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One Elon Musk employee earns between $100,001 and $1 million a year as a political adviser to the billionaire boss, while simultaneously helping to dismantle the federal agency that regulates two major companies in Musk, according to court records and financial disclosure reports obtained by Propublica.
Ethics experts said Christopher Young’s dual role – working in mask companies and government efficiency – is likely to violate federal conflict regulations. Musk has publicly sought to remove the institution, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, claiming it was “duplicate.”
Government ethical rules are designed to prohibit employees from “challenging fairness to reasonable people” and even prevent public office from using them for private interest.
Young, who works for a Musk company called Europa 100 LLC, was involved in the Trump administration’s efforts to rewind the consumer agency’s business in early February and fire most of its staff, according to court records.
Young’s arrangement raises the question of where his loyalty lies, experts said. Dynamics is particularly concerning, they said CFPB, which regulates companies that provide financial services, has jurisdiction over musk electric car company Tesla, whose social media site X, which announced in January that it had partnered with Tesla, a car loan manufacturer, on Visa for mobile payments.
The world’s wealthiest man has kept his desire to abolish the bureau, saying “I’ll remove the CFPB, there are too many duplicate regulators” a few weeks after winning the election for Donald Trump.
“There’s clearly a conflict of interest with Musk, and we should refuse,” said Claire Finkelstein, director of the Center for Ethics and the Rule of Law at the University of Pennsylvania. “And his employees are employees who can answer him on a personal aspect other than government and who stands to maintain his job only if he supports the personal interests of the mask should not work for Doge.”
Young, a 36-year-old Republican consultant, has been active in politics for many years, and has recently served as the campaign treasurer for Musk’s Political Action Committee, helping tech titans spend more than $500 million to help Trump elect.
Before joining Mask Salary, he worked as vice president of American pharmaceutical research and manufacturers. He also worked as a field organizer for the Republican National Committee and former Louisiana governor Bobby Jindal, the New York Times reported.
According to court records and his disclosure form, Young was appointed Special Government Employee of the U.S. Personnel Management Office on January 30th and was dispatched to work for the CFPB in early February. Documents obtained by the Bloomberg Show could potentially make as many as $190,000 a year on government salaries. At the same time, Young is collecting salaries as an employee of Musk’s Texas-based Europa 100 LLC, and his disclosure report says his duty is to “advise political and public policy.”
Beyond that explanation, it is not clear what Young is doing with the Europa 100 or what the company’s activities are.
It was created in July 2020 by Jared Birchall, a former banker who runs Accession LLC, Musk’s family office. The company is being used to pay nannies to at least some of Musk’s children, according to the 2023 tabloid report, to promote tens of millions of dollars in campaign transactions, according to the 2023 tabloid report, the campaign finance report shows.
As a special government employee, Young can spend limited time and maintain external employment. However, such government workers must comply with laws and regulations governing conflicts of interest and personal and business relationships.
Cynthia Brown, a senior citizen ethics advisor for Washington’s responsibility and ethics, sued the administration to create various public records of Doge’s activities, but said Young’s government work appears to benefit his private sector employers.
“What hat do you wear while serving the Americans? Do you do it for the benefit of external work?” she asked.
In addition to his role in the European 100, Young reported other relationships with masked private companies. He confirmed in his disclosure format that he will “continue to participate” in the “defined contribution plan” sponsored by the Escape, Musk’s Home Office has been serving as the “Vice President” of the United States since February. He lists the latter in “a source of compensation exceeding $5,000 a year,” but the exact figures have not been revealed.
Young did not return a call for comment or asked for comment. CFPB, Doge, and The White House did not respond to requests for comment.
Musk did not respond to an email seeking comment, and Birchall did not return calls that remained at the numbers listed in the public organization records. The lawyer who helped form the United States was hung up when he reached for comment and has not responded to subsequent messages. Musk was asked about how his business interests and government work intersect, Musk said in a February interview that he “denies himself whether it is a conflict or not.”
The revelation of a clear violation of Young’s federal standards of conduct follows a series of Propublica stories that helped another Doge aide implement an administration that attempted to implement a massive layoff at the CFPB, which holds $715,000 in shares prohibited by department employees from owning it. The White House defended its aide, saying it “didn’t even manage the layoffs” and that it “completely lied the entire story.” The spokesman also said the aides had it until May 8th, but it is not clear whether he did it, and the White House has not answered questions about it. “These allegations are another attempt to reduce Doge’s important mission,” the White House said. Following Propublica’s report, the aide’s research at the CFPB has concluded.
On Monday, citing a report from Propovica, a group of 10 good government and consumer advocacy groups sent a letter to the CFPB’s proxy inspectors asking them to “quickly investigate these clear violations of interests of the Trump administration, acting in their own personal financial interests.”
Propublica has identified nearly 90 staff members assigned to Doge, but it is unclear how many if there is a potential conflict. Government agencies are slowing to publish financial disclosure forms. However, Finkelstein said the incident reported by Propublica raises questions about the motivation behind Doge’s efforts to cancel consumer watchdog agents.
“That’s important because it means that officials working for governments that are to be dedicated to the interests of the American people may not necessarily be focused on the interests of the nation, but on their own interests, self-richness, or on their boss’s rich abundance and portfolio growth,” he said.
Organized CFPB workers sued Russell Vote, acting director of the CFPB, to stop attempts to significantly expand the department’s staff and its operations. Since taking office, the Trump administration has tried to fire almost all of its agency employees and cancel almost all of its contracts.
The parties will be suing oral debate this Friday in the Court of Appeals in a case that will ensure that lawmakers will perform dozens of missions that they have tasked with in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis, while also pursuing the extent to which deep vaults can reduce their agency.
Court records created in the lawsuit provide a window into the role Young played in repelling the CFPB in the administration’s first attempt to rewind the bureau, which begins in early February.
He was sent to CFPB’s headquarters on February 6th, when Treasury Secretary Scott Bescent, the agency’s representative director of the era, told staff and contractors to quit their jobs. The next day, Young and other Doge Aides were given access to an unclassified CFPB system, court records show. On the same day, Mask posted “CFPB RIP” with gravestone emojis.
On February 11th and 12th, Young was included in an email with officials from top agency. One of these messages discussed cancellations of more than 100 contracts. This is the act described by contractors who described in their affidavit as “all contracts relating to enforcement, supervision, diplomacy and consumer response.” Another message included how to hand over the $3 billion civil penalty the bureau collected from businesses to resolve consumer protection cases. The third discussed terms of the contract that allowed for large-scale layoffs of staff, court records show.
In his financial disclosure form he signed on February 15th, Young listed employment by Musk’s Europa 100 as active through “present” since August 2024.
Then, in early March, as a legal battle over government cuts unfolded before a federal judge, Young sent a message to the CFPB chief operating officer about upcoming shootings known as “power reduction” or RIF in government terminology. In an email, he asked whether officials were “ready to implement the RIF” if a judge lifts his temporary stay, according to the March district court opinion that stopped most of the cuts proposed by the administration.
The agency tasked with protecting immigrant children is becoming an executive branch, says current and former staff members
In addition to his employment, Young’s disclosure presents another potential dispute.
He also lists ownership of up to $15,000 in Amazon stock, a company on the bureau’s “banned holdings” list. Agency employees are prohibited from making such investments, and ethics experts say participating in the actions of institutions that can increase the value of their stock, such as stripping staff of CFPB, constitutes a violation of the Criminal Dispute Act.
Young hasn’t even answered questions about it.
Al Shaw contributed the report, and Alex Mierjeski contributed the research.
