Donald Trump says he would protect Elon Musk from Democratic investigations and is open to issuing preemptive pardons to his own staff and allies if Democrats win control of Congress in Tuesday’s midterm elections.
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Trump made the comments in an interview with New York Post columnist Miranda Devine published Monday, one day before voters head to the polls. Asked about the possibility of a Congress controlled by Democrats going after Musk, Trump brushed it off at first. “It’s talk,” he said. “But if it is talk, we’ll have to protect them.”
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When the conversation turned to his own staff and others in his circle, Trump went further. Asked whether he would pardon them ahead of any Democratic investigations, he said, “I would if I needed to. Sure.” Then he added, “I would not even think about it. I’d do it.”
A pardon is a president’s power to wipe away punishment for a federal crime. A preemptive pardon is issued before anyone has been charged with anything, covering conduct that may never even be investigated by prosecutors. It cannot stop Congress from holding hearings or issuing subpoenas, which are legal orders that force people to testify or hand over documents. What it can do is shield the people who receive it from federal criminal charges tied to whatever those investigations uncover.
Trump has been here before, from the other side. In January 2025, on his way out of office, Joe Biden issued preemptive pardons to members of his family, Dr. Anthony Fauci, retired Gen. Mark Milley and members of the House committee that investigated January 6. Trump attacked those pardons at the time and later claimed they were invalid. Now he is describing the same move as something he would do without a second thought.
The timing is not random. Republicans currently control both the House and the Senate, but polls have consistently shown Democrats in a strong position to flip the House on Tuesday. If they do, they take over the committees that can launch investigations, call witnesses and demand records from the administration.
Democrats have not been shy about what they plan to do with that power. Rep. Robert Garcia of California, the top Democrat on the House Oversight Committee, told Rolling Stone last month that “the center of all this is the Trump crime family.” He named Trump family corruption, the Department of Homeland Security and ICE, corporate corruption and the Epstein files as his committee’s first targets. Rep. Jamie Raskin of Maryland, the top Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee, told Fox News Digital his panel was already looking into what he called “the Trump family’s astonishing self-dealing and conflicts of interest.”
Musk is on that list too. Some Democrats have said they want to reopen investigations into the cuts Musk pushed through the Department of Government Efficiency, known as DOGE, which gutted federal agencies and pushed hundreds of thousands of workers out of their jobs. His companies, including SpaceX and Tesla, also depend heavily on federal contracts that a Democratic majority could scrutinize. Musk responded to the threat of investigations on X with a warning of his own: “Live by the sword, die by the sword.”
Trump has been defending Musk publicly for days. On Friday, he told FOX Business that Americans have an “obligation to protect our geniuses,” calling Musk a “brilliant guy” when asked whether Democrats could come after him.
It is a notable turnaround for two men who had a very public falling out in 2025, when Trump warned Musk of “serious consequences” if he funded Democrats. With both of them now facing the possibility of Democratic oversight, they are back on the same side.
Trump did not say which staff members or allies he would consider pardoning, and he did not explicitly use the word pardon when talking about Musk. What he made clear is that if Democrats take the House on Tuesday and start investigating, his pardon power is on the table.
