A former White House ethics lawyer is poised to raise concerns about possible conflicts of interest tied to Elon Musk’s sprawling business interest and his job as a top adviser to President Donald Trump — an argument House Republicans will likely rebuff during a hearing about space mining Tuesday.
Richard Painter, who served as the White House’s chief ethics lawyer under President George W. Bush, will lay out his concerns about Musk’s possible entanglements in prepared testimony for a Natural Resources subcommittee. Painter is the Democratic witness.
Musk, the CEO of SpaceX and Tesla, faces a torrent of Democratic opposition as the leader of the Trump administration’s so-called Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE).
The entity, which was formed to root out government waste, is racing through federal agencies and gaining access to key data, terminating employees and even trying to shutter agencies wholesale.
