President-elect Donald Trump will start his second term with an even larger web of financial entanglements, reviving concerns over how a billionaire businessman and his allies can serve in the White House without conflicts of interest.
Trump promised the Trump Organization’s pursuits would be walled off from his duties as president upon first entering office in 2017. But his sprawling interests, in particular the properties he owns as a real estate developer, prompted lawsuits on the Constitution‘s emoluments clause that got tossed out by the Supreme Court after he left office.
One outside group that sued Trump alleged that he had 3,400 conflicts during his first term as president.
Four years later, Trump’s promise may be even harder to keep. He now also has a majority stake in publicly traded social media platform Truth Social, while his son Eric announced a new Trump Tower will be built in Saudi Arabia.
Outside of his family, Trump has developed close ties to Elon Musk, making him the co-chair of a new fiscal panel that could be met with similar complaints due to his ownership of Tesla and SpaceX. Both are party to million-dollar government contracts and high-stakes investigations.
The situation “just [cries] out for some sort of action to break that relationship” with Musk, according to Steven Mintz, an ethics expert and professor at California Polytechnic State University.
Musk has also reportedly been part of Trump’s telephone calls with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, whose country depends on Musk’s Starlink services for internet access during its war against Russia, plus a stand-alone discussion with Iran’s ambassador to the United Nations.
Eric Trump, who, like in 2017, will control the Trump Organization while his father retains its ownership, remains adamant there will be a “very large wall” between the company and the government, though his ethics plan will not prevent foreign business deals, according to the New York Times, after the emoluments clause litigation petered out.
A Trump Organization spokesperson did not respond to the Washington Examiner’s request for comment.
Mintz judged that there is at least a “pretty awful” appearance of conflicts of interest.
“The government has to run in accordance with ethical standards,” he said. “He’s not off to a good start.”
But Trump, who will never run for president again, faces less danger of criminal prosecution, civil litigation, or impeachment in a second term, according to Claremont McKenna College politics professor John Pitney, with traditional presidential “constraints” centered on “public opinion and respect for established norms.”
“These constraints have little influence on Trump,” Pitney told the Washington Examiner. “At least half of Americans think that all or most politicians are corrupt. So a common attitude is: ‘So what if Trump’s a crook? They’re all crooks.’ And Trump sees himself as a disruptor who cares little about established norms.”
Trump’s posture toward conflict of interest complaints was previewed this week with his transition team’s response to a letter from Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) requesting more information on plans to avoid ethics conflicts with Musk. The team published its ethics plan last month, but federal laws and rules do not apply to Musk, a private citizen, with Warren arguing they should.
Musk spending $277 million in the lead-up to the 2024 election on Trump and other Republican candidates has already paid dividends, according to Warren, with Tesla’s stock increasing Musk’s net worth by $70 billion.
“Mr. Musk’s substantial private interests present a massive conflict of interest with the role he has taken on as your ‘unofficial co-president,’” Warren wrote. “Currently, the American public has no way of knowing whether the advice that he is whispering to you in secret is good for the country — or merely good for his own bottom line.”
Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, the watchdog that sued Trump, has separately implored him to divest his business interests before he is inaugurated on Jan. 20, arguing the failed lawsuit on emoluments has “likely contributed to his lack of concern about ethics rules.”
“His company continuing to make foreign deals is a sign that he will not make even the minor concessions to ethics that he did last time, and since leaving office Trump has only expanded his business portfolio, making him more ripe for corruption,” CREW spokeswoman Jenna Grand told the Washington Examiner.
In response to Trump’s critics, incoming White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt argued that Trump “has assembled the most impressive and qualified team of innovators, entrepreneurs, and geniuses to advise and staff our government.”
She also underscored that Trump “didn’t get into politics for profit,” removing himself from his “multibillion-dollar real estate empire to run for office and forewent his government salary, becoming the first president to actually lose net worth while serving in the White House.”
“Pocahontas can play political games and send toothless letters,” Leavitt said of Warren, “but the Trump-Vance transition will continue to be held to the highest ethical and legal standards possible — a standard unfamiliar to a career politician whose societal impact is 1/1024th of Elon Musk’s.”
Trump has long taunted Warren’s claim to Native American ancestry. A Warren spokeswoman did not respond to the Washington Examiner‘s request for comment.
Billionaires’ coziness with sitting presidents is not unusual, with business magnates contributing millions to both Trump’s and Vice President Kamala Harris’s presidential campaigns. Since his election, tech leaders have also been donating to Trump’s inaugural fund.
But the degree to which Musk has inserted himself into the political process has prompted criticism from Democrats. On Wednesday, he vocally opposed a House deal to fund the government into March, helping tank its prospects with a series of posts on X.
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In part, the Democratic scrutiny will play out next year in the House, with the Oversight Committee being one avenue for the party to register its complaints.
“[Trump] may feel more emboldened, but that may also make him more reckless,” said Rep. Gerry Connolly (D-VA), the incoming ranking member. “There is a law on this land, and we’re going to make sure it’s enforced.”
