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Now Elon Musk’s SpaceX Buddy Is Going to Help Run the FBI

One former official shared fears of the agency “infusing a one-sided ideology and purging the people who don’t share that viewpoint.”

There are growing fears that the FBI could turn political and partisan, after the bureau reportedly enlisted the help of a former aide to a staunch Donald Trump congressional ally and someone with ties to Elon Musk’s SpaceX.

The pair will serve as advisers to the FBI’s incoming director, NBC News reported, citing four current and former officials at the bureau. The two fresh bodies will serve alongside two others, believed to be retired agents at the intelligence and security service. It comes as Kash Patel, Trump’s pick to lead the FBI, will face senators Thursday as part of their confirmation hearings.

Tom Ferguson, a former agent and aide to Rep. Jim Jordan, has reportedly returned to the agency. He said he was “just going back home to help.” Jordan (R-OH) often claimed that the FBI was a corrupt Joe Biden tool. He famously led a 2023 subcommittee on the apparent “weaponization” of the agency against conservatives and even suggested moving the agency from Washington, D.C., to Alabama to shield against what he saw as liberal politics.

NBC stated that the other new arrival, an individual with links to Trump’s “first buddy” Elon Musk, has not been previously reported and is still currently unidentified. And while it is unclear who actually paved the way for the pair to bag the new gigs, or even what their exact areas of focus will be, the news still adds to fears of an eroding of the FBI’s non-political, non-partisan heritage.

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NBC cited FBI officials who were both excited by possible, and much needed, reform—but also heard from some who feared a “compromise of the bureau’s decades-old tradition of distancing itself from politics.”

One former agent, Rob D’Amico, told the publication that the new hires are there to oversee reform. This will include sending headquarters staffers into the field. “That’s absolutely needed,” he said. “Things have gotten too headquarters-centric, and when headquarters is in D.C., the natural thing that happens in D.C. is that things get political.”

D’Amico conceded, however, that it is not the usual modus operandi to have people with ties to partisan figures in such areas. “This will have to be done very carefully,” D’Amico said. “How does that chain of command work? You have to be very careful that it doesn’t become like the Russian political officer on a Russian nuclear sub, enforcing party discipline.”

Another shared fears of the agency “infusing a one-sided ideology and purging the people who don’t share that viewpoint.”

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