Ignore Musk’s And Trump’s Wild Claims. Here’s How Federal Officials Really Get Rich.

On Tuesday, at a press conference about Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency’s efforts to cut government spending, Musk stood beside President Donald Trump in the Oval Office and claimed without evidence that federal workers were on the take.

“Could you mention some of the things that your team has found, some of the crazy numbers, including the woman that walked away with about $30 million?” Trump asked Musk. “We do find it rather odd that there are quite a few people in the bureaucracy who have, ostensibly, a salary of a few hundred thousand dollars but somehow manage to accrue tens of millions of dollars in net worth while they are in that position,” Musk responded, adding that he believes this is “what happened at USAID,” the U.S.’s foreign aid office. “It just seems to be, mysteriously, they get wealthy, and we don’t know why,” he added. “Where does it come from? And the reality is that they get wealthy at the taxpayer’s expense.”

As it turns out, there are plenty of ways one can get wealthy with a government salary that are perfectly legal and don’t involve skimming funds for yourself. We would know: has been tracking the net worth of high-level government officials for years now, including those of the 2020 and 2024 presidential candidates, Cabinet officials in the Biden and first Trump administrations, and the nine justices of the Supreme Court. Sometimes, the wealth comes from someone else—an official inherits it or has a high-earning spouse. Other times, they are already quite rich before they become public servants. (In fact, some might argue that government positions disproportionately attract people who have money from other sources.) And finally, plenty of politicos make money in the private sector between government positions when their party goes out of power, then return when a friendly president is elected. In Washington, that’s what’s frequently called “the revolving door.”

As for the USAID official to which Musk and Trump appeared to be referring, it is likely Samantha Power, who headed the agency under Biden and has been the subject of conspiracy theories online amplified by Musk. Power, a longtime scholar and journalist who served as President Obama’s United Nations ambassador and who is married to prominent Harvard professor Cass Sunstein, was rich before she took the USAID job in 2021. On her financial disclosure that year, the couple declared between $9.7 million and $26.7 million in assets. On her final disclosure in 2024, she declared a range of about $10.5 million to $28.2 million, a marginal increase. In other words, there’s no evidence whatsoever of a surge in net worth, much less outright fraud.

Of course, Musk acknowledged in the press conference that some of his claims—$50 million for condoms sent to Hamas? Funding Ben Stiller’s trip to Ukraine?—haven’t exactly held up to scrutiny. “Some of the things I say will be incorrect, and should be corrected,” he said. “Nobody’s going to bat a thousand.”

Without further proof from DOGE that they’ve found clear evidence of bona fide corruption, the reality is that making money and being in politics often go hand in hand, all within the bounds of the law. Here’s a rundown, with examples from previous reporting, of the ways in which government employees might end up richer than a public servant’s salary would suggest.

Unless otherwise noted, all net worth figures are estimates.

The “Revolving Door” (Make Money Between Government Jobs)

Two of the most recent Democratic presidential nominees followed this option: Leave government to work in the private sector, then return for a new job later on. “Middle Class Joe” Biden became comfortably upper class (2024 net worth: $10 million) a year after leaving the vice presidency, hauling in $11.1 million from books and speeches in 2017. And Hillary Clinton (2015 net worth: $45 million), alongside her husband Bill, hauled in over $240 million from speeches, bookwriting, consulting and more between 2000 (when Bill left the White House) and 2016, when she mounted her presidential bid.

This strategy was also popular among Obama-era officials who later became Biden cabinet members. Federal Reserve chair-turned-Treasury secretary Janet Yellen (2021 net worth: $20 million) made upwards of $7 million from speeches. Secretary of state Antony Blinken (2021 net worth: $10 million) founded a firm called WestExec Advisors that was hired by clients like Uber, FedEx and Blackstone. Michigan governor-turned-energy secretary Jennifer Granholm (2021 net worth: $8 million) and general-turned-defense secretary Lloyd Austin (2021 net worth: $7 million) joined corporate boards, while homeland security secretary Alejandro Mayorkas (2021 net worth: $8 million) signed up with a lucrative private law firm.

The revolving door is bipartisan, though. Trump’s second attorney general, Bill Barr (2019 net worth: $40 million), spent much of his time between the George H.W. Bush administration and the Trump administration at Verizon, where he worked as general counsel and executive vice president and earned himself a $17 million retirement package plus $10.4 million in severance when he left in 2008. Alex Azar (2019 net worth: $15 million) spent a decade at pharmaceuticals giant Eli Lilly between gigs in the George W. Bush administration and as Trump’s health and human services secretary.

