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Welcome to week eighteen of the Revolving Door Project’s Corruption Calendar, where we highlight examples of corporate corruption shaping the Trump administration’s agenda and their material impact on everyday people. Read our first seventeen issues here and follow us on Bluesky and X for updates.
This week the Trump administration continued to dedicate itself to tearing down the safeguards that protect Americans from things like dangerous consumer products and predatory sales tactics, all while his officials and donors (often one and the same) enrich themselves.
HUNDREDS OF TRUMP’S CLOSEST FRIENDS
Trump Meme Coin Holders Gained Access to Trump. Trump hosted a dinner Thursday for “hundreds” of customers of his personal $TRUMP crypto coin. Trump delivered his speech promising to “be working on helping everybody here” from “a lectern adorned with the presidential seal.” Some of these guests openly admitted to the New York Times that they joined the dinner “with the explicit intent of influencing Mr. Trump and U.S. financial regulations.” The Times reported the $TRUMP coin “has generated at least $320 million in fees,” thus far. Protestors gathered outside the event, including Senator Jeff Merkley, who called the dinner “the crypto corruption club.”
NOT-SO-INDEPENDENT
SCOTUS Enabled Trump’s Independent Agency Power Grab. Yesterday, the Supreme Court enabled another one of Trump’s power grabs, allowing the president to temporarily remove independent agency leaders. The cases brought before SCOTUS involved the removals of Cathy A. Harris of the Merit Systems Protection Board and Gwynne A. Wilcox of the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB), but Trump has since moved to remove the Democratic leaders of other not-so-independent agencies, including at the Federal Trade Commission. The order functionally undermines longstanding limits on the president’s ability to fire independent agency officials, potentially including Jay Powell of the Federal Reserve, whom Trump has complained publicly about.
Justice Kagan’s dissent rightly rips apart the majority’s obviously lawless distinction between the Federal Reserve and other independent agencies. The reality is that the Federal Reserve is retaining independence because financial elites prefer that, whereas the NLRB and other agencies that protect workers, consumers, or the environment will lose independence because of… the preferences of other economic elites. The Roberts Court may only be 90% MAGA, but it is 100% corrupt.
Illegally-Removed Consumer Safety Watchdog Claimed Censorship on Musk’s X. In the latest round of his illegal firings, Trump attempted to remove three Democratic members of the Consumer Product Safety Commission, the watchdog agency that issues recalls and safety warnings. CPSC Commissioner Richard Trumka Jr. wrote of Trump on X, “I’ll see him in court.” But Trumka’s account was soon deleted from X (the company Musk sought to make a “platform for free speech”) “for speaking out against the illegal firings,” according to Trumka himself. As Musk continues to use X as a mouthpiece, it has apparently become a tool for silencing Trump’s opposition as well.
The Federal Trade Commission Took Aim at Musk’s Political Enemy. What happens when independent agencies are stripped of their bipartisanship? Let’s look at the FTC! Trump attempted to illegally remove Democratic commissioners Rebecca Slaughter and Alvaro Bedoya from the FTC in March, and shortly thereafter the the Commission, under the guidance of chair Andrew Ferguson, began investigating Elon Musk’s political enemy Media Matters. Musk’s X had sued Media Matters in 2023 for publishing “research showing that ads on X appeared next to antisemitic content.” The FTC’s reported investigation of whether Media Matters “illegally colluded with advertisers” represents a flagrant violation of a government watchdog’s First Amendment rights.
TRUMP’S ANTI-ENFORCEMENT PLAYBOOK
Trump Sidestepped Regulations Across the Executive Branch. The Washington Post reported on the Trump administration’s latest efforts to gut federal rules and policies. From pipeline safety rules at the Department of Transportation, to anti-discrimination policies at the Department of Labor, the Trump administration has simply stopped enforcing rules and policies the administration doesn’t like. The move brazenly sidesteps the federal rulemaking processes administrations are obligated to follow in order to change official enforcement standards and represents yet another power grab by Trump (of “very dubious legality,” according to one expert the Post interviewed.)
Weakened SEC Enforcement Might Lead to Financial Chaos. Trump’s mass firings have left enforcement across the executive branch in a weakened state. The Capitol Forum recently reported that the Securities and Exchange Commission is likely to investigate new investment product filings less robustly due to severe staffing shortages. One group of experts, the Shadow SEC, warned that “filing reviews are critical SEC work” and “the prospect of chaos in our financial markets seems significant if the staff’s numbers were greatly reduced.” SEC head Paul Atkins said earlier in May that the agency has already lost 15 percent of its staff.
CFPB Settlement Reversal Put Money Back in Toyota’s Pocket. Rounding out the Trump admin’s executive branch playbook (ignore pesky laws, fire the enforcers, and reverse any federal actions holding corporations accountable), the gutted CFPB scrapped a 2023 settlement with Toyota that would have paid out $48 million to affected Americans. According to the CFPB, Toyota car buyers were steered into “costly and unwanted product bundles” that were “extremely cumbersome” to cancel, and Toyota often failed to provide refunds for the bundles. In the words of former CFPB enforcement director Eric Halperin, “The Trump CFPB doesn’t want to just pull back on enforcing the law, it wants to actively reward lawbreakers instead.”
