cbs news reported on Wednesday that Elon Musk’s pseudo-offer to pay the salaries of TSA workers affected by the current partial government shutdown has been rejected by the Trump Administration.
I say “pseudo-offer” because, as I already pointed outsaid that “I would like to offer” to pay salaries, a roundabout phrase that could have, perhaps, maybehas been interpreted as a sign that the “offer” might not be real.
However, here are some headlines about Elon Musk’s statement:
- Fox business: “Elon Musk offers to pay TSA workers’ salaries amid DHS budget standoff”
- Reuters: “Elon Musk offers to pay TSA salaries amid budget battle and airport lines”
- Insider business information: “Elon Musk offers to pay the salaries of TSA agents while Trump threatens to replace them with ICE”
The president of the United States even responded publicly to the concept that Musk raised. saying “I would love to. I think it’s great.”
And apparently there was some internal discussion within the Trump White House about the possibility of Musk donating money to the general fundCBS reports.
According to a 2016 explanation from the Niskanen Center, money can be given to the government through a peculiar side door created in 1843 by Treasury Secretary John Spencer. It exists for “individuals who wish to express their patriotism to the United States” and somehow managed to raise $47 million between 1996 and 2016.
However, CBS writes that “an outside individual is legally prohibited from paying government employees directly, according to the US Office of Government Ethics.”
White House spokeswoman Abigail Jackson told CBS a slightly different story, saying that people in the Trump Administration “very much appreciate Elon’s generous offer,” but adding that it unfortunately creates “legal challenges due to its involvement in federal government contracts.”
Elon Musk’s “involvement in federal government contracts,” to refresh your memory, could mean a lot of things. His companies were expected to raise $38 billion in government funding between 2020 and 2025. according to the Washington Post. But it is also worth noting that the government department that Musk led last year canceled billions of dollars in contracts—a different kind of “participation.”
In any case, when I wrote about this three days agoI pointed out that when Elon Musk points out some dramatic act of generosity, there is a tendency for very little, if anything, to materialize.
He has access to lawyers and knows the president personally. It would have been trivial for the world’s richest man to ask knowledgeable people to explore this plan privately, evaluate it for its practicality, and then discuss it on social media only if it got the green light, and preferably after the wheels were already in motion.
