NEW YORK: Donald Trump announced Thursday that if elected president he would appoint billionaire Elon Musk to lead an audit of government spending and implement “drastic” reform.
Trump said that at Musk’s suggestion, he would “create a government efficiency commission tasked with conducting a complete financial and performance audit of the entire federal government,” with the Tesla CEO as its chief.
Trump, who is known for hyperbole and at times outright fiction, told the Economic Club of New York the effort could save “trillions and trillions of dollars.”
“This commission will develop an action plan to totally eliminate fraud and improper payments within six months,” Trump claimed.
Musk — who has said he previously voted for Democratic candidates — has thrown his weight and considerable wealth behind Trump since a gunman tried to assassinate the former president at a rally in July.
Musk has a history of sparring with regulators, as when the Securities and Exchange Commission required vetting of his Twitter posts following 2018 tweets that the agency characterized as “false and misleading.”
Other Musk initiatives, such as his pursuit of autonomous driving technology, also face oversight by government agencies.
Jordan Libowitz, a spokesman for Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics, an NGO, said Trump’s proposal to appoint Musk was still too vague to really know if there is a conflict of interest.
But he said Musk should recuse himself from policy influence on decisions that directly affect his businesses, such as government contracts for SpaceX or policy actions on autonomous driving.
Libowitz also thought it was likely that Musk would need to disclose his financial holdings, which would be made public under US regulations.
