Has Elon Musk been sworn to the Constitution? The question asserts itself as the whirlwind he’s unleashed generates in many a sense of unease. Where does he fit into the Constitution’s mandate that our “Senators and Representatives” and “the Members of the several State Legislatures, and all executive and judicial Officers, both of the United States and of the several States, shall be bound by Oath or Affirmation, to support this Constitution”?

The breadth of Mr. Musk’s portfolio stirs echoes of FDR’s choice at the outset of World War II of a Sears executive, Donald Nelson, to head the nation’s War Production Board. As chronicled by historian Alan Brinkley in “The End of Reform,” there was then a similar sense of disruption and unease in the powers handed to Nelson. As the Times reported, “every Federal department, establishment and agency must take orders from him.” 

Nelson’s appointment reflected FDR’s need for a “single, strong leader capable of taming the contending industries and vast bureaucracies,” Mr. Brinkley wrote, to speed war manufacturing. Life called Nelson’s “the biggest single job in the world today.” His “powers over procurement and production are absolute,” the Times added. Nelson had “authority greater than any U.S. citizen except the President himself,” Time gawked. 

After getting the report of Nelson’s appointment over the teletype, Mr. Brinkley relates, the former president of General Motors, William Knudsen, who was toiling as co-chairman of FDR’s Office of Production Management, “went home and wept.” The news meant that “his agency, and his job, had been abolished,” Brinkley wrote. Such was the breakneck pace of mobilization under FDR during the hectic days following Pearl Harbor.

Mr. Trump, it seems, is undertaking a campaign of federal reinvention akin to FDR’s, but in reverse, as he seeks to scale back the Beltway bureaucracy. In that effort, Mr. Musk is shaping up as a kind of right-hand man. Yet what, exactly, is the tech mogul’s position in the federal government? Mr. Trump’s press secretary, Karoline Leavitt, yesterday called him a “special government employee,” an account confirmed by Voice of America.

The Department of Justice explains that designation as applying to “anyone who works, or is expected to work, for the government for 130 days or less in a 365-day period.” That hardly seems to apply to Mr. Musk, who is reportedly pulling all-nighters from his office on the White House campus. CNN reports that he has top secret security clearance. He has access to the Treasury Department’s payment system, but, Ms. Leavitt, says only on a “read-only” basis. 

Mr. Musk’s primary perch is the Department of Government Efficiency, which is not a federal executive agency but a rebranding of the United States Digital Service. Mr. Musk sees himself, in any event, as a man apart from the federal Leviathan. Mr. Trump vowed over the weekend that “Elon can’t do and won’t do anything without our approval. And we’ll give him the approval where appropriate, where not appropriate, we won’t.”

Mr. Musk is not pulling a salary. Yet special government employees would, typically, take the standard oath of office required by federal law of any “individual, except the President, elected or appointed to an office of honor or profit in the civil service or uniformed services,” under Title 5, section 3331 of the United States Code. That oath pledges officials to “support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic.”

So, has Mr. Musk sworn the oath? “Elon Musk is selflessly serving President Trump’s Administration as a special government employee, and he has abided by all applicable federal laws,” Ms. Leavitt tells the Sun in response to a query on this head. That ambiguity could face scrutiny if Mr. Musks’ role hits judicial turbulence — should, say, the Supreme Court be called on to clarify the role of Donald Nelson’s descendent in disruption.