• With Trump's inauguration fast approaching, more details about DOGE have emerged.
• Musk, who Trump tapped to co-lead DOGE, may become a "special government employee."
• SGEs have less stringent ethics rules — to a degree — compared to regular federal employees.

With President-elect Donald Trump set to take office next week, a key detail has emerged regarding the Department of Government Efficiency, the forthcoming commission that Tesla CEO Elon Musk will co-lead alongside businessman Vivek Ramaswamy.

Some DOGE staffers who are expected to work unpaid for six months before returning to their more lucrative jobs would be classified as "special government employees," and Musk could be among them, The New York Times reported.

A special government employee is an individual who can be paid or unpaid and is categorized as a temporary worker. The federal government can employ that individual for no more than 130 days amid a consecutive 365-day span.

The designation is significant because special government employees — who are generally brought in to offer outside expertise to the federal government — are subject to more limited conflict of interest rules compared to regular federal employees.

When Trump tapped Musk, the wealthiest man in the world, to co-lead DOGE, government watchdogs, and some Democratic politicians questioned how he could handle such a role given potential conflicts of interest involving SpaceX, Tesla, and X.

Musk's omnipresence within Trump's political orbit in recent months has only reinforced those concerns. Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts sent a letter to Trump's transition team asking if the tech executive would adhere to conflict-of-interest rules in his forthcoming role.

"Putting Mr. Musk in a position to influence billions of dollars of government contracts and regulatory enforcement without a stringent conflict of interest agreement in place is an invitation for corruption on a scale not seen in our lifetimes," Warren wrote at the time.

"Currently, the American public has no way of knowing whether the advice that he is whispering to you in secret is good for the country — or merely good for his own bottom line," she added.

Musk in 2024 spent over $250 million to help send Trump back to the White House and aid other GOP candidates in their respective races.

Business Insider reached out to Trump's transition team for comment.

• A former Disney employee agreed to plead guilty to altering allergen info on restaurant menus.
• Michael Scheuer admitted to the hack, as well as adding swastikas to the memus.
• He faces up to 10 years in prison for his charges, according to the plea agreement.

A former menu production manager for Disney World has admitted to altering allergen information and adding swastikas to menus as part of a plea agreement.

Federal authorities charged Michael Scheuer in October with causing the transmission of a program, information, code, or command to a protected computer and intentionally causing damage. Disney had fired Scheuer months earlier for misconduct, according to the criminal complaint.

In a plea agreement filed Friday in Florida federal court, first reported by Court Watch, Scheuer pleaded guilty to hacking and one count of aggravated identity theft. He faces a maximum of 10 years and a mandatory minimum of two years in prison for the charges.

The plea says the government agreed to recommend that Scheuer receive a downward adjustment on the length of his sentence for agreeing to take responsibility for the charges.

Scheuer also agreed to pay restitution to his victims, including Disney.

The agreement says that Scheuer changed allergen information on some of Disney's menus to falsely show that items were safe for people with allergies, which "could have had fatal consequences depending on the type and severity of the customer's allergy."

Scheuer also admitted to changing the regions of wines on some menus, some of which he changed to the locations of mass shootings, the plea agreement says.

"Scheuer also added or embedded images to one or more menus, including in one instance a swastika," the document says.

On some Disney menus that contained a QR code to show a digital version of the menu, Scheuer changed the code to direct to a website promoting the boycott of Israel, the document says. Manufacturers printed some menus with the falsified QR codes, but caught the change before they were distributed.

By the end of his hacking campaign, Scheuer had impacted "nearly every menu in the system," according to court documents.

"The entire repository of menus had to be reverted to older versions and brought up to date manually," the agreement says.

Scheuer's attorney, David Haas, did not immediately return a request for comment from Business Insider. Haas told CNBC that Scheuer is "prepared to accept responsibility for his conduct."

"Unfortunately, he has mental health issues that were exacerbated when Disney fired him upon his return from paternity leave," he told the outlet.

Disney did not immediately return a request for comment about Scheuer's plea agreement.

