Top Trump officials fanned out this past week to talk to markets about the upside of Elon Musk’s activities as the questions abound about his team’s access to a sensitive payments system and what that could mean for financial stability.
A former top Biden-era Treasury official even worried about potential damage to Treasury’s all-important «market infrastructure,» which he said could follow from Musk’s rapid-fire changes.
Leading the pushback to that notion was recently confirmed Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent. The longtime investor said this past week that he and Musk are «completely aligned» that the Musk team’s access to the payment system is read-only.
In a Bloomberg interview he even went so far as to speak directly to investors and say of Musk: «I want to emphasize to you and everyone watching that it is an operational review, it is not an ideological review.»
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent listens as President Donald Trump speaks in the Oval Office on Feb. 3. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci) ·ASSOCIATED PRESS
Musk himself is also making the case. He spoke at a private event this week for the wealthiest clients of JPMorgan Chase (JPM). He and his mother Maye Musk were interviewed by David Rubenstein at the event, where JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon was also in attendance.
Musk briefly mentioned DOGE in his remarks and didn’t discuss possible cost savings, according to a person at the event.
In advance of the event Musk did have a message for the bond markets. «Look, if you’re shorting bonds, I think you’re on the wrong side of the bet,» Musk said ahead of the event on his social media platform X.
Other officials — from National Economic Council director Kevin Hassett to even Trump himself — tried to offer market-calming messages this past week even as some questions lingered about whether financial observers were discounting the possibility of Musk-led financial instability.
«I’ve been a little bit surprised that markets aren’t a little bit more concerned,» said Graham Steele, who worked as Treasury’s assistant secretary for financial institutions during the Biden administration.
He said quick cuts could cause problems on their own, and also raised a concern that newly installed Musk official with access could «break things totally unintentionally.»
Demonstrators participate in a rally in front of the U.S. Treasury Department in protest of Elon Musk and the Department of Government Efficiency on February 4. (Anna Rose Layden/Getty Images) ·Anna Rose Layden via Getty Images
«The plumbing is underappreciated because it usually works pretty well and folks might not be thinking about what the broader costs could be of doing those cuts in particular ways that then undermine broader market fundamentals,» he added.
Concerns like Steele’s are clearly having at least some effect, with Bessent touting Musk’s work but also, in a way that reflects his long history of speaking to markets, offering more cautious terms than some of his colleagues.
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«Our motto is to move deliberately and fix things,» Bessent told Fox Business earlier this past week as other Trump aides touted Musk’s «lightning speed» moves.
So far at least, most of the financial world’s focus when it comes to Musk is on the potential upsides.
Raymond James managing director Ed Mills noted in a live Yahoo Finance interview that «we’ve seen a very aggressive action by Elon Musk and DOGE,» which could lead to a material impact on government spending.
He said those actions, in combination with other initiatives like increased growth from cutting regulations and increasing revenues from tariffs, could «help bondholders get more optimistic about the fiscal future of the United States and bond yields would reflect that.»
Elon Musk arrives for the inauguration of Donald Trump in the U.S. Capitol Rotunda on January 20. (Saul Loeb-Pool/Getty Images) ·Pool via Getty Images
President Trump also weighed in by telling reporters again Friday that «Elon is doing a great job» at rooting out waste and fraud and that could be a key part of improving the US fiscal standing.
He also added in a Friday post “BALANCED BUDGET!!!” without further context. Musk then reposted the message, saying a «Balanced budget is going to happen.»
The focus on the upsides comes as significant questions remain about exactly what the roles of Musk and his team in the sensitive Treasury systems have been.
Even as Bessent and others have repeatedly said the access is «read-only,» Musk himself has often posted about unilaterally ending what he calls «illegal payments.»
And emails obtained by the New York Times showed that Musk allies directly wanted the ability to freeze disbursements for the US Agency for International Development (USAID) using the Treasury system.
Bessent’s department also penned a letter to Democratic lawmakers saying that Musk’s team only received permission to read Treasury data. But Democratic Sen. Ron Wyden shot back, calling the letter «misleading and evasive.»
It has even made some moderate Republicans wary, with Senate Appropriations Chair Susan Collins, a Maine Republican, expressing her worries this week to reporters.
«There’s no doubt that the president appears to have empowered Elon Musk far beyond what I think is appropriate,» she said.
Overall, Steele said that cost savings could be helped but «it’s got to be done in a seamless and orderly way that has political legitimacy.»
If not, «I worry that it’s going to take something actually going awry for them to then really realize it.»
Ben Werschkul is Washington correspondent for Yahoo Finance.
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