Marry Well

Former vice president Kamala Harris (2024 net worth: $8 million) had a perfectly solid public sector legal career, but her finances boomed when she, then the attorney general of California, married entertainment lawyer Doug Emhoff. By the time she ran for president in 2019, Emhoff was raking in over $1 million per year. After Harris took office as vice president, Emhoff switched to teaching law, but the couple’s home in Los Angeles—originally Emhoff’s—kept increasing in value. He rejoined a corporate law firm as a partner in January, while she’s reportedly considering a book deal.

Chief Justice John Roberts and his wife, Jane, both high-powered lawyers, were worth about $5 million when George W. Bush nominated him to the nation’s highest court in 2005, per financial disclosure forms he filed at the time. Today, estimates they’re worth $25 million because, even though Roberts took a massive pay cut when he transitioned from private practice to public sector work, Jane kept hauling in the big bucks as a legal recruiter. A whistleblower leaked documents to Business Insider showing that she made some $10.3 million in commissions between 2007 and 2014, for example.

Inherit Money

The oldest way to get rich is having rich relatives. Just ask Merrick Garland, the longtime federal judge who served as Joe Biden’s attorney general and was worth an estimated $20 million in 2021. Sure, his legal career brought in plenty of money—but his 1995 financial disclosures show $900,000 in trusts from in-laws, plus millions more in investments owned by him and his wife. That fortune swelled over the years as his wife’s parents kept transferring assets, including New York and Connecticut real estate that the Garlands earned rent on.

The daughter of Taiwanese immigrants who started a successful shipping company, Elaine Chao, then George W. Bush’s labor secretary, received an estimated $9 million from her parents when her mother died in 2007. That inheritance, supplemented by her subsequent work in the private sector, increased plenty by the time Trump tapped her to be his first transportation secretary. estimated her fortune, which she shares through marriage with former GOP Senate leader and current Kentucky senator Mitch McConnell, at $20 million in 2019. Chao, whose husband was the only Republican senator to vote no on Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Tulsi Gabbard for Trump’s new Cabinet, resigned from the billionaire’s first Cabinet after the January 6th attack on the Capitol.

Other politicians who have benefitted considerably from inheritance include Dean Phillips (2024 net worth: $50 million), the former Minnesota congressman and heir to a brewing fortune who challenged Joe Biden for the Democratic nomination in 2024, and Supreme Court justice Samuel Alito (2024 net worth: $10 million), who saw his assets jump following the deaths of his father-in-law in 2012 and his own mother in 2013.

Make Money Before Taking A Government Job

One advantage of this approach is that you can use your own money for your campaign: Just ask billionaires Mike Bloomberg, the media and finance mogul who became mayor of New York and later ran for president, and Tom Steyer, a hedge funder who also ran for president in 2020.

Donald Trump (who also inherited plenty, in fairness) built his real estate and brand empire before running for president, too, and has picked plenty of already rich businesspeople for his cabinets. Howard Lutnick, Trump’s current pick for commerce secretary, rebuilt—after the 9/11 attacks destroyed its New York offices and killed 658 of its employees—financial services firm Cantor Fitzgerald, and is worth more than $1.5 billion today. Wilbur Ross, Trump’s secretary of commerce during his first term, was worth $600 million in 2019 primarily thanks to private equity—and fooled the world into thinking he was much richer, until exposed him.

Biden picked fewer ultrawealthy people for his Cabinet, but his commerce secretary Gina Raimondo (2021 net worth: $10 million) was a venture capitalist before becoming treasurer and then governor of Rhode Island.

Notably, making money before taking a government job can also help an officeholder’s portfolio grow considerably while in office. Supreme Court justice Neil Gorsuch was worth $3.1 million when he was first confirmed as a circuit court judge in 2005, per disclosures filed at the time, but his fortune has since grown to an estimated $8 million thanks to deferred compensation from his private practice, growth in his investments and a bit of bookwriting. Massachusetts senator Elizabeth Warren (2019 net worth: $12 million) also watched her wealth grow after getting into office, partly from investments and partly thanks to a Cambridge, Mass. real estate boom that drove the value of her home from $450,000 in 1995 to around $3 million in 2019.