This story was originally published by ProPublica. Republished under a CC BY-NC-ND 3.0 license.

One of Elon Musk’s employees is earning between $100,001 and $1 million annually as a political adviser to his billionaire boss while simultaneously helping to dismantle the federal agency that regulates two of Musk’s biggest companies, according to court records and a financial disclosure report obtained by ProPublica.

Ethics experts said Christopher Young’s dual role — working for a Musk company as well as the Department of Government Efficiency — likely violates federal conflict-of-interest regulations. Musk has publicly called for the elimination of the agency, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, arguing that it is “duplicative.’’

Government ethics rules bar employees from doing anything that “would cause a reasonable person to question their impartiality” and are designed to prevent even the appearance of using public office for private gain.

Court records show Young, who works for a Musk company called Europa 100 LLC, was involved in the Trump administration’s efforts to unwind the consumer agency’s operations and fire most of its staff in early February.

Young’s arrangement raises questions of where his loyalty lies, experts said. The dynamic is especially concerning, they said, given that the CFPB — which regulates companies that provide financial services — has jurisdiction over Musk’s electric car company, Tesla, which makes auto loans, and his social media site, X, which announced in January that it was partnering with Visa on mobile payments.

The world’s richest man has in turn made no secret of his desire to do away with the bureau, posting just weeks after Donald Trump’s election victory, “Delete CFPB. There are too many duplicative regulatory agencies.”

“Musk clearly has a conflict of interest and should recuse,” said Claire Finkelstein, who directs the Center for Ethics and the Rule of Law at the University of Pennsylvania. “And therefore an employee of his, who is answerable to him on the personal side, outside of government, and who stands to keep his job only if he supports Musk’s personal interests, should not be working for DOGE.”

Young, a 36-year-old Republican consultant, has been active in political circles for years, most recently serving as the campaign treasurer of Musk’s political action committee, helping the tech titan spend more than a quarter billion dollars to help elect Trump.

Before joining Musk’s payroll, he worked as a vice president for the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America, the trade association representing the pharmaceutical industry’s interests, his disclosure shows. He also worked as a field organizer for the Republican National Committee and for former Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal, the New York Times reported.

Young was appointed a special governmental employee in the U.S. Office of Personnel Management on Jan. 30 and dispatched to work in the CFPB in early February, according to court records and his disclosure form. Someone with his position could be making as much as $190,000 a year in government salary, documents obtained by Bloomberg show. At the same time, Young collects a salary as an employee of Musk’s Texas-based Europa 100 LLC, where, according to his disclosure report, his duties are to “advise political and public policy.”

Beyond that description, it’s not clear what, exactly, Young does at Europa 100 or what the company’s activities are.

It was created in July 2020 by Jared Birchall, a former banker who runs Musk’s family office, Excession LLC, according to state records. The company has been used to pay nannies to at least some of Musk’s children, according to a 2023 tabloid report, and, along with two other Musk entities, to facilitate tens of millions of dollars in campaign transactions, campaign finance reports show.

As a special government employee, Young can maintain outside employment while serving for a limited amount of time. But such government workers are still required to abide by laws and rules governing conflicts of interest and personal and business relationships.

Cynthia Brown, the senior ethics counsel at Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, which has sued the administration to produce a range of public records documenting DOGE’s activities, said that Young’s government work appears to benefit his private sector employer.

“Which hat are you wearing while you’re serving the American people? Are you doing it for the interests of your outside job?” she asked.

In addition to his role at Europa 100, Young reported other ties to Musk’s private businesses. He affirmed in his disclosure form that he will “continue to participate” in a “defined contribution plan” sponsored by Excession, the Musk home office, and that he has served since February as a “vice president” of United States of America Inc., another Musk entity organized by Birchall, where he also advises on “political and public policy,” the records show. While he lists the latter among “sources of compensation exceeding $5,000 in a year,” the exact figure is not disclosed.

Young did not return a call and emails seeking comment. The CFPB, DOGE and the White House did not respond to requests for comment.

