White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt raised eyebrows during a briefing Wednesday when she said Elon Musk is self-policing potential conflicts of interest that may arise between his business empire and his role in running the non-official Department of Government Efficiency, which is seeking to slash public spending.

Billionaire Elon Musk's illegal overthrowing of the US Treasury by his so-called Department of Government Efficiency has some of president Donald Trump's loyalists uneasy. The massive overreach is sowing discord between Republican aides and Musk's army of college grads — who are currently making irreversible changes to the federal government's payments system without the required clearance — as Wired reports.

The party has struggled with how to respond to President Trump’s aggressive efforts to remake the federal bureaucracy and other controversies.