Elon Musk posted an offer on X to personally cover the salaries of Transportation Security Administration workers who have gone without pay for more than five weeks during the partial Department of Homeland Security shutdown — and President Donald Trump publicly endorsed the idea, telling reporters he would love to see it happen.

"Yeah, I'd love it. I think it's great. Let him do that," Trump said when asked about Musk's proposal. The comment marked a notable moment in the ongoing government funding standoff, with the nation's wealthiest private citizen offering to step in where Congress has not. Legal experts, however, were quick to note that the proposal faces steep legal hurdles under existing federal workforce law.

Musk's offer: Personally cover TSA worker salaries during partial DHS shutdown
Trump's response: "Yeah, I'd love it. I think it's great. Let him do that."
Duration unpaid: TSA officers working without pay for 5+ weeks
Legal barrier: Federal law prohibits private individuals from compensating government employees for official duties
Key law: Anti-Deficiency Act — bars agencies from accepting voluntary services or private supplementation of federal wages

What Musk Proposed

Musk's X post did not specify an exact dollar figure, but TSA employs roughly 60,000 officers nationwide. Average TSA officer pay runs approximately $45,000–$55,000 annually, putting a full payroll coverage figure in the range of $2.7 billion to $3.3 billion per year, or roughly $225 million to $275 million per month. Even for Musk — whose net worth is estimated to exceed $300 billion — a sustained multi-month commitment would represent a significant personal expenditure.

The post was widely shared and drew both praise from conservatives who viewed it as a demonstration of private-sector goodwill and criticism from labor advocates and Democrats who argued it underscored the dysfunction of allowing essential government workers to go unpaid in the first place.

Musk has been deeply embedded in federal government operations through his leadership of the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), which has been restructuring federal agencies and workforce since January 2025. His offer to personally compensate TSA workers — whose agency DOGE has not yet targeted for major cuts — adds a new dimension to his role in the executive branch's day-to-day management of government personnel.

Trump's Endorsement

Asked about Musk's offer during remarks to reporters, Trump did not hesitate. "Yeah, I'd love it. I think it's great. Let him do that," the president said, framing the potential arrangement as a positive outcome without raising legal concerns or noting that his own administration's budget impasse is the proximate cause of the TSA workers going without pay.

The endorsement reflects a pattern in the Trump-Musk dynamic: Musk floats an unconventional solution, and Trump publicly validates it, regardless of whether it is legally or logistically viable. Critics of the administration noted that the shutdown could be resolved through a continuing resolution or emergency supplemental appropriation — but neither has been put to a floor vote.

"Yeah, I'd love it. I think it's great. Let him do that."

— President Donald Trump, when asked about Elon Musk's offer to personally cover TSA worker salaries during the DHS partial shutdown

The Legal Hurdle: Anti-Deficiency Act

Legal experts consulted by multiple outlets identified a fundamental barrier to Musk's proposal: the Anti-Deficiency Act (31 U.S.C. §§ 1341–1342), a longstanding federal statute that prohibits federal agencies from accepting voluntary services or from allowing employees to receive compensation from private sources for the performance of their official government duties.

The law was designed specifically to prevent private interests — corporations, wealthy donors, foreign governments — from gaining influence over federal employees through private compensation. Allowing a single private individual to cover the payroll of a 60,000-person federal security agency would represent exactly the kind of arrangement the Act was drafted to bar.

"There's no clear legal mechanism for a private citizen to step in and pay federal workers for services they're performing on behalf of the government," one federal employment attorney noted. "The Anti-Deficiency Act exists to prevent this kind of arrangement. The workers also can't simply accept outside payment for work they're doing for the U.S. government — the liability runs in both directions."

Separate prohibitions in federal ethics regulations and the Emoluments-adjacent principles baked into federal employment law would additionally complicate any private-to-federal compensation structure, legal observers said.

DHS Shutdown: Five Weeks Without Pay at U.S. Airports

The partial DHS shutdown has left TSA officers — classified as essential personnel who are required to report to work regardless of a funding lapse — working without guaranteed pay at airports across the United States for more than five weeks.

TSA officers staff security checkpoints at hundreds of commercial airports, screening passengers and baggage as a core function of domestic aviation safety. Despite their essential designation, TSA officers are not shielded from payroll delays during a funding lapse in the same way military personnel are by specific statute.

The extended period without pay has raised concerns about officer attrition, morale, and whether reduced staffing could lead to longer wait times or degraded security operations at major hub airports. Some TSA unions have warned of growing financial hardship among frontline workers, many of whom live in high cost-of-living metro areas near major airports and carry mortgages and car payments tied to their government salaries.

DOGE's Shadow Over Federal Workforce

Musk's offer arrives as his Department of Government Efficiency initiative has spent months reducing the federal civilian workforce through voluntary buyouts, agency restructurings, return-to-office mandates, and targeted reductions in force across dozens of federal agencies. DOGE's mandate has not publicly focused on TSA, but the broader context of federal workforce instability shapes how Musk's offer is being received.

For some federal workers and union officials, the offer is being read as tone-deaf — the same administration overseeing the widest restructuring of the federal workforce in modern history is now offering a private billionaire's voluntary payment as a substitute for simply funding the agency through Congress. The DHS workers' unions have called for a funding resolution, not a private-sector workaround.

"We appreciate the gesture, but the solution is simple — pass a bill and pay our workers," one TSA union statement read, according to sources familiar with internal communications. "We don't need a charity bridge loan. We need Congress to do its job."

What Happens Next

Legal analysts said there is no straightforward path to implementing Musk's offer as described. The most likely outcome, short of a legislative fix, would be a Department of Justice opinion or Treasury guidance clarifying whether any trust or intermediary structure could legally pass private funds to federal workers — a process that would likely take weeks and which most experts believe would ultimately conclude in the negative.

Congress remains the only actor with the direct authority to end the shutdown and restore TSA payroll. Negotiations over a continuing resolution or omnibus spending bill are ongoing, but no vote has been scheduled. Both chambers are in recess through the remainder of March.

In the meantime, TSA officers continue to show up to work, screening passengers at airport checkpoints, and doing so without a paycheck — awaiting a resolution that, as of this report, could come from Congress, but almost certainly cannot come from Elon Musk's personal bank account.