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US Senator Warren questions Musk's conflicts as Trump

adviser

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Musk's investments could potentially benefit from

regulatory

changes

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Ethics experts warn of potential conflicts with Musk's

role

WASHINGTON, Dec 17 (Reuters) - U.S. Senator Elizabeth

Warren has asked Donald Trump's transition team to hold Elon

Musk to the same ethics standards as other transition members,

putting oversight of the unusually powerful presidential adviser

in the spotlight.

The billionaire CEO of Tesla and rocket company SpaceX,

as well as the owner of social media platform X, has had an

increasingly close relationship with Republican Trump since he

endorsed him in July. Musk spent over a quarter billion dollars

to help elect Trump, and also owns interests in cryptocurrency

and other ventures.

"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 said in a letter to the Trump

transition team made public by her office on Tuesday.

"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."

Musk's role as the co-chair of a newly created Trump advisory

body that is not part of the U.S. government, the "Department of

Government Efficiency," means that he is not a government

employee, Warren noted, "but the conflicts he faces are enormous

and the need for him to be subject to similar ethics standards

is obvious."

The Trump transition team had no immediate comment.

Asked about Musk's potential conflicts, Trump told Time

magazine in an interview published on Dec. 12: "I think that

Elon puts the country long before his company."

Past presidents have often enlisted industrialists for

efficiency commissions, Danielle Brian, executive director of

the watchdog Project on Government Oversight, told Reuters.

A key difference in this case is the industries Musk is

invested in are in their early stages, Brian said, meaning

decisions made by regulators whom Trump appoints are potentially

going to transform the sectors they are in, and could put Musk's

specific companies at an advantage.

Trump's transition team issued an ethics pledge in November that

promises members "will avoid both actual and apparent conflicts

of interest," and that they "may not participate in any

particular Transition matter which to their knowledge may

directly conflict with a financial interest of theirs ... or

other individual or organization with which they have a business

or close personal relationship."

Musk's task force aims for a sweeping overhaul of the U.S.

government, which spent $6.8 trillion in the most recent fiscal

year, and has threatened to fire thousands of government

workers.

Among other regulatory changes, the Trump transition team wants

the incoming administration to drop a car-crash reporting

requirement opposed by Musk's electric vehicle company, Tesla,

Reuters reported last week.

Walter Shaub, the former director of the Office of

Government Ethics, told Reuters that he felt Musk's role could

endanger national security and public safety. The OGE is tasked

with overseeing ethics standards in the executive branch.

Shaub resigned in July 2017, months before his term was

supposed to end, after clashes with Trump's first

administration. "Taxpayers should lament their money going to

serve Musk's interests instead of the interests of the American

people," he said.