Americans are wary of Elon Musk's access to their data and his influence over how their tax money should be spent.
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If only Americans felt about all billionaires the way they feel about Elon Musk, the country would be in much better shape. A new poll shows that non-Republicans simply do not trust the man who is currently pulling all the strings in Washington.
Overall, twice as many Americans say they do not trust Musk “at all” when it comes to his management of their sensitive data. Which is too bad for them, because now that he has wormed himself into the top echelons of power, there is nothing they can do about it… apart from trusting the courts and that the administration will abide by their decisions.
It seems highly unlikely that this is going to happen, of course, because Musk, President Trump and Vice President JD Vance have all indicated that they may violate court orders telling them to stop certain activities.
While Republicans unsurprisingly trust Musk, independents have very little faith in him doing the right thing and/or behaving ethically.
A mere 17 percent of them say that they trust the billionaire “a great deal,” while 45 percent do not trust him at all.
As we have seen in the first month of Trump’s presidency, that skepticism is more than justified in light of the heavy-handed tactics Musk’s DOGE team has used to access government databases in many different departments.
Perhaps most troubling is that a bunch of young tech bros can now dig through the records of the Social Security Administration and the Internal Revenue System.
But Americans don’t just distrust Musk when it comes to their personal data kept in government databases; they also do not trust him with their tax money.
Only 22 percent of them said they trust him “a great deal” when it comes to determining which funds appropriated by Congress should be rescinded while nearly twice as many say they don’t trust him at all.
Once again, the blind faith Republicans have in Musk is the only reason these figures are not more devastating. A mere 17 percent of independents said they trust him a great deal.
Of course, if the Trump administration were to play by the rules, this question would be moot because, even though he may be running the White House now, and even though the administration has been trying to freeze funds, Musk actually has zero authority to do so.
On the one hand, that’s because he has not been elected to anything. More importantly, that’s because the executive branch does not have the power of the purse. That is why federal judges have halted those freezes and, ultimately, the Supreme Court will have to decide whether it will smash the separation of powers to pieces and annihilate the system of checks and balances by granting the president (or the billionaire who got him there) the authority to decide which appropriated funds should be spent.
Finally, the poll also shows that Americans are very concerned about the conflicts of interest that arise from Musk’s role in the government.
Only about a third of them are not concerned or not very concerned that a man whose companies get billions of dollars from the government in the form of tax breaks, contracts, and other forms of subsidies would use his vast powers to benefit himself financially.
It goes without saying that Republicans are used to this type of behavior from Trump. The rest of Americans, however, are troubled by these conflicts of interest.
Sadly, there is nothing they can do about it. Due to his wealth and sway over Trump, Musk may be the most unaccountable person in America.
But at least Americans are beginning to see him as the threat he is.
