission lawsuit pressing Mr. Musk to pay the federal government perhaps as much as $150 million, accusing him of having violated federal securities law.

On its own, the National Labor Relations Board, an independent watchdog agency for workers’ rights, has 24 investigations into Mr. Musk’s companies, according to the review by The Times.

Since January, Mr. Trump has fired three officials at that agency, including a board member, effectively stalling the board’s ability to rule on cases. Until Mr. Trump nominates new members, cases that need a ruling by the board cannot move forward, according to the agency.

Over at the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, a public database shows hundreds of complaints about the electric car company Tesla, mostly concerning debt collection or loan problems. The agency has now effectively been put out of commission, at least temporarily, by the Trump administration, which has ordered its staff to put a hold on all investigations. The bureau also is an agency that would have regulated Mr. Musk’s new efforts to bring a payments service to X.

“CFPB RIP,” Mr. Musk wrote in a social media post last week as the Trump administration moved to close down the bureau.

Mr. Musk not only has numerous contracts that are overseen by multiple government agencies — including space, media, financial securities and highway safety. He and his team also have an extraordinary position created by Mr. Trump that allows him to review the spending and staffing of every department in the executive branch through his cost-cutting initiative called the Department of Government Efficiency.

Traditional federal conflict of interest rules seem almost antiquated, if Mr. Musk is determined to be involved in specific decisions about agencies his companies do business with.

That is why Mr. Musk’s role is so concerning to former White House ethics lawyers in Democratic and Republican administrations alike. [Continue reading…]