Disney became embroiled in a separate controversy involving food allergens in 2024 when a widowed husband filed a wrongful-death lawsuit against the entertainment giant. The lawsuit said the man's wife experienced a "severe acute allergic reaction" and died after eating at a restaurant operated at Disney Springs.

Lawyers for Disney asked an Orange County court to dismiss the lawsuit because the husband previously purchased theme park tickets and signed up for a free Disney+ trial, but criticism from the public caused them to reverse course.

• Jamie Dimon urges incoming president Donald Trump to prioritize immigration policy in his second term.
• Trump has said he plans to conduct mass deportation in his second term.
• Dimon also advocates for education reform and doubling the earned income tax credit.

With Donald Trump set to take office in about a week, top Wall Street leaders are coming forward with advice.

JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon honed in on immigration policy when asked what advice he'd give Trump for his second presidential term in a CBS News interview posted Sunday. "Get immigration, border security right," he said. "Then proper immigration after that."

Since his debut on the political stage, Trump has been outspoken about immigration policy. On the campaign trail last year Trump said he would carry out the "largest domestic deportation in American history." He also plans to end birthright citizenship, build new ICE detention centers, and reinstate his first-term policies. During his first term in office, he curtailed legal immigration rates, signed an executive order that suspended several types of work visas, including H-1B visas, which are crucial for the tech industry, and completed hundreds of miles of construction on a border wall between the US and Mexico.

Dimon says he agrees with Trump's big-picture view on immigration. "You could talk about specifics and disagree, but the concern around border security, obviously, every country in the world is concerned about that," he said.

Beyond immigration, Dimon says he wants to see changes to our education system. "I would love to see high schools, community colleges, and colleges measured on what is the outcome of the kid being educated. Like do they get a job that's well paying, not do they do math well," he said. "I believe that would put a lot more pressure on schools to teach skills that can give you really good paying jobs." That includes jobs in fields like data analytics, manufacturing, nursing, compliance, and financial skills, he said.

He's also in favor of eliminating tax breaks, even for the wealthy. He proposed doubling the earned income tax credit: a refundable tax credit for low to moderate-income workers, particularly those with children. "That alone would put a lot more money into the pockets of people who are working who are lower income, it would go into their communities, into their families," he said.

The New York Jets interviewed Rex Ryan for their head coaching position, but have reportedly already passed on the former head coach.

• Dana White grew the UFC into a multibillion-dollar company after acquiring it in 2001.
• In that time, White also became a close ally of President-elect Donald Trump.
• Now, he is joining Meta's board of directors.

Ultimate Fighting Championship CEO Dana White has been on quite the journey over the last two decades.

From managing MMA fighters to appearing at the Republican National Convention three times to support President-elect Donald Trump, White has become a global figure in both sports and politics.

And now he's entered the sphere of Big Tech, joining the board of directors at Mark Zuckerberg's Meta.

Here's how White went from a small-time trainer to the board of one of the world's most influential tech companies in just a few years.

Shedding is all about personal growth and reflecting on what matters most—and your 30s are the perfect time to do it.

This trade idea sees the Suns bolster their frontcourt as they look to turn their season around.

Las Vegas Raiders edge rusher Maxx Crosby is a huge fan of the UFC, and he revealed that the UFC's bosses think he would be a huge hit in the Octagon.

All Elite Wrestling superstar and former AEW TNT Champion Darby Allin is reportedly taking a months-long break from the company to train to climb Mt. Everest.

Los Angeles County continues to face "critical fire conditions" after firefighters for days have battled deadly wildfires that have razed entire neighborhoods.

The big picture: The death toll rose to at least 16, per the LA County medical examiner's Saturday evening update. Another 16 have been reported as missing, Los Angeles County Sheriff Robert Luna said during a Sunday briefing.

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• Over 100,000 residents remain under evacuation orders, and over 12,000 structures have been destroyed.

The latest: The Kenneth, Sunset and Lidia fires have been 100% contained, Gov. Gavin Newsom said in a Sunday update.

• The Hurst Fire is at 89% containment, per Cal Fire.
• The Palisades and Eaton fires, the biggest of the blazes, are 11% and 27% contained, respectively.
• Eleven of the reported deaths have been attributed to the Eaton Fire, while the remaining five have been categorized with the Palisades Fire.

