Musk's Deep Financial Ties to Top Feds Revealed

Several senior Office of Personnel Management (OPM) political appointees have deeper ties to Elon Musk’s businesses than previously known, according to financial disclosure records obtained by the Project On Government Oversight (POGO). The records show that three OPM officials have significant ties to Musk’s businesses, either holding large financial stakes in his companies or on a leave of absence from one of his enterprises. POGO is publicly reporting those details for the first time.

OPM provided the records to POGO on Thursday night in response to a formal request. The agency told POGO in an email that the officials’ financial disclosures “may be subject to changes” because they are still under review. OPM and the individuals named in this story did not respond to requests for comment.

OPM sets government-wide human resources policies and has become one of the central hubs for Musk’s and the Department of Government Efficiency’s (DOGE) efforts inside the executive branch, such as sending federal workforce-wide emails questioning government employees about their accomplishments from prior weeks. Musk, the world’s richest person, is an advisor to President Donald Trump after spending more than $280 million on the 2024 election. 

One of the three OPM appointees is routinely described as a DOGE staffer, while the other two have also been reported as being involved in DOGE efforts involving government workers. The three are part of a larger constellation of people associated with DOGE. Despite a court filing from the administration denying Musk leads DOGE, Trump, in a speech to Congress on Tuesday, said DOGE “is headed by Elon Musk.” 

Trump has tasked DOGE with leading a federal “workforce optimization initiative,” which entails “large-scale reductions in force.” Some firings and proposals to do so have seemed ill-considered from the perspectives of some agency insiders and lawmakers, such as the abrupt termination of hundreds of employees working on sensitive nuclear weapons programs — cuts that the Energy Department has largely rescinded. Some congressional Republicans have notably pushed back against the potential for cuts of 80,000 workers at the Department of Veterans Affairs. Recently, the president said agency heads should play a more significant role and wants cuts done with a “scalpel” not a “hatchet.” “If they don’t cut, then Elon will do the cutting,” Trump said.

The disclosures reveal significant financial ties between Musk and key political appointees at OPM, which an executive order issued by Trump says “shall assist in promoting workforce reduction.” Press reports cite government sources who say DOGE may be using artificial intelligence (AI) to analyze data, including that collected by OPM, to identify federal workers for termination and to potentially replace some government employees with AI. 

One high-level OPM political appointee, Chief of Staff Amanda Scales, “is on an unpaid leave of absence from xAI,” an artificial intelligence company mostly owned by Musk, according to a disclosure POGO obtained. News stories have described Scales as a former human resources employee at xAI, but they have not described her as on a leave of absence, meaning she has not severed her relationship with that company. 

The Office of Government Ethics has long identified leaves of absence as potential ethics concerns. Federal employees are barred from “participating personally and substantially in any particular matter that the employee knows will affect the financial interests of the future employer,” according to the Office of Government Ethics. That encompasses “an arrangement for prospective employment with the person or organization.”

Musk has high ambitions for xAI, recently unveiling a new version of its artificial intelligence tool, and unsuccessfully filing suit to block the conversion of a leading competitor, OpenAI, into a for-profit company. 

Questions have been raised by at least one lawmaker regarding xAI and ongoing efforts inside the Trump administration that intersect with Musk. Citing the access people with DOGE ties have sought to data at OPM and elsewhere, Senator Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) wrote last month that this could “allow Mr. Musk to gain a competitive advantage in his numerous businesses, including xAI.”

Scales isn’t the only OPM political appointee with ties to Musk’s companies, according to the disclosures.

Riccardo Biasini is a software engineer who has worked at Tesla, and more recently at another Musk-owned enterprise, The Boring Company. According to a disclosure POGO obtained, he holds between $1 million and $5 million in stock options in The Boring Company, which is trying to build a high-speed transportation system in underground tunnels in Las Vegas. The disclosure, filed on February 19, 2025, states that Biasini’s role at The Boring Company continues through the “present.” He is described as a senior advisor to the director at OPM. 

An OPM document says Biasini is the point of contact for OPM’s government-wide email system, which was developed to allow “simultaneous communication with the federal workforce.” According to the Revolving Door Project, it’s that system which is believed to have been used “to issue [the Trump administration’s] deferred resignation offers and the email demanding all federal employees respond with five bullet points of accomplishments or face termination.” Musk posted about both emails over X, his social media company, formerly known as Twitter. 

According to NBC News, citing three sources, the responses will be fed into an artificial intelligence system to “determine whether someone’s work is mission-critical or not.” Wired has reported, citing screenshots, that Biasini is working on software that can be used to identify workers to fire.

A third appointee whose disclosure was reviewed by POGO also shows a substantial personal financial stake in one of Musk’s companies. Gavin Kliger’s financial disclosure states that he is a senior advisor to OPM’s director for technology and delivery. He has been identified as formerly working at Twitter prior to Musk’s purchase of the company, but it is previously unreported that he also owns between $100,001 and $250,000 in stock in Tesla, an electric vehicle company that Musk leads. Kliger is on an unpaid leave of absence from AI company Databricks, according to a disclosure POGO obtained, which confirms earlier reporting by Forbes. 

While these ties are unreported, Kliger — like Baisini and Scales — has faced media scrutiny. USA Today has reported that Kliger “has boosted white supremacists and misogynists online.” Kliger has also been described in press accounts as a DOGE staffer who played a role in the dismantling of the U.S. Agency for International Development and as one of the staffers attempting to access sensitive taxpayer data at the Internal Revenue Service. 

A fourth OPM appointee has a very small financial link to one of Musk’s businesses. The financial disclosure of OPM’s general counsel, Andrew Kloster, who POGO earlier reported as having his own history of racist and sexist social media posts, identifies him as receiving $1,035 in “monetization” from X Corp. X’s monetization program allows creators on that social media platform “to get paid from X for your content.” 

As general counsel, Kloster is ultimately the top legal official inside OPM. General counsels typically vet agency policies and important communications for their compliance with legal standards. Earlier this week, OPM revised a government-wide guidance memo about probationary staffers that it issued January 20, following a court ruling that OPM communications directing firings at six agencies are “unlawful, invalid, and must be stopped and rescinded.”

OPM’s Office of General Counsel, which Kloster heads, also employs the agency’s ethics officials, who examine political appointees and other staff for potential conflicts of interest.

Unlike these senior OPM appointees, whose financial disclosures were provided to POGO through a formal request, Musk has been classified as a special government employee. His financial disclosure report is deemed “confidential.” POGO has sued Trump and DOGE to make DOGE records subject to the Freedom of Information Act.

DOGE’s website has estimated saving over $100 billion in taxpayer funds, but it has repeatedly revised its tallies due to rampant errors in its calculations, such as grossly inflating savings, counting money as saved for contracts that have been completed and paid out, and claiming credit for cancellations that occurred before the Trump administration. Musk has admitted that DOGE has made mistakes. 

Federal workforce reductions amount to such a tiny fraction of the federal budget that Jessica Riedl, a senior fellow with the conservative Manhattan Institute, calls that and other targets of DOGE, “government spending-cut theater.”