Elon Musk - Corrupt Power - A US Radio Discussion

Interview: Perspectives on Corruption Issues in the United States Today – Frank Vogl

National Public Radio’s ON POINT – How the richest person in the world is reshaping Washington.
February 11, 2025.

Meghna Chakrabarti is the award-winning host and editor of On Point. Based in Boston, she is on the air Monday through Friday.  On Point has been frequently recognized for excellence in journalism under Meghna's leadership.

Transcript excerpt - CHAKRABARTI: Frank Vogl is the co-founder of Transparency International, a nonprofit organization that works to stop corruption and promote transparency and integrity at all levels and all sectors of society. And he's also author of a number of books on corruption, including The Enablers: How the West Supports Kleptocrats and Corruption Endangering Our Democracy.   Frank, welcome to On Point.

FRANK VOGL: Thank you so much, Meghna. Good to be with you.

Are we already in a plutocracy?

CHAKRABARTI: Okay. Just the other day in Vanity Fair, there was an article that got to this question about how much does President Trump actually know about what's going on with the Department of Government Efficiency and Elon Musk.  And some unnamed sources in the White House to Vanity Fair said Trump doesn't really know what's going on. The White House Press Office officially says they refute that. But then there was another quote from one of these sources in the White House saying Elon Musk is the richest man in the world.

The president essentially can't afford to make Musk mad. Because Musk is too powerful. So with that in mind, Frank, are we already in a plutocracy, if ostensibly the most powerful man in the world who we once believed was the President of the United States now has reason to be concerned or fearful of crossing Elon Musk?

VOGL: We are in great danger of that. We really have to ask ourselves the question, who is in charge of our government? Who is accountable? And what is happening here right now looks a lot like what happened in Russia. ... After the fall of communism in the 1990s. When various incredibly skilled individuals took charge of privatized industries, became the first oligarchs in Russia, and they really had enormous control vis-a-vis President Boris Yeltsin.

One of them said to Yeltsin, we will ensure all the media supports your reelection in 1996, but we want increased business power. As a result, Yeltsin got reelected, and the oligarchs, these business tycoons basically running so much of the government were not brought to heel until Putin came into power 25 years ago now. And locked up the most powerful of all of the oligarchs, warned the rest of them, you can make as much money as you like, steal as much as you like, but you report to me, and when I want a favor from you, you will do it for me without any questions.

Who's in charge right now about the U.S. government is an enormously important question. It's in the courts. It's an issue of the Constitution. It's an issue of the role of Congress. But what we really have to also understand is that at the very same time that Musk and other billionaires in the administration are increasing their knowledge and insight and influence right across the government at the very same time. In parallel, all of the safeguards to investigate fraud and corruption are being dismantled.

CHAKRABARTI: Frank, quickly, can you point to any other time in U.S. history? Where we've had so much power in the hands of one person who was not the president.

VOGL: There are lots of stories about J.P. Morgan at the end of the 19th century, the richest man in America, the man who financed the railroads and really financed the U.S. government. There are times about the robber barons and their influence. But in modern times, absolutely no.

And I really want to emphasize to you, it's not just the money. It's the media power. Because in all countries that you look at, like Hungary, run by Viktor Orban, Israel, with President Netanyahu, the first thing these people do to strengthen their power and their authority is to give businessmen a lot of business contracts from the government in return for them providing media support.

Why should Americans care?

CHAKRABARTI: Frank, we've got about a minute before our next break. Why should Americans care about this?

VOGL: Because millions of Americans and millions of people around the world are suffering today from already the actions we've seen of the last three weeks. And many more will suffer very greatly, greater economic hardship and greater insecurity.

Our security is at stake if we allow these oligarchs, American oligarchs to continue to run rampage through our government.

CHAKRABARTI: White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt has defended Musk's actions in the days since he began slashing programs and agencies and inserting DOGE employees at the most fundamental level of IT systems in various departments of the United States government, including the Treasury, and Leavitt essentially says that the Trump administration, the president, trusts Musk.

KAROLINE LEAVITT: If Elon Musk comes across a conflict of interest with the contracts and the funding that DOGE is overseeing, then Elon will excuse himself from those contracts. And he has, again, abided by all applicable laws.

Musk’s power?

CHAKRABARTI: By virtue of Elon Musk having control over the Treasury's payment system, he is by default overseeing contracts that he himself is involved with through his private businesses, and the contracts they have with the federal government.  And as of yet, there's no indication that he is excusing himself over that conflict of interest. Now here's former Trump advisor Steve Bannon, he recently spoke with NPR's Steve Inskeep about Trump's involvement with Silicon Valley ultra elites. And, interestingly, Steve Bannon maintains a strictly populist stance when it comes to some of Trump's associates, particularly Elon Musk.

STEVE BANNON: These oligarchs in the Silicon Valley, they have a very different view of how people should govern themselves. I call it techno feudalism. They don't believe in the underlying tenets of self-governance.

CHAKRABARTI: Frank,  I would like to hear your response to what the White House Press Secretary, Karoline Leavitt, says there. That Musk is thus far abiding by all applicable laws.

VOGL: Let me give you two concrete examples, if I may. One, so far you've mentioned the Treasury Department and others, but Musk and his team are about to go into the Pentagon.

And, as Musk has various companies, as does Peter Thiel, that are very big Pentagon contractors. Musk would have the opportunity, if he gets hold of all of the Pentagon data, to see exactly what rival companies are doing in terms of contracts, payment systems, and who knows whether he takes advantage of that.

But I believe that would have enormous impact on the efficiency of our military, and in fact, on our national security. Let me give you one other concrete example. Musk was very keen to close down the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, which has now been shuttered. That bureau started last year investigating all digital online payment systems.