State of play: Red flag warnings for much of Los Angeles and Ventura counties are set to remain in place until Wednesday as gusty winds and low relative humidity persist, the National Weather Service's LA office said Sunday morning.

• NWS expects the offshore Santa Ana winds that have been making fighting the fires extremely difficult to pick back up after a brief reprieve, which could complicate firefighters' efforts to contain the flames.
• Dry vegetation coupled with "prolonged extreme fire conditions" will support "rapid spread and erratic behavior" of new or existing fires, per NWS. The Eaton Fire may be less affected by strong winds than the other blazes.

By the numbers: Over 42,600 customers in Los Angeles County were without power Sunday at 4 pm ET, per PowerOutage.us.

Context: Parts of Southern California are experiencing their driest start on record to the winter "rainy season," Axios' Lauren Floyd and Andrew Freedman report.

• An overlap of rare climate factors is in part to blame for the rapidly spreading blazes, as the bone-dry region grapples with the worst high wind event in Southern California since 2011.
• While the fires are not the largest wildfires the state has faced, they are among the most destructive on record.

Go deeper: Why fire hydrants ran dry as wildfires ravaged Los Angeles

Poor sanitation at Virginia Boar's Head plant caused a deadly listeria outbreak that killed 10 and sickened 61 last summer.

If Hegseth capitulated to blackmailers once, what assurance do we have that he wouldn't do so again, this time with grave consequences for national security?

The American people have spoken. It is now the Senate's responsibility to confirm the president's national security team, including Gabbard as DNI.

Dana White has revealed the plans to move UFC 311 if the Los Angeles wildfires remain dangerous.

Russian forces allegedly targeted a nursing home facility in the Ukrainian-controlled territory of the Kursk region.

Buffalo Bills running back Ray Davis was carted off the field after taking a massive shot from a Denver Broncos defender.

Khalil Mack is debating his future in the NFL.

• Meta announced big changes to kick off the new year, including ending third-party fact-checking and DEI programs.
• The moves illustrate the latest evolution in Mark Zuckerberg's leadership.
• You might call it Zuckerberg 3.0 — and it comes as Donald Trump takes power.

Mark Zuckerberg has shown himself to be the ultimate Silicon Valley shapeshifter, and in the first couple weeks of 2025, we got our best look yet at the latest version of the Meta CEO.

To kick off the new year, Zuckerberg made some big changes at his company, including ditching third-party fact-checking and slashing DEI initiatives.

He appears to be remaking Meta, which did not respond to a request for comment from Business Insider, at least partly in the image of Donald Trump and Elon Musk. And he doesn't seem too concerned about the backlash he's facing in some quarters, including from the same people who villainized him during the Cambridge Analytica scandal and the 2016 election, or even his own Meta employees — many of whom have reacted negatively to his latest decision to roll back DEI efforts.

His recent moves hint that he's entering a new era, one in which his leadership increasingly reflects Trump's tastes.

Zuckerberg's transformation

For years, Zuckerberg was known as an almost robotic presence in Silicon Valley. Some people criticized him for copying ideas rather than innovating, and others held onto his image as a wunderkind wearing hoodies or too much sunscreen.

By the end of 2023, though, the Meta CEO had undergone a substantial makeover and was garnering praise in business and cultural circles.

Zuck got shredded and was winning jiu-jitsu competitions. He went on popular podcasts, like Joe Rogan's, to discuss his workouts and make fun of himself.

As a business leader, he acted as the adult in the room and led Meta's "year of efficiency," which turned the company's stock around.

In 2024, he continued his transformation: He ditched his jeans and hoodie uniform for designer T-shirts and gold chains. And his adoration for his wife Priscilla Chan — as evidenced through gifts like a statue of her, a custom Porsche minivan, and his very own version of "Get Low" — won him fans.

His newfound swagger grew into a new kind of boldness.

In the fall of last year, he said his biggest regret in his two decades of running Meta was taking responsibility and apologizing for problems that he believed weren't Meta's fault.

