Travelers have been hit with long lines and delays at the nation’s airports as a result of the ongoing partial government shutdown that has left hundreds of Transportation Security Administration workers unpaid and calling out sick or quitting their jobs altogether.
Amid the chaos, billionaire Elon Musk has offered to pay the government workers in an effort to alleviate the pressures.
“I would like to offer to pay the salaries of TSA personnel during this funding impasse that is negatively affecting the lives of so many Americans at airports throughout the country,” Musk wrote in a recent post on the social media platform X.
But would U.S. law permit that?
It’s complicated. There is a federal law — 18 U.S.C. § 209 — that prohibits government employees from being paid by any entity besides the U.S. government, said Jeremy R. Paul, a professor of law and former dean of the Northeastern University School of Law.
However, “He is free to make gifts to the federal government, but he would have no control over how the money is spent,” Paul said.
Christopher Bosso, professor of public policy and political science at Northeastern, added that private funds may be donated to the Department of Homeland Security, or DHS, which oversees the TSA. But the department would have no legal obligation to direct those funds to TSA.
If Musk decided to make good on his offer, it wouldn’t be the first gift from a private donor during President Donald Trump’s second term.
In October, the president said that an anonymous private donor had given $130 million to the U.S. government to help pay the troops during the then-shutdown — the first of two funding lapses since Trump took office last year. While some federal agencies have long been able to accept limited private donations for specific purposes, there is little precedent in recent administrations for using private money to offset core government costs during a shutdown.
Read more on Northeastern Global News
