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Acting IRS Commissioner Gary Shapley was removed from his position on Friday after being appointed to the post on Tuesday, The New York Times reported.
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent reportedly complained to President Donald Trump that White House adviser Elon Musk went behind Bessent’s back to get Shapley installed. The IRS commissioner reports to the Treasury secretary.
Deputy Treasury Secretary Michael Faulkender has been named as the replacement and is the fifth commissioner the agency has had since Jan. 20. Trump has nominated former Rep. Billy Long as commissioner, but the Senate Finance Committee has yet to hold a hearing on the nomination.
Shapley’s tenure as acting commissioner last just four days, which is less than half the famously short tenure of Anthony Scaramucci, who was White House communications director for 10 days in 2017 before he was fired.
Shapley, a 16-year veteran of the IRS, briefly came to prominence in 2023 as a “whistleblower” touted by Republicans in their investigation into Hunter Biden.
“When I took control of this particular investigation, I immediately saw it was way outside the norm of what I’ve experienced in the past,” Shapley said at the time. “There was multiple steps that were slow-walked at the direction of the Department of Justice.”
Bessent and Musk have clashed behind the scenes, but on Thursday night, Musk amplified an attack on the Treasury secretary. In a social media post, conspiracy theorist Laura Loomer accused Bessent of colluding with a “Trump hater” who leads a nonprofit organization called Operation HOPE.
“Troubling,” Musk responded to Loomer’s post.
Scaramucci was fired after an infamous piece in The New Yorker. He phoned reporter Ryan Lizza and ripped into several White House officials while seemingly believing he was speaking off the record.