LESS GOVERNING, MORE INSIDER TRADING
Trump Officials Sold Off Stock Ahead of Tariff Announcements. ProPublica reported that several officials across the executive branch sold off stock in the days before Trump announced his tariffs. Officials at the White House, the State Department, Congressional aides and more made trades “shortly before a significant government announcement or development that could influence stock prices.” This includes Trump’s Attorney General Pam Bondi, who sold between $1 million and $5 million worth of shares of Trump Media, the company that runs Truth Social, the day Trump announced his “Liberation Day” tariffs. Bondi was obliged to sell off her stake in Trump media within 90 days of her confirmation, which gave her until early May to do the transaction—and choosing to do it the day of Trump’s Wall Street-wrecking announcement seems particularly convenient. As ProPublica wrote, “using nonpublic information learned at work to trade securities could violate the law,” but even when they may not have happened, simply trading stock while the government makes market-moving decisions can create the appearance of a conflict of interest.
IT’S A FAMILY AFFAIR
Musk and Family Benefited From Trump’s Visit To UAE And Saudi Arabia. Last week we highlighted President Donald Trump’s trip to the gulf and the many opportunities for self-enrichment that brought his network—including Trump’s new luxury plane, which he officially accepted from Qatar this week. But new reporting this week further unveiled how much Elon Musk got out of the trip: Musk’s SpaceX announced a deal to provide Starlink services to Saudi Arabia, while Neuralink announced a clinical trial of its brain chip implants in coordination with Abu Dhabi’s health ministry. And Musk is poised to secure more deals with governments in the region—SpaceX is reportedly in talks to provide services for the UAE-owned Emirates Airlines, and Musk commented that he would like to see the Boring Company work with Saudi Arabia. Elon isn’t the only Musk cashing in—his brother, Kimbal Musk, attended an official lunch with US and Saudi officials after his company Nova Sky Stories recently announced a deal to provide drone light shows for Qatar and Abu Dhabi. Their mother, Maye Musk, recently headlined an Emirates government conference, while their father Errol Musk said he was in talks to build “a Musk Tower in Dubai to house the Musk Institute, a planned technology hub.”
ANDREESSEN’S INFLUENCE
RFK Jr. Cozied Up to Companies Backed by Marc Andreessen. This week, Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. met with “leaders at the forefront of health technology.” One detail HHS didn’t mention in their statement? The so-called leaders were almost entirely executives at companies backed by venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz. Marc Andreessen has been a key advisor to Trump—and clearly his influence is strong with others in the administration, like RFK. If ‘Make America Healthy Again’ wasn’t already keeping you up at night, MAHA underpinned by a techno fascist’s corporate empire ought to.
TRADE DEAL WINNER
Ambassador to the UK’s Investments Stand to Do Well Under Trump’s New UK Trade Deal. Trump’s trade deal with the UK stands to benefit Trump’s ambassador to the UK, Warren Stephens. Per The Lever, “Stephens’ family-owned investment company, Stephens Inc., owns stocks worth at least $250 million in agriculture and food firms—the principal beneficiaries of the deal announced by the United States and the U.K. on May 8.” The family investment fund also had “at least $800 million invested in tech companies and at least $220 million in pharmaceutical firms,” other industries the Trump admin promised the US-UK deal will ‘transform.’
QUID PRO QUO?
Inaugural Fund Donor Secured NYSE Approval from Trump Admin. Senator Elizabeth Warren questioned JBS, a Brazilian meatpacking company, over its $5 million donation to Trump’s inaugural committee and the company’s subsequent SEC approval for getting listed on the New York Stock Exchange. “Your large donations and direct stake in federal policies and enforcement actions, and the Trump Administration’s series of actions that benefit your companies, raise serious concerns about a potential quid-pro-quo arrangement,” the Senator wrote.
BE CAREFUL WHO YOU GET INTO BUSINESS WITH
Trump’s Crypto Partner Sued Over Prior Crypto Scheme. The Trump family’s crypto partners are being sued by an investor from a previous crypto venture. Chase Herro and Zak Folkman have earned $65 million from World Liberty Financial, the crypto company they co-founded with the Trump family (the family’s share of the earnings reportedly amounts to $400 million, by the way.) But Herro and Folkman allegedly ghosted the investors of their last crypto venture, Dough Finance, after hackers stole $2.5 million, only for the entrepreneurs to resurface months later with their new World Liberty Financial scheme. Now, one investor is suing Herro after getting left in the lurch.
Industry-Friendly Crypto Regulator Jumped Ship for Crypto Industry. Amidst Trump’s embrace of crypto, Commodity Futures Trading Commissioner Summer Mersinger announced that she’s leaving the CFTC for the Blockchain Association, Washington’s largest cryptocurrency advocacy group. As our Henry Burke wrote in The American Prospect, “Mersinger is being hired by the Blockchain Association to head [the] rekindled push for CFTC control over the crypto industry,” under Trump’s crypto-friendly reign.
NEW in The American Prospect: Elon Musk’s Fake Retreat From DOGE
Resource updates this week include:
Tracker: Trump Administration Non-Adherence to Court Orders
Polling Tracker: Americans’ Opinions of Oligarchy and Corruption
For more on our work tracking the Trump-Musk administration, visit DogeWatch.
And if you’ve got any tips on DOGE personnel or updates to any of our DogeWatch trackers, reach out to us at [email protected].