I’m already very tired of thinking about Elon Musk, and I’m sure you are too. But there are few things more important right now than this unelected billionaire’s expanding reign of terror over federal agencies, dangerous foreign policy influence, and efforts to boost authoritarian movements around the world. Moreover, there are under-reported elements of the Musk story that I think need more daylight. One example I’ll focus on here: the inspector general (IG) for the US Department of Agriculture (USDA), improperly fired along with many of her peers in January, was apparently pursuing an investigation of a Musk-owned company.
The mass firing of inspectors general was illegal
First, let’s recap what happened with the IGs, and why it was bad (which is to say, illegal) on its face.
Less than a week into President Trump’s second term, the media reported that he had fired IGs from at least 17 agencies. He claimed this was “a very common thing to do” but, in fact, the abrupt mass firing of these independent watchdogs—whose role is to identify and investigate potential fraud, corruption, and other wrongdoing in government agencies—is neither common nor lawful. A president can fire an IG but, according to the Inspector General Act of 1978 (updated in 2022), this requires 30 days’ written notice to Congress spelling out “the substantive rationale, including detailed and case-specific reasons for any such removal.” That didn’t happen here; instead, the IGs reportedly received an email from the White House indicating that their jobs were being terminated immediately “due to changing priorities.”
Recognizing the illegality of the move, IG Hannibal “Mike” Ware of the Small Business Administration, who also leads the Council of the Inspectors General on Integrity and Efficiency (CIGIE) and had received a White House email himself, shot back a reply indicating that CIGIE “[did] not believe the actions taken are legally sufficient to dismiss Presidentially Appointed, Senate Confirmed Inspectors General.” On that basis, at least one of the affected IGs, the USDA’s Phyllis Fong, refused to comply and instead went to work as usual the following week. In so doing, she became one of the first government employees in the new administration (though not the last) to be physically escorted from her office.
The Congressional Research Service subsequently wrote:
President Trump’s January 2025 action appears to be a direct challenge to the enforceability of Congress’s removal procedures under the IG Act. If this matter is litigated, the executive branch may seek to curtail Congress’s options to control even procedural requirements for removals. A judicial decision limiting Congress’s authority to impose such rules could substantially impact fundamental oversight of agency programs, spending, and staff.
The matter is indeed being litigated. Eight IGs, including Fong, filed suit February 12 to reverse their dismissals. While a judge refused to immediately reinstate the IGs, the suit is proceeding and Senate Democrats have weighed in with a court brief supporting the IGs, whose work serves Congress as well as their agencies.
The USDA’s inspector general had taken on Trump and Musk
It’s unclear why Trump wanted to remove so many IGs all at once. No one (not even this legendary question answerer) knows for sure, because again, no written justification was submitted. I’m guessing it was because he didn’t want them getting in the way of the wide-ranging illegal power grab he was planning. But when it comes to individual IGs like the USDA’s Fong, there may also be something else going on, a combination of payback and protection of Musk’s business interests.
The possible payback? Well, Fong is long-serving, having been appointed in 2002 by President George W. Bush, so she has faced off against Trump wrongdoing before. Perhaps most notably, her office reviewed his first administration’s abrupt and chaotic relocation of the USDA’s Economic Research Service and its National Institute of Food and Agriculture from Washington, DC, to Kansas City, MO. The move decimated these science agencies, causing half their staffs to quit, taking with them invaluable experience and expertise. In a 2019 report, Fong and her office concluded the relocation was likely illegal, in that it violated a law that prohibits spending money on agency reorganizations without approval from congressional appropriators (a determination echoed by the Government Accountability Office in 2023). That probably didn’t sit well with Team Trump.
And the possible protection for Musk? It turns out that Fong’s office was also investigating one of his companies, the $5 billion brain implant startup Neuralink, a fact that received sparse media attention at the time of Fong’s removal. According to a 2022 Reuters article:
The federal probe, which has not been previously reported, was opened in recent months by the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Inspector General at the request of a federal prosecutor, according to two sources with knowledge of the investigation. The probe, one of the sources said, focuses on violations of the Animal Welfare Act, which governs how researchers treat and test some animals.
The article went on to say that Neuralink employees were growing increasingly concerned about animal welfare at the company. Employees said that pressure from CEO Musk to speed up development had led to “botched experiments” requiring repeat testing and more animal deaths. These problems had also “raised questions internally about the quality of the resulting data.” Employees said Musk told workers to “imagine they had a bomb strapped to their heads in an effort to get them to move faster.”
Imagine, Elon Musk rushing a project without regard for people or data.
Neuralink has found itself under considerable regulatory scrutiny beyond the USDA IG’s probe. The company has reportedly been investigated by the Food and Drug Administration, the Securities and Exchange Commission, and the Department of Transportation. The Transportation IG was also part of the January dismissals. And just last week, FDA staff reviewing Neuralink were part of a mass civil service firing by Musk-led DOGE.
The USDA and other agencies need independent watchdogs
The IGs illegally fired by the Trump administration are already warning about the impacts of this loss of independent, nonpartisan watchdogs, who exist to root out waste and fraud and to check abuses of power in federal agencies. As the USDA’s Office of Inspector General (OIG) website indicates:
USDA OIG’s work promotes economy, efficiency, and integrity in USDA programs and operations. USDA’s budget is one of the largest in the Government, and the Department’s nearly 100,000 employees run approximately 300 programs. These programs provide a wide array of services and benefits nationwide, including providing the Nation with nutrition assistance, ensuring public safety, and distributing benefits to the Nation’s farmers and producers in the wake of natural disasters.
Established in 1962, the USDA OIG recommends policies to increase the department’s efficiency and effectiveness; identifies and investigates fraud, waste, and mismanagement; reports criminal violations to the US Department of Justice (and other problems it sees to USDA leaders and Congress); operates a whistleblower hotline; and more. I just perused the USDA OIG news page and found recent releases describing successful efforts to break up a multistate dogfighting conspiracy, recoup wrongfully obtained crop insurance and farm benefits, and convict a store owner who defrauded the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, just to name a few.
As far as I can tell, Phyllis Fong was killing it. But don’t take it from me. In November 2024, Fong and her office received the Alexander Hamilton Award from her peers at CIGIE for outstanding achievements in improving the integrity, efficiency, or effectiveness of agency operations. Fong describes what led to the award as an investigation by her team that uncovered and stopped an $11.5 million scheme to defraud USDA programs intended to help Black, Hispanic, and women farmers.
I’ll also note that Fong’s OIG played an important role in watchdogging the USDA’s pandemic response starting in 2020 under the first Trump administration. With an avian influenza pandemic potentially looming—not to mention the other crises the new administration’s actions are causing—there’s a critical need for a knowledgeable, principled IG like Phyllis Fong.