President Donald Trump tasked “Special Government Employee” Elon Musk with downsizing government.[1] Musk, it is often pointed out, is an “unelected billionaire.”[2] Musk immediately exhibited the drive and ruthlessness that made him a billionaire in the first place. In his own offensive phrase, he and his myrmidons “spent the weekend feeding US AID into the wood chipper.”[3] He also sent his people into the Treasury Department Finance section, the General Services Administration, the Office of Personnel Management, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, the Veterans Administration, the Department of Commerce, and the Department of Education. In most cases, they seemed to be after the computer and record systems.[4] Along the way, Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (D.O.G.E.) e-mailed federal employees offering a choice between resigning now and receiving eight months’ pay or risking being fired at some point in the future.
Criticism followed. Senator Charles Schumer warned that “an unelected shadow government is conducting a hostile takeover of the federal government.” Yale historian Timothy Snyder called it “a coup.” Journalist David Rothkopf warned of the approach of “the worst form of malevolent dictatorship.” Senator Elizabeth Warren insisted that “Elon Musk is seizing the power that belongs to the American people.”[5]
Lawyers saw the Musk task force’s actions as “wildly illegal” and unconstitutional. Neither they nor President Trump can close down federal agencies created by Congress or impound funds appropriated by Congress.
A final, perhaps revealing, criticism is of the people doing Musk’s work. They are “a coterie of engineers barely out of college.” They are “young” and they are “engineers.” In contrast, Charles Schumer is 74, Elizabeth Warren is 75, Dick Durbin is 79, Mark Warner is 70, Amy Klobuchar is 64, Tammy Baldwin is 62, Cory Booker is 55, Chris Murphy is 52. All are lawyers. Many of the younger-than-them people on their staffs doubtless are also lawyers.
Do engineers and lawyers think in different ways? Not being one or the other, it’s difficult to say. However, law schools instill a reverence for precedent.[6] Engineering schools emphasize problem-solving and simplification.[7] On the second issue of older versus younger, there are both stereotypes and more evidence-based analyses.[8] It should surprise no one that young engineers think and act differently from aged lawyers. One thing that is clear is that the “Old Order” is unable to address our national problems. Will a “New Order” make them worse?
[1] Musk is commonly identified as “the world’s richest person,” rather than as the “creator of several massively innovative companies—including one that may have to bring back two astronauts stranded on Gilligan’s Satellite.
[2] All Cabinet members are “unelected.” According to a 2021 article in Forbes, the median wealth in the “poor man’s cabinet” of Joe Biden was $5.5 million; average wealth was $6.8 million. The figures were far higher for the first Trump cabinet, and for the first Obama cabinet. Musk isn’t a cabinet-member, but the principle is the same.
[3] Bing Videos Well, he likes the Coen Brothers.
[4] “Musk launches offensive on government agencies,” The Week, 14 February 2025, p. 4.
[5] Although, in fact, the American people delegated all those powers to their elected government. The current head of the Executive Branch of that government is Donald Trump.
[7] There is an interesting analysis at Do Engineers Think Differently? Yes, Learn The 6 Ways | Engineer Calcs
[8] See: Old Versus Young: The Cultural Generation Gap | The Pew Charitable Trusts and II. Generations Apart — and Together | Pew Research Center
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