I was quoted earlier this week (Monday) in a Business Insider article, “Elon Musk has a lot to gain if Trump wins. A Harris presidency is more uncertain.” The article is behind a paywall (sorry!), but at the time this is being posted, an aol.com version is available. In any event, this post offers my two quotes with some context.

On the potential for bias against Elon Musk in a Harris administration:

“One would hope that governmental units would be immune to political pressures,” Joan MacLeod Heminway, a law professor at the University of Tennessee, told BI. “But people in those units are humans and may inadvertently scrutinize proposals coming from entities owned or controlled by Elon Musk.”

In response to a question about the inclusion of Elon Musk in a Trump administration:

“There are ethical rules mandating compliance with various types of obligations, including conflict-of-interest reporting, for certain types of government positions,” Heminway said. “Elon Musk may not want to take on these obligations.”

Now, we will wait and see what actually transpires. The article notes that “Trump has already incorporated some of Musk’s policy proposals into his campaign, with plans to establish a government efficiency commission led by Musk. Trump has said the commission would conduct a ‘complete financial and performance audit of the entire federal government’ and make suggestions for ‘drastic reforms.'”

Certainly, the deregulatory business environment that characterized the initial Trump administration (which I wrote about some here and here) was and likely would be a boon for business innovators like Elon Musk. The article observes that “[m]any of Musk’s companies depend largely on federal approvals, regulations, subsidies, or contracts — and Trump has promised a lighter regulatory environment with plans to lower corporate and personal taxes.” No doubt we will have more to say on all this here on the BLPB as time moves forward.