Musk didn’t respond to an email seeking comment, and Birchall didn’t return a call left at a number he lists in public formation records. A lawyer who helped form United States of America Inc. hung up when reached for comment and hasn’t responded to a subsequent message. Asked about how his business interests and government work may intersect, Musk said in a February interview that, “I’ll recuse myself if it is a conflict.”

The revelation of Young’s apparent violation of federal standards of conduct follows a series of ProPublica stories documenting how another DOGE aide helped carry out the administration’s attempts to implement mass layoffs at the CFPB while holding as much as $715,000 in stock that bureau employees are prohibited from owning — actions one expert called a “pretty clear-cut violation” of the federal criminal conflict-of-interest statute. The White House has defended the aide, saying he “did not even manage” the layoffs, “making this entire narrative an outright lie.” A spokesperson also said the aide had until May 8 to divest, though it isn’t clear whether he did and the White House hasn’t answered questions about that. “These allegations are another attempt to diminish DOGE’s critical mission,” the White House said. Following ProPublica’s reporting, the aide’s work at the CFPB ended.

Last Monday, a group of 10 good government and consumer advocacy groups, citing ProPublica’s coverage, sent a letter to the acting inspector general of the CFPB, asking him to “swiftly investigate these clear conflicts of interest violations of Trump Administration officials acting in their own personal financial interest.”

ProPublica has identified nearly 90 officials assigned to DOGE, though it’s unclear how many, if any, have potential conflicts. Government agencies have been slow to release financial disclosure forms. But Finkelstein said the cases reported by ProPublica call into question the motivation behind DOGE’s efforts to undo the consumer watchdog agency.

“It matters because it means that the officials who work for the government, who are supposed to be dedicated to the interests of the American people, are not necessarily focused on the good of the country but instead may be focused on the good of themselves, self enrichment, or trying to please their boss by focusing on enriching their bosses and growing their portfolios,” she said.

Unionized CFPB workers have sued the CFPB’s acting director, Russell Vought, to stop his attempts to drastically scale down the bureau’s staff and its operations. Since taking office, the Trump administration has twice attempted to fire nearly all of the agency’s employees, tried canceling nearly all of its contracts and instituted stop-work mandates that have stifled virtually all agency work, including investigations into companies, ProPublica previously reported.

The parties will appear before an appeals court this Friday for oral arguments in a case that will determine just how deeply Vought can cut the agency while still ensuring that it carries out dozens of mandates Congress tasked it with when lawmakers established the bureau in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis.

The court records produced in the litigation offer a window into the role Young played in gutting the CFPB during the administration’s first attempt to unwind the bureau beginning in early February.

He was dispatched to the CFPB’s headquarters on Feb. 6, just two days after Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, then the agency’s acting director, told the staff and contractors to stop working. The following day, Young and other DOGE aides were given access to nonclassified CFPB systems, court records show. That same day, Musk posted “CFPB RIP” with a gravestone emoji.

On Feb. 11 and 12, Young was included on emails with top agency officials. One of those messages discussed the cancellation of more than 100 contracts, an act that a contracting officer described in a sworn affidavit as including “all contracts related to enforcement, supervision, external affairs, and consumer response.” Another message involved how to transfer to the Treasury Department some of the more than $3 billion in civil penalties that the bureau has collected from companies to settle consumer protection cases, a move that could deny harmed consumers compensation. A third discussed the terms of an agreement that would allow for the mass layoff of staffers, court records show.

In his financial disclosure form, which he signed on Feb. 15, Young listed his employment by Musk’s Europa 100 as active, beginning in August 2024 through the “present.”

Then, in early March, as the legal fight over the administration’s cuts played out before a federal judge, Young sent the CFPB’s chief operating officer a message about forthcoming firings, known as a “reduction in force,” or RIF, in government parlance. In the email, he asked whether officials were “prepared to implement the RIF” if the judge lifted a temporary stay, according to a March district court opinion that has for the moment stopped most of the administration’s proposed cuts.

In addition to his employment, Young’s disclosure presents another potential conflict.

He also lists owning as much as $15,000 in Amazon stock, a company that is on the bureau’s “Prohibited Holdings” list. Agency employees are forbidden from having such investments, and ethics experts have said that participating in an agency action that could boost the stock’s value — such as stripping the CFPB of its staff — constitutes a violation of the criminal conflict-of-interest statute.

