Musk, Attila the Hun, and DOGE

I like Elon Musk. He’s one of the greatest innovators of our time. He revolutionized the automobile industry with Tesla, outpaced NASA with SpaceX, created a global wireless network with Starlink, and is on the cusp of a brain-computer interface with Neuralink. Think Thomas Edison.

Musk – supposedly the world’s richest man – is a creative and technical genius, but also monumentally erratic, utopian, awkward, on the spectrum (Asperger’s), and often wrong. I’ve followed him for years, read Walter Isaacson’s fascinating biography, and even keep track of his growing brood (14 kids, at last count). He wants to live on Mars.

There’s a common perception that billionaire business leaders are geniuses who can do anything. They’re not. Musk’s foray into politics is a prime example.

Of course, most politicians aren’t much better. Their vision rarely extends beyond the next election, and they’ll do whatever it takes to stay in power. Long-term consequences? Not their concern. “Kick the can down the road” might as well be a genetic trait.

Then there’s Donald Trump. He was elected largely due to a binary choice: Democratic candidates – first a senile Joe Biden, then a competency-challenged Kamala Harris – or Trump, the reincarnated Attila the Hun. He was the outsider who said whatever he felt like, promised a return to pre-woke America, and came across as real, not packaged. He vowed to drain the swamp – this time, he meant it.

Trump began swinging his axe on January 20 with Executive Order 14158, creating the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) and appointed Elon Musk to lead it. Its mission: eliminate waste and streamline government. “He knows what he’s doing,” Trump said. Musk promised to cut $2 trillion in waste.

But Musk misread the terrain. His $2 trillion goal showed little understanding of the federal budget. Once Trump exempted defense, Social Security, Medicare, and interest on the debt, there was much less to cut.

There are smart ways to reduce spending, but Musk ignored seasoned budget experts and instead brought in his tech bros and tasked them to do whatever they thought was necessary to reduce bureaucracy and cut waste. It didn’t work.

It was doomed from the start – not just because $2 trillion was unrealistic, but because neither he nor his staff had a full understanding of how government operates, the budget process, how government is funded, or the laws governing the many bureaucracies. As a result they ran into brick walls. Courts reminded them there were laws restricting firings of civil servants, that certain programs couldn’t be closed or suspended, and that they couldn’t ignore the fact that budgets and spending were the prerogatives of Congress, not the president. There were major clashes between Musk and Trump’s staff, loads of lawsuits, errors, and inflated results. 

Musk was soon seen as a loose cannon in the Administration. He was frustrated that he couldn’t be Musk the business genius, plus he saw that anti-Trump/Musk sentiment was harming Tesla, his main money machine. 

The $2 trillion goal became $1 trillion, then $150 billion. Today, DOGE claims $175 billion in cuts, but few believe their numbers.

The Chinese have a saying, “Head of a dragon, tail of a snake” which means you approach a project with great enthusiasm and activity but when the reality of inevitable difficulties arise, one’s enthusiasm and effort dwindles off like a snake’s tail. 

I predicted Musk would last six months. I was wrong – he lasted four.

This is the problem with business leaders in government. They have vague ideas of how things really work. Government isn’t a business where they can bark out orders and have them done. They are serious and enthusiastic at the start, brimming with confidence after their appointment. But it’s rare that their orders will nudge the bureaucracy. Musk was unfortunately the poster boy for this.

I thought the whole DOGE concept was a great idea. We could look at DOGE positively in that it brought attention to government spending and waste. We can applaud Trump for the effort. But it failed. Maybe it was all theater.

If Trump truly wants reform, he needs to work with Congress. Trump has a majority in Congress, and he could pass real spending limits and slow the growth of federal debt. But he must act before the midterms. Runaway debt is a time bomb – and it’s ticking.