An Elon Musk’s oil executive government efficiency equipment Radical powers have been given to review the Federal Department that manages vast public land extensions rich in resources, but has not discouraged its energy investments or has presented an ethics commitment to break ties with companies that represent a conflict of interest, as shown in the records.
Interior Secretary Doug Burgum Recently he directed Tyler Hassen, who lacks confirmation of the Senate and has no experience in public administration, to reorganize the Interior Department, which supervises about 70,000 employees in 11 agencies, including the National Parks Service, the Office of Land Management, Fishing Service and Wildlife, Claim Office, US Geological Survey and the Office of Indigenous Affairs.
Before joining Doge, Hassen spent almost two decades as an executive at Basin Holdings, a company involved in the manufacture, sale and service of oil platforms worldwide. A financial dissemination report obtained by AP shows that Hassen made millions of these companies, owned by John Fitzgibbons, a giant of the industry that is well connected in Russia.
These and other possible conflicts of interest are aggravating the concerns of democratic legislators, conservation groups and environmental defenders, who say that Hassen’s appointment appears designed to evade confirmation and supervision of the Senate while proveing the limits of the Congress’s authority.
“It is an abandonment of duty to download decisions about staff and financing in the interior department to someone who has not even been confirmed by the Senate,” said Kate Groetzinger, from the Western Priorities Center, a non -partisan conservation group.
Interior officials did not respond to requests to interview Hassen.
Department spokeswoman Katie Martin said in an email that Hassen is helping to achieve the president’s vision for important changes, and the interior “will continue to prioritize the retention of lifeguards, parks services and energy production employees.”
Once inside the interior in January, Hasen reviewed “each contract, each subsidy” and sent action items to Burgum, told Fox News in an April interview. Burgum praised Hassen and Doge in X, saying that “they have already identified large amounts of waste, fraud and abuse!”
A draft copy of the new Interior Strategic Plan includes the increase in the “production of clean coal, oil and gas through faster permits” while reducing regulations to “generate more revenues of land and resources for the treasure of the United States.”
Hassen has also presented twice A notice in the Federal Registry Extending Trump’s freezing about regulations, which prevents agencies from proposing or issuing new rules, and eliminating public comments such as “contrary to the public interest.” The last extension pushes it to June 4.
It is not clear how Hassen became involved with Musk. There is little information about him online. He told Fox News that before Doge, he was “directing five businesses in Houston.” He said that this work “is me returning to the country.”
Hassen was an executive of Basin Holdings owned by Fitzgibbons, the private parent company for Basin Energy and Basin Industries, since 2008. An old Facebook page for Tyler Hassen includes a 2010 photo of him in the “Samotlor Field, Western Siberia, larger in Russia.”
Hassen’s brother, Todd, is also a Texas Energy Executive. It has been CEO of Red Wolfpack Resources since 2024 and it was with Tellurian, a natural gas company, and Eaglestone Resources before that, according to its LinkedIn page.
Burguito Call to Hassen, his assistant secretary of Policy, Management and Budget in March, but changed his title in April to “Deputy Secretary of the main assistant.” A undersecretary requires the approval of the Senate and an ethics commitment to give up positions that would create a conflict of interest. A main deputy no.
Kathleen Clark, an ethics expert at the University of Washington in St. Louis, said interior officials are committing fraud “calling someone by a different name so that they do not have to present a really important document where they explain how they will comply with ethics standards.”
Hassen sought to fire a lawyer from the department’s main ones in April for refusing to give him other Dense officials to a highly sensitive personnel database while pressing for massive personnel reductions throughout the department through purchases, early retirements and layoffs. Hassen wrote that Tony Irish, an associated lawyer, was “subverting, obstructing and delaying the process” and should be eliminated by misconduct.
Irish is licensed while the shooting appeals and is represented by Public employees for environmental responsibility. “When trying to eliminate Tony Irish, Tyler Hassen has demonstrated his own inability to federal service,” said Pare Executive Director Tim Whitehouse, in a press release. “This type of corporate intimidation is not how people’s business will be supposed to be done.”
Jacob Malcom, a former executive of the Department of Interior, said that the Burgum order that directed Hassen to make “appropriate financing decisions” for administrative changes and guarantee that “the appropriate transfer of funds, programs, records and properties” is unconstitutional: Congress appropriates funds, not assistant secretaries.
“Unless the Congress has explicitly authorized these funds to be transferred, they can’t really transfer funds,” said Malcom. “That is simply illegal.”
Although Hassen did not present a compromise of divestment, he presented a financial dissemination in February, reviewed five times, the most recent of April 21, revealing that he won almost $ 4 million annually of the Companies of Services of Petroleum Fields of Fitzgibbon. Hassen said he sold his capital in these companies and is paid in fees until June 2026.
Hassen reported that he owns $ 50,001 to $ 100,000 in shares in the FitzGibbon Company Block Company, a cryptocurrency mining business that uses natural gas clarified to execute data centers. He informed that he had shares from $ 250,000 to $ 500,000 in the Global Guardian in Fitzgibbon, a security company.
Hassen also declared 254 shares, including cryptocurrencies, tobacco, foreign banking and between $ 1,001 and $ 15,000 in stock each in Archrock, a Houston company that specializes in natural gas compression services; Wec Energy Group, which has electrical and natural gas companies and quanta services, which participates in pipes and pumping.
It has a similar participation in Albembarle Corp., which has the silver peak lithium mine in Nevada, the only active lithium source of the nation. He is currently seeking authorization from the Interior Land Administration Office to expand its operations.
Hassen’s possible conflicts have expressed concerns among environmental groups and some US legislators.
Try to eliminate regulations that limit fossil fuel industries, said Josh Axelrod, a main policy defender of the National Resources Defense Council. “As a member of those industries, it is exclusively qualified to mark those they don’t like.”
Senator Jeff Merkley of Oregon and representative Chellie Pingree de Maine, the classification Democrats in the Senate Supervision Subcommittees of the Interior and the House of Representatives, have demanded a stop to the large -scale reorganization of Hassen.
Senator Martin Heinrich of New Mexico told Burgum in a letter on May 7 that “delegating radical authorities and responsibilities to a confirmed person not senated in violation of the Vacanciating Reform Law is disconcerting and extremely worrying.”
