Late one Friday night, just weeks into his second term, President Donald Trump (likely illegally) fired more than a dozen inspectors general, the independent watchdogs charged with overseeing operations at federal agencies and auditing allegations of waste, fraud, and abuse of power. At least five of those inspectors general came from agencies currently leading or that previously led investigations into Elon Musk’s businesses, many of which hold billions of dollars in government contracts.
In the 2024 election, Musk spent $288 million to help get Trump elected, joining him at rallies and using his online platform to boost his presidential campaign. Now that Trump is in office, the unelected billionaire has taken an unprecedented role in his administration, leading the newly created Department of Government Efficiency, muscling his way into federal agencies, and sowing chaos throughout the civil service.
At the same time, he and his companies are poised to benefit from Trump’s late-night purge of inspectors general, which could disrupt ongoing inquiries into SpaceX, Tesla, and Musk’s other business entanglements.
At the Department of Agriculture (USDA), where the inspector general’s office was probing alleged animal abuse at Musk’s brain implant company Neuralink, inspector general and twenty-two-year USDA veteran Phyllis Fong was escorted out of her office by security guards last Monday. Department of Defense inspector general Robert Storch was fired just months after he reportedly opened a review of repeated failures by Musk and his rocket company SpaceX to properly disclose their contacts with foreign leaders.
The Department of Transportation, which oversees the National Transportation Safety Board, had its inspector general fired as safety regulators oversaw several open probes into Tesla, Musk’s electrical vehicle company, over its remote and self-driving vehicles. The same goes for…
Auteur: Katya Schwenk