Zuck's next era comes as Trump takes power

Cut to 2025. Zuckerberg now appears to embrace some of the "anti-woke" ideas favored by some political billionaires like Musk, Peter Thiel, and, of course, Trump.

While Zuckerberg didn't endorse Trump — or Harris — in the 2024 election, he and other tech CEOs were quick to congratulate Trump on his victory. Zuck met with Trump at Mar-a-Lago weeks after the election and, through Meta, donated $1 million to his inaugural committee.

Now, he's taking what he calls "masculine energy" and putting it into action at Meta.

"Masculine energy, I think, is good, and obviously society has plenty of that, but I think that corporate culture was really trying to get away from it," he said in an interview on the Joe Rogan Experience podcast that aired on Friday. "It's like you want feminine energy, you want masculine energy."

"But I do think the corporate culture sort of had swung toward being this somewhat more neutered thing," he added.

He started the new year by putting Dana White, the UFC CEO and Trump's longtime ally, on Meta's board and replacing the company's head of policy, liberal Nick Clegg, with former GOP lobbyist Joel Kaplan.

Then, he ended third-party fact-checking on Meta platforms, which some conservatives have criticized, in favor of a more hands-off approach. Like X, Meta will now use "community notes" to allow users to police each other.

"The recent elections feel like a cultural tipping point towards, once again, prioritizing speech," Zuckerberg said while announcing the changes, implying that the choice was, at least in part, a response to the political landscape.

Meta's CMO, Alex Schultz, also told BI that Trump's election influenced the policy change.

The decision has come under scrutiny, with some saying the lack of content moderation opens the door to hate speech.

Under the policy, Meta users can say that members of the LGBTQ+ community are mentally ill for being gay or transgender, for example.

Dozens of fact-checking organizations have signed a letter calling it "a step backward for those who want to see an internet that prioritizes accurate and trustworthy information."

Still, others, including Musk and Trump, lauded the change.

"Honestly, I think they have come a long way, Meta, Facebook," the president-elect said on Tuesday.

In the recent Rogan interview, Zuckerberg said while some may see the timing of the content changes as "purely a political thing," it's something he has been thinking about for a while.

"I feel like I just have a much greater command now of what I think the policy should be and like, this is how it's going to be going forward," Zuckerberg said.

Zuckerberg's recent decision to cut Meta's DEI initiatives could also placate conservatives, who have criticized such policies.

While Trump has not commented on the DEI decision, he has criticized DEI policies in the past.

On Friday, Meta's vice president of human resources, Janelle Gale, said in an internal memo that the company would no longer have a team focused on DEI or consider diversity in hiring or supplier decisions.

"The legal and policy landscape surrounding diversity, equity and inclusion efforts in the United States is changing," she said in a memo.

The decision sparked a backlash among some. Internally, nearly 400 employees reacted with a teary-eyed emoji to the announcement; one called it "disappointing," and another said it was a "step backward," BI reported on Friday.

"Wow, we really capitulated on a lot of our supposed values this week," another employee commented, seemingly referring to both the DEI and fact-checking moves.

Others, though, did seem to support the move: 139 employees "liked" the post, and 57 responded with a heart emoji.

The global firearms company recalls the popular ROMEO5 red dot sight over button battery safety issues.

With eight days until Jan. 20, President-elect Trump and his team are preparing to unleash an onslaught of executive orders regarding the border.

Vice President-elect JD Vance said Sunday those day-one actions should send a message to "illegal immigrants all over the world: You are not welcome in this country illegally."

Here's what you may have missed when newsmakers hit the airwaves this Sunday, January 12.

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1. Vance: "America is closed to illegal immigration"

Vance said in an interview aired Sunday that the Trump administration will release "dozens of executive orders" on day one signaling that "America is closed to illegal immigration."

The big picture: He dismissed questions about the humanitarian concerns surrounding Trump's mass deportation promises, arguing that family separation is a "dishonest term."

