The standard is to remove all possibility and/or appearance of conflict of interest. "Some guy gave me control of all the money and said I shouldn't take any for myself" is so far below this standard it's comical.
Firstly, someone ultimately has to have control of agency spendng, so that cannot be deemed a conflict of interest by itself.
Secondly, I don't believe Musk has any direct authority to make any changes within these agencies whatsoever. DOGE is only permitted to review agency operations and make recommendations, not to execute them.
The changes that are being attributed to Musk, are perhaps being done at his recommendation, but there is an agency director signing off on all of this.