Young hasn’t responded to questions about that either.

This story was originally published by ProPublica. Republished under a CC BY-NC-ND 3.0 license.

Last month, a Department of Government Efficiency aide at the nation’s consumer watchdog agency was told by ethics attorneys that he held stock in companies that employees are forbidden from owning — and was advised not to participate in any actions that could benefit him personally, according to a person familiar with the warning.

But days later, court records show, Gavin Kliger, a 25-year-old software engineer who has been detailed to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau since early March, went ahead and participated in mass layoffs at the agency anyway, including the firings of the ethics lawyers who had warned him.

Experts said that Kliger’s actions, which ProPublica first reported on last week, constitute a conflict of interest that could violate federal criminal ethics laws. Such measures are designed to ensure that federal employees serve the public interest and don’t use their government power to enrich themselves. At the CFPB, which regulates companies that provide financial services, there are strict prohibitions on the investments that employees can maintain.

As ProPublica previously reported, Kliger owns as much as $365,000 worth of shares in Apple Inc., Tesla Inc. and two cryptocurrencies, according to his public financial report. Investments in those businesses are off limits to employees since the bureau can regulate them. A further review now shows that he’s invested in even more companies that are on the agency’s “Prohibited Holdings” list. Kliger also disclosed owning as much as $350,000 worth of stock in Google parent Alphabet Inc., Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway and the Chinese e-commerce company Alibaba.

That means, at a maximum, Kliger could own as much as $715,000 of investments in seven barred companies, the records show.

Experts said a defanged and downsized consumer watchdog is unlikely to aggressively regulate those and other companies, freeing them of compliance costs and the risk associated with examinations and enforcement actions. That in turn could boost their stock prices and benefit investors like Kliger.

Don Fox, a former general counsel of the independent federal agency that advises executive branch workers on their ethical obligations, said that “this looks like a pretty clear-cut violation” of the federal criminal conflict-of-interest statute.

Richard Briffault, a government ethics expert at Columbia Law School, said the fact that Kliger was warned not to take any actions that could benefit him personally showed that “he’s on notice that this is a problem, as opposed to doing this by accident, or unintentionally.”

But Briffault said there would likely be no recourse for Kliger’s actions given that the Department of Justice under President Donald Trump has “greatly deprioritized public integrity, ethics and public corruption as issues for them.” The New York Times reported last week that the section handling such cases is down to just a handful of lawyers.

From the outset, the Trump administration has been dogged by ethics controversies, from the president’s own foray into the cryptocurrency industry to Elon Musk’s dual roles as both the head of DOGE and a major federal contractor. Kliger’s case is “a nice illustration of how even on this micro level, they are violating the law, acting in ways that positively should cause people to not trust what they’re doing because there is no question that these corporations will benefit,” said Kathleen Clark, an expert on government ethics at Washington University in St. Louis.

Kliger hasn’t returned a phone call or email seeking comment. The CFPB didn’t respond to a request for comment.

The White House didn’t answer questions about the warning, whether Kliger had sought ethics waivers or if he was in the process of divesting. Instead, a spokesperson provided ProPublica the same statement it previously had, writing that Kliger “did not even manage” the layoffs, “making this entire narrative an outright lie.” A spokesperson said that Kliger had until May 8 to divest.

The April 10 ethics warning came amid a heated legal battle over the future of the CFPB.

The following day, an appeals court in Washington, D.C., allowed the agency’s acting director, Russell Vought, to implement mass firings after a lower court judge had stayed them. The court instructed Vought to conduct a “particularized assessment” of the bureau and to lay off only those employees who were deemed to be “unnecessary” to perform the agency’s statutorily required duties. In court filings, the government has said that review was done by the bureau’s chief legal officer, Mark Paoletta, and two other attorneys. In court papers, Paoletta has said the cuts are designed to achieve a “streamlined and right-sized Bureau.”

