BROWNSVILLE, TEXAS - NOVEMBER 19: U.S. President-elect Donald Trump and Elon Musk watch the launch of the sixth test flight of the SpaceX Starship rocket on November 19, 2024 in Brownsville, Texas. SpaceX’s billionaire owner, Elon Musk, a Trump confidante, has been tapped to lead the new Department of Government Efficiency alongside former presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy. (Photo by Brandon Bell/Getty Images)
Legal experts have claimed that Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick‘s promotion of Tesla stocks raises significant ethical concerns. Tesla has been facing a consumer boycott because its CEO, Elon Musk, is also head of the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), which has sought to gut numerous government programs without the approval of Congress.
During an appearance on Fox News on March 19, Lutnick urged the show’s viewers to buy Tesla stock.
“If you want to learn something on this show tonight, buy Tesla,” he told host Jesse Watters. “It’s unbelievable that [Musk’s] stock is this cheap. It’ll never be this cheap again. When people understand the things he’s building, the robots he’s building, the technology he’s building, people are gonna be dreaming of today and Jesse Watters and thinking, ‘Gosh, I should’ve bought Elon Musk’s stock. I mean, who wouldn’t invest in Elon Musk’s stock? You got to be kidding.”
After Lutnick promoted the car company’s stock, numerous legal experts questioned its ethical and legal concerns.
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Eric C. Chaffee, a Case Western Reserve University law professor in Cleveland, Ohio, said government officials usually avoid promoting specific investments.
“It can create issues of conflicts of interest and questions of favoritism,” Chaffee noted. “It can also create the appearance of impropriety. Additionally, government officials run risks if they promote specific securities,” he added. “If the investment turns out to be a poor one, they might be accused of market manipulation or securities fraud.”
Government ethics experts stated that Lutnick broke a 1989 law forbidding federal employees from using “public office for private gain,” which was later amended to ban “endorsements.”
Even though presidents are usually exempt from government ethics rules, most federal employees are not given the same treatment and are often punished for violations like rebukes.
“They’re not even thinking of ethics,” former Republican White House ethics czar Richard Painter stated. “I don’t know if people care.”
No public action was taken against the commerce secretary, and whether he would receive any punishment was unknown.
In February 2025, President Donald Trump told reporters that Lutnick would “look into” folding the USPS into the Commerce Department.
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