• "If you say, for example, in the United States we have a guy who's convicted of a violent crime and has to go to prison, we want that guy to go to prison," he said. "But yes, it does mean that that guy is going to be separated from his family."
• Vance argued Democrats "hide behind" raising alarms about a lack of compassion for families at the border.
• "It is not compassion to allow the drug cartels to traffic small children," he argued. "It is not compassionate to allow the worst people in the world to send minor children, some of them victims of sex trafficking, into our country. That is the real humanitarian crisis at the border."

Fox News' Shannon Bream pushed back, noting that violent criminals are a small slice of the millions of undocumented immigrants living in the U.S.

• Vance replied that law enforcement action is necessary to end the border crisis, saying the country can't buy into "the lie ... from the extreme left" that "law enforcement at the American southern border is somehow not compassionate to families who want to cross illegally."

Flashback: A federal judge in 2023 banned the separation of families at the U.S. southern border until 2031 to deter migrants from crossing.

• That ruling could prevent the return of the first Trump administration's controversial policy that saw thousands of children separated from their parents.
• Tom Homan, Trump's incoming "border czar," played a key role in crafting the policy.

Trump has suggested he'll use the military for immigration raids and has said he'd be open to detaining immigrants in camps.

• He's also floated deporting families with mixed immigration status together and threatened to end birthright citizenship for babies of non-citizens.

2. Newsom taking Trump's threats to withhold California aid seriously

Trump has threatened to withhold federal aid from California on several occasions — both during and after his first White House stay.

• And amid the catastrophic fires tearing through Los Angeles County, Trump has repeatedly heaped blame on California Gov. Gavin Newsom.
• It's not immediately clear how Trump would handle the fires if they're still blazing when he takes over the White House.

Driving the news: "That's his style," Newsom said on NBC's "Meet the Press," highlighting a slate of times Trump delayed or threatened to block aid to the Golden State and others.

• He said he takes the threats "seriously to the extent that in the past it's taken a little bit more time" to deliver federal aid during political tension with Trump.

Zoom out: Vance, asked in a "Fox News Sunday" interview aired Sunday if Trump would withhold aid to Californians, said Trump "is the president for all Americans."

• But he blamed the fires' rampant spread in part on a "serious lack of competent" California officials.

Reality check: The fires ignited amid a rare overlap of climate factors: the worst high wind event in Southern California in over a decade, and extremely dry conditions.

What they're saying: Sen. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) said Sunday that he's ready to work with Trump to make sure there is "no gap, no air between us" when rebuilding and helping victims heal after the deadly fires.

• "I've been in Congress a long time, approving aid after disasters. I never once even considered, is this hurricane hitting a red state or a blue state?" Schiff said.
• He added: "We need the incoming president to view it that way."

3. Lankford flips on Tulsi

Sen. James Lankford (R-Okla.) made former Rep. Tulsi Gabbard's path to confirmation a bit easier Sunday when he said he would vote yes for her as director of national intelligence.

Why it matters: With the GOP's Senate majority so small, all of Trump's Cabinet appointees can only risk losing a few Republican votes, and several in the party have seemed reluctant to vote for Gabbard.

Between the lines: Lankford previously said he wanted Gabbard to explain where she stands on Section 702, which allows the U.S. to engage in targeted surveillance of foreign nationals living outside the United States, which Gabbard opposed while in Congress.

• Last week, Gabbard said she supports Section 702 and that she would "uphold Americans' Fourth Amendment right" if confirmed as the nation's top spy.

What they're saying: "[Section 702] was a very important piece for me," Lankford said on NBC News' "Meet the Press."

• He added that Section 702 is a key part of the DNI job, "to make sure we're actually watching for people to come attack us and stopping them before they do."

State of play: 13 proposed members of Trump's Cabinet will sit for confirmation hearings this week, including Pete Hegseth (Sec. of Defense) on Jan. 14 and South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem (Sec. of Homeland Security) on Jan. 15.

• A date for Gabbard's confirmation hearing has not been set.

More from Axios' Sunday coverage:

• JD Vance says there's "a deal to be made in Greenland"
• LA fires could be the U.S.' worst natural disaster, Newsom says
• Trump's Cabinet disruptors soften key views as hearings loom