On April 13, Kliger was among a small team of DOGE and agency officials who received an email from Vought about the coming layoffs with the subject line “CFPB RIF Work” — government parlance for reduction in force, according to emails produced in court records. Vought’s email is redacted in the filing, but hours after he sent it, records show the bureau’s chief information officer wrote to Kliger and another DOGE aide regarding a “follow-up on Russ’s note below” and advised Kliger that he’d been granted access to agency computer systems that “should allow you to do what you need to do,” according to the email.

Layoff notices to more than 1,400 bureau employees went out on April 17.

In the preceding 36 hours, “Gavin was screaming at people he did not believe were working fast enough” to get the notices out and “calling them incompetent,” a federal employee on the layoff team using the pseudonym Alex Doe wrote in sworn declaration filed by lawyers for unionized employees trying to stop the administration from dismantling the bureau.

Among those laid off were the agency’s ethics officer and their “entire team” of lawyers, according to court records.

Those are the very employees who’d twice notified Kliger that he was required to identify any investments in companies on the bureau’s Prohibited Holdings list. The warning last month explicitly instructed him not to participate in any bureau activity that could benefit the businesses whose stocks he owned, said the person familiar with the notice, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of its sensitivity.

Last week, the appeals court reversed course and temporarily stopped the firings at the CFPB amid a flurry of legal challenges. Agency officials then notified the more than 1,400 fired employees who’d been told they were being let go that the pink slips were being rescinded.

The court battle over the CFPB’s future is ongoing, though, with oral arguments before appellate judges in Washington, D.C., scheduled for later this month.

This story was originally published by ProPublica. Republished under a CC BY-NC-ND 3.0 license.

A federal employee who is helping the Trump administration carry out the drastic downsizing of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau owns stock in companies that could benefit from the agency’s dismantling, a ProPublica investigation has found.

Gavin Kliger, a 25-year-old Department of Government Efficiency aide, disclosed the investments earlier this year in his public financial report, which lists as much as $365,000 worth of shares in four entities that the CFPB can regulate. According to court records and government emails, he later helped oversee the layoffs of more than 1,400 employees at the bureau.

Ethics experts say this constitutes a conflict of interest and that Kliger’s actions are a potential violation of federal ethics laws.

Executive branch employees have long been subject to laws and rules that forbid them from working on matters that “will affect your own personal financial interest.” CFPB employees are also required to divest from dozens of additional, specific companies that engage in financial services and thus either are or could be subject to agency supervision, rulemaking, examination or enforcement.

The CFPB oversees companies that offer a variety of financial services, including mortgage lending, auto financing, credit cards and payment apps.

Two of the companies in which Kliger is invested — Apple and Tesla — are on the CFPB’s list of prohibited holdings. Two other cryptocurrency holdings — Bitcoin and Solana — aren’t on the list but are nevertheless barred under agency guidance on investing in cryptocurrency firms.

Court records show that Kliger was among a small handful of top CFPB and administration officials discussing the implementation of the layoffs in emails. Separately, a federal employee who works on the layoff team said that Kliger “managed” the firings of about 90% of the bureau’s staff earlier this month, according to a sworn declaration filed by lawyers opposing the administration.

The employee, using the pseudonym Alex Doe for fear of retaliation, said they learned of Kliger’s role from colleagues and described Kliger keeping the CFPB employees “up for 36 hours straight to ensure that the notices would go out,” the declaration states. “Gavin was screaming at people he did not believe were working fast enough” and “calling them incompetent.”

Among those fired were the bureau’s ethics team, according to an agency lawyer, who wrote in an April 25 court filing that “I am not aware of anyone remaining at the CFPB who has the requisite expertise to fulfill the CFPB’s federal ethics requirements.”

Ethics experts said that getting rid of government regulators who oversee companies and set industrywide rules could impact the share price of the businesses subject to that regulation, since doing away with oversight can free companies from compliance costs and the exposure that stems from enforcement actions.

“Destroying the CFPB is likely to have, I believe, a direct and predictable effect on his financial stock,” Kathleen Clark, an expert on government ethics at the Washington University in St. Louis, said of Kliger.

Unionized bureau employees have sued the agency’s acting director, Russell Vought, to stop the administration’s efforts to wind down its operations and reduce its staff. The subsequent months of litigation have been head-spinning.

