Musk's Private Guards Get Federal Powers: What History Tells Us This Means

The Blurring Line Between Private and Public Force in America

In Washington, a curious scene unfolds: private security forces, newly empowered with federal badges, move through the corridors of power. They belong not to the state but to Elon Musk, the World’s Richest Man, now running Trump's Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE).

CNN reports the U.S. Marshals Service has just granted them official powers, marking a subtle but significant shift in how force is wielded in American democracy.

History teaches us to pay attention to such shifts. In the early 1930s, as Germany's democracy began to crumble, one of the first signs was the integration of private partisan forces into official police structures. Within weeks of Hitler's appointment as Chancellor in 1933, Hermann Göring had authorized 50,000 "auxiliary police" drawn from Nazi party organizations. At the time, the move seemed bureaucratic, technical–a matter of improving security coordination. Yet it marked the beginning of something far more sinister: the transformation of law enforcement from a professional institution serving the state into a personalized force serving particular leaders.

While America in 2025 is not Germany in 1933, I make such comparisons because the logic of power remains surprisingly consistent across time: those who seek to concentrate it often begin by blurring the lines between public and private force. The U.S. Marshals Service has deputized security details before, but those were government officials like Anthony Fauci, protected by other government agents.

Whether Musk is or isn’t a government employee remains unclear to many.

he deputization of private security forces loyal to what is essentially a political appointee represents something new–and troubling. Even if he is now a government employee, or was converted to one for this purpose, the distinction appears irrelevant.

The scale of Musk's security operation already raises eyebrows in Washington. CNN’s sources say it rivals the president's own detail, which is an extraordinary show of force for an appointed official. Now these private guards carry federal badges and authorities. The change may seem technical, administrative. But that's precisely how institutional guardrails often begin to fail: not with dramatic ruptures but with small adjustments that, in retrospect, opened the door to larger transformations.

Consider the implications: A prominent Trump ally now controls what amounts to a private security force with federal powers, operating in the heart of the American government. His guards can carry weapons on federal property and exercise law enforcement authorities, while remaining ultimately loyal to their private employer. The potential for abuse should be obvious.

Democracy relies on clear lines between public and private power. When those lines blur, the machinery of state can gradually be turned toward personal rather than public ends. We've seen this pattern before, not just in Nazi Germany but across many failing democracies: Venezuela, Turkey, Hungary. The details differ but my research suggests the progression remains remarkably consistent–the slow transformation of public institutions into personal instruments of power.

Some will dismiss such concerns as alarmist. But, as the historians point out, democracy's decline rarely announces itself with dramatic gestures. It creeps forward through seemingly minor changes that accumulate until, one day, the institutional fabric that once constrained personal power has worn too thin to resist.

Americans would do well to remember that their system of government was designed specifically to prevent the concentration of power, including police power, in private hands. The founders understood that democracy requires not just elections but institutions that maintain clear boundaries between public authority and private force.

As we watch those boundaries blur in Washington, we would be wise to recall how many times this story has played out before, and how rarely it ends well for democracy.