Musk has said that he wants X, Twitter, to become a financial entity. Last week, X announced a deal with Visa as the first step to becoming a financial company. Now, he doesn't have to fear any regulation, any investigation from the CFPB, and he is going to build a huge financial empire as the government deregulates so much of business and banking, and we will be heading, as a result, perhaps for another financial crisis.

Can the courts be counted upon?

CHAKRABARTI: Now, I want to ask you also about the courts. And by the way, tomorrow we're going to be doing a full hour about the Trump administration's clashing with the federal courts of the United States and whether or not they are provoking a constitutional crisis.

But regarding Elon Musk, Frank, it was just a few days ago that a federal judge issued an order blocking access to the Treasury Department's payment system to anyone, quote, other than civil servants with a need for access to perform their job duties. That essentially should block DOGE and its employees from controlling the code of the Treasury Department's payment systems. But I don't see the Trump administration or Elon Musk as of yet having complied with this court order.

VOGL: It's going to be very difficult to find out, all the inspector generals have been fired. Not all, but 18 of them. At the same time, last night Trump issued another executive order which closes down investigations of all foreign corporate bribery.

Just one more move by him. There's more and more actions taking place that will make it incredibly difficult to investigate the wrongdoing that's going on in this administration. And therefore, for example, the violations of court orders. This is a very big issue.

I don't think personally that these people who've come in with Musk, and also please note, there are lots of other billionaires in this administration who are pushing very hard for deregulation of cryptocurrencies, and they've been given key positions for that. We have billionaires at the Commerce Department and the Treasury who are very involved in financial deregulation, because they would personally profit.

All of this is going on, and I don't believe that Donald Trump has a clue about it. And I think his Justice Department are going to work very closely with not only Musk, but also the new OMB director Mr. Vought who is the author of Project 2025 and he says wants to dismantle the government. And is totally supportive, as far as we read in the press, of exactly what Musk is doing.

The result is all of us are going to suffer, our security suffers, there will be human misery. Not here, but we're already seeing it around the world with the dismantling of USAID.

CHAKRABARTI: Frank, you keep giving a preview to the show that we're going to do tomorrow, which will be specifically about Russell Vought, the new, he's once again, the director of OMB and his very vocal championing of what he calls 'radical constitutionalism,' which is a deliberate provocation by the executive of the United States federal judiciary, that will be our focus of our show tomorrow.

Comparison with Hitler’s first 53 days of power?

But back to what you're saying about whether or not President Trump has a real tactile understanding of what Elon Musk is doing. We spoke to a former State Department official who told us that quote, "We know the White House has been caught off guard multiple times and in multiple ways regarding Musk's actions."

And that same State Department official, Frank, told us this, as the person was watching the start of Musk's dismantling of government agencies, like USAID. The official told us, quote, "It took Hitler 53 days. Musk may beat him." End quote. Now, what that official was referencing was Adolf Hitler's rise to power in Germany and the 53 days it took Hitler to destroy the Weimar Republic's Democratic state and establish the dictatorial leadership of the Nazi Party.

Now, it just so happens that Tim Ryback who's the director of the Institute for Historical Justice and Reconciliation in The Hague, is author of a recent book called Takeover, Hitler's Final Rise to Power. And in fact, he had written in The Atlantic about exactly this, an article titled, "How Hitler Dismantled a Democracy in 53 Days."

CHAKRABARTI: Frank Vogl. People are going to say no, you can't compare what's happening in Washington to the Nazis. That's beyond the pale, right? Because the Nazis brought the Holocaust. The Nazis start, triggered the devastation of the Second World War across Europe.

That's not what's happening here in the United States. Elon Musk is operating within the law. He's operating within the prescribed powers in the constitution given to the executive branch. It's not the same. What would you say?

VOGL: I think it's very interesting that you make the parallel. I think your show tomorrow will be very important in this regard.

When we look around the world and, by the way, Transparency International issued its Corruption Index today, ranking countries from the most corrupt to the least corrupt, and the U.S. once again has fallen in its ranking. When you think about corruption around the world, you think about oligarchic power, you find time and time again one of the very first things that new governments who want to be authoritarian do.

If they change the laws, they manipulate the courts, they put themselves above the law. If Trump is successful, Trump/Vance, I should say. If they are successful, along with Elon Musk and his other oligarchs, and I call them American oligarchs, if they as a group are successful in putting themselves above the law, in ensuring that the courts cannot enforce what the courts wish to enforce, if they put themselves above the law, then we are on the way to a very serious authoritarian regime, the consequences of which will be anybody's guess, but the outlook would then be very bleak.

CHAKRABARTI: Okay. We are not there yet, but we are in danger. So let me, we have one minute left, and I have to ask you, the United States, what we have been experiencing under both Trump administrations is basically a norm destroying regime. This democracy is not built for this kind of stress on normative behavior.

As the courts may, if they may continue to issue their stop orders, essentially, how can those orders be adhered to? Who would enforce them? If Donald Trump doesn't tell Elon Musk, you have to stop doing this because the federal court said so, what other mechanisms are there?

Safeguarding democracy?

VOGL: Let's just finally, two points, if I may.

First of all, let us have some confidence in federal government employees. Are they going to simply do anything that they're told by Musk and Trump, even if it violates the law, or are they going to stand up for the law?

CHAKRABARTI: Their ranks are being purged, though, as we speak.

VOGL: Okay, but there are many of them left.

And those who are being purged are suing and trying to get through to the courts. And we're going to see more and more protests across the country. The public has a tremendously important role here, so long as it's not complacent.