At the end of March, a district court judge issued a sweeping stay on the administration’s actions. Then on April 11, an appeals court in Washington, D.C., partially lifted that stay. In its order, the panel wrote that bureau leaders must conduct a “particularized assessment” before firing workers.

Days later, most of the agency’s staff was notified that they were being fired.

The bureau’s chief legal officer, Mark Paoletta, and two other lawyers conducted the court-ordered review, the government said in legal papers. In a recent filing, Paoletta wrote that the administration is attempting to achieve a “streamlined and right-sized Bureau.” Instead of 248 enforcement division employees and 487 in the supervision division, he wrote, he planned to keep 50 workers in each.

But on Monday evening, amid vigorous dispute over the legality of the firings and the definition of “particularized assessment,” the appeals court backtracked, upholding the trial court’s initial stay on the mass layoffs as the case plays out. The CFPB then notified the more than 1,400 employees who’d been laid off that their firings were being rescinded. The lawsuit is ongoing, with oral arguments before the appeals court scheduled for next month.

Kliger didn’t respond to voicemails or emails seeking comment for this story. The CFPB didn’t respond to a request for comment.

In a statement, the White House said that “these allegations are another attempt to diminish DOGE’s critical mission.”

Kliger “did not even manage” the layoffs, the statement said, “making this entire narrative an outright lie.”

Asked to clarify Kliger’s role in the administration’s cuts, a spokesperson said, “You have 90 days from the start date to divest which is May 8th — it is only April 28th.” It’s unclear what rule the White House was referencing; the spokesperson did not respond to follow-up questions. But ethics experts said there are two scenarios that could apply: Sometimes, high-level government officials pledge to divest their holdings by a certain date to avoid conflicts of interest. And at the CFPB in particular, regulations give employees 90 days to divest prohibited holdings.

In either case, though, the employee is required to recuse themselves from any actions that could affect their investments.

Delaney Marsco, a government ethics expert at the Campaign Legal Center, said Kliger’s holdings and his involvement in winding down the agency erode the public’s faith that government officials are serving its best interests.

“When you have these facts, it raises the question, which is just as bad as when you have the actual violation because it makes the public question,” she said.

Kliger owns between $15,000 and $50,000 of stock in Apple, which the CFPB regulates. The company agreed to pay a $25 million civil penalty last October following a bureau investigation into Apple Card, a credit card in the company’s software. The bureau said that Apple did not have a proper transaction dispute system when it launched and also that it misled some customers about its financing. The company ​​agreed to the consent order, records show, “without admitting or denying any of the findings of fact or conclusions of law.” In a statement at the time, Apple said that “while we strongly disagree with the CFPB’s characterization of Apple’s conduct, we have aligned with them on an agreement.”

Kliger also owns between $100,000 and $250,000 of Tesla stock. The company, founded by DOGE boss Elon Musk, falls under the bureau’s purview because it offers financing, a key area of scrutiny for the CFPB.

Kliger also owns cryptocurrencies: between $1,000 and $15,000 of Solana and between $15,000 and $50,000 of Bitcoin.

Any federal worker who “holds any amount of a cryptocurrency or stablecoin may not participate in a particular matter if the employee knows that particular matter could have a direct and predictable effect on the value of their cryptocurrency or stablecoins,” according to a legal memo issued in July of 2022, under then-President Joe Biden, by the independent federal agency tasked with advising executive branch employees on how to avoid conflicts of interests.

An internal notice to CFPB employees the following month instructed anyone with such a holding to “immediately recuse yourself from working on any Bureau particular matter,” report the ownership and divest within 90 days, records reviewed by ProPublica show.

Since the beginning of President Donald Trump’s second presidency, the administration has sought to significantly reduce the size, scope and nature of America’s consumer watchdog, which was created in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis.

ProPublica reported last month that dozens of investigations the agency had launched were stalled amid stop-work orders.

In a recent court filing that supplements a newly released policy memo, Paoletta wrote that, in recent years, “the Bureau has also engaged in intrusive and wasteful fishing expeditions against depository institutions and, increasingly, non-depository institutions” and that it had “pushed into new areas beyond its jurisdiction such as peer-to-peer lending, rent-to-own, and discrimination as unfair practice.”