A Texas oil executive from Elon Musk’s government efficiency team has been given sweeping powers to overhaul the federal department that manages vast tracts of resource-rich public lands, but he hasn't divested his energy investments or filed an ethics commitment to break ties with companies that pose a conflict of interest, records show.
Interior Secretary Doug Burgum recently directed Tyler Hassen, who lacks Senate confirmation and has no public administration experience, to reorganize the Interior Department, which oversees some 70,000 employees in 11 agencies including the National Park Service, Bureau of Land Management, Fish and Wildlife Service, Bureau of Reclamation, U.S. Geological Survey and the Bureau of Indian Affairs.
Before joining DOGE, Hassen spent nearly two decades as an executive at Basin Holdings, an enterprise involved in the manufacture, sale and servicing of oil rigs worldwide. A financial disclosure report obtained by AP shows Hassen made millions annually from these companies, owned by John Fitzgibbons — an industry giant who is well-connected in Russia.
These and other potential conflicts of interest are compounding the concerns of Democratic lawmakers, conservation groups and environmental advocates, who say Hassen’s appointment appears designed to evade Senate confirmation and oversight while testing the limits of congressional authority.
“It’s a dereliction of duty to offload decisions about staffing and funding at the Interior Department to someone who hasn’t even been confirmed by the Senate,” said Kate Groetzinger, with the Center for Western Priorities, a nonpartisan conservation group.
Interior officials didn’t respond to requests to interview Hassen.
Department spokesperson Katie Martin said in an email that Hassen is helping achieve the president’s vision for major changes, and Interior will “continue to prioritize retaining first responders, parks services and energy production employees.”
What is on Hassen’s to-do list?
Once inside Interior in January, Hassen reviewed “every single contract, every single grant,” and sent action items to Burgum, he told FOX News in an April interview. Burgum praised Hassen and DOGE on X, saying they “have identified massive amounts of waste, fraud, and abuse already!”
A draft copy of Interior's new strategic plan includes increasing “clean coal, oil, and gas production through faster permitting” while reducing regulations to “generate more revenue from lands and resources for the U.S. Treasury.”
Hassen also has twice filed a notice in the Federal Register extending Trump’s freeze on regulations — which stops agencies from proposing or issuing new rules — and removed the opportunity for public comment as “contrary to the public interest.” The latest extension pushes it to June 4.
It’s unclear how Hassen became involved with Musk. There’s little information about him online. He told FOX News that before DOGE, he was “running five businesses in Houston." He said this work “is me giving back to the country.”
Hassen was an executive at Fitzgibbons-owned Basin Holdings — the privately held parent company for Basin Energy and Basin Industries — since 2008. An old Facebook page for Tyler Hassen includes a 2010 photo of him at the “Samotlor Field, Western Siberia - largest oilfield in Russia.”
Hassen’s brother, Todd, is also a Texas energy executive. He's been CEO of Red Wolfpack Resources since 2024 and was with Tellurian, a natural gas company, and EagleStone Resources before that, according to his LinkedIn page.
Testing the limits inside the Department
Burgum named Hassen his assistant secretary for policy, management and budget in March, but changed his title in April to “principal deputy assistant secretary.” An assistant secretary requires Senate approval and an ethics commitment to resign positions that would create a conflict of interest. A principal deputy does not.
Kathleen Clark, a government ethics expert at Washington University in St. Louis, said Interior officials are committing fraud “by calling someone by a different name so that they don’t have to file a really important document where they explain how they’re going to comply with ethics standards.”
Hassen sought to fire a top department lawyer in April for refusing to give him and other DOGE officials access to a highly sensitive personnel database as he pushed for massive department-wide staff reductions through buyouts, early retirements and layoffs. Hassen wrote that Tony Irish, an associate solicitor, was “subverting, obstructing and delaying the process" and should be removed for misconduct.
Irish is on leave while appealing the firing and is represented by Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility. “In seeking to remove Tony Irish, Tyler Hassen has demonstrated his own unfitness for federal service,” PEER executive director Tim Whitehouse said in a press release. “This type of corporate bullying is not how the people’s business is supposed to be conducted.”
Jacob Malcom, a former Interior Department executive, said Burgum's order directing Hassen to make “appropriate funding decisions” for administrative changes and ensure “the appropriate transfer of funds, programs, records and property" is unconstitutional — Congress appropriates funds, not assistant secretaries.
“Unless Congress has explicitly authorized those funds to be moved, they can’t actually transfer the funds,” Malcom said. “That’s just flat out illegal.”
What does Hassen's financial disclosure show?
Although Hassen didn't file a divestment commitment, he did file a financial disclosure in February — revised five times, the most recent dated April 21 — revealing he made almost $4 million annually from Fitzgibbon's oilfield services companies. Hassen said he sold his equity in these companies and is being paid in installments through June 2026.
Hassen reported that he holds $50,001 to $100,000 worth of stock in Fitzgibbon’s company Block Harvest, a cryptocurrency mining business that uses flared natural gas to run data centers. He reported owning $250,000 to $500,000 worth of stock in Fitzgibbon’s Global Guardian, a security company.
Hassen also declared 254 stock holdings, including cryptocurrency, tobacco, foreign banking and between $1,001 and $15,000 worth of stock each in Archrock, a Houston company that specializes in natural gas compression services; WEC Energy Group, which holds electric and natural gas companies and Quanta Services, which is involved in pipelines and pumping.
He's got a similar stake in Albemarle Corp., which owns the Silver Peak lithium mine in Nevada — the nation's only active lithium source. It's currently seeking authorization from Interior's Bureau of Land Management to expand its operations.
Hassen’s potential conflicts of interest have raised concerns among environmental groups and some U.S. lawmakers.
He’s attempting to remove regulations constraining the fossil fuel industries, said Josh Axelrod, a senior policy advocate with the Natural Resources Defense Council. “As a member of those industries, he’s uniquely qualified to flag the ones they don’t like.”
Sen. Jeff Merkley of Oregon and Rep. Chellie Pingree of Maine, the ranking Democrats on Interior's Senate and House oversight subcommittees, have demanded a stop to Hassen's large-scale reorganization.
Sen. Martin Heinrich of New Mexico told Burgum in a May 7 letter that “delegating sweeping authorities and responsibilities to a non-Senate confirmed person in violation of the Vacancies Reform Act is baffling and extremely troubling.”
___
This story has been updated to correct the name of the Natural Resources Defense Council.
Martha Bellisle, The Associated Press
