Tag Archives: Elon Musk

Diary of the Second Addams Administration 10.

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            Elon Musk kept swinging his scythe through the federal workforce, firing 7,000 people at the IRS and an additional 1,400 from Veterans Affairs, while warning the Environmental Protection Agency to expect a 65 percent reduction in force from its current 17,000 employees.[1] 

            Then, at the end of February 2025, Elon Musk had the Office of Personnel Management e-mail, oh, several million federal civilian employees.  The message instructed them to submit a five bullet-point list of the major stuff that they had done the previous week.  Failure to comply would be taken as a resignation. 

            Federal employees, their union representatives, and the Democratic Party responded with their competing imitations of Albert Goldman.[2]  About a dozen Secretaries of Departments rallied to the defense of their employees.  The latter seemed to some observers like the leaders being captured by their followers.  President Donald Trump may have seen it in that light because he gave Musk pride of place at a televised Cabinet meeting. 

            The themes in the criticism were as before: Musk is an “unelected” person culling the ranks of the unelected employees wielding the power of the federal government; and lots of Americans—Republicans and Democrats alike–depend upon the federal government for income or medical care or education.  The appeal to elected politicians to keep things as they are against the actions of the unelected man-child genius seeking to avert national bankruptcy captures the spirit of the enterprise.  It is disruption of the Old Order and NOT kicking the can down the road that arouses resistance.  In addition, it is argued that cutting employees from Veterans Affairs will harm veterans.  In reality, for at least twenty years people who deal with Veterans Affairs have been complaining that it is the most messed-up organization that they have ever seen.  A string of good leaders (e.g. Eric Shinseki) have failed in their efforts to fix it.  Finally, it is asserted that the cuts to the IRS will just hinder efforts to get the rich to pay their “fair share.”  This is an ever-green political issue.  Democrats like having it as an issue with which to bash the Republicans, but they will not actually raise taxes on the rich when they could.[3] 

            Then, to be asked to briefly state what work one did last week doesn’t seem unusual or difficult.  Corporations—both in America and around the world—carry out reductions in force whenever the balance sheet tips too much into the red.  Often, they’re not too strategic about where the axe falls.  It isn’t regarded as the end of the world. 

            On the other hand, government isn’t a business.  Ideally, the government does things for society that are essential or highly desirable, but for which there is no reasonable private sector provider.  The Departments of Defense, State, Justice, the Treasury, and the CIA and NSA for example.  Then there is the government’s role in funding and coordinating scientific and medical research, and managing a system of air traffic control.  Moreover, the “bureaucracy” isn’t staffed only with drones.  It recruits many specialist experts.  Sweeping purges will cause a bunch of things to go wrong soon.  And once the experts get the heave, it will be hard to lure them back. 

[1] “DOGE slashes workforce with Trump’s backing,” The Week, 7 March 2025, p. 5. 

[2] The character played by the great Nathan Lane in “The Birdcage” (dir. Mike Nichols, 1996). 

[3] The Biden administration’s “American Rescue Plan” passed the Senate 50-49; its “Inflation Reduction Act” passed the Senate 51-50.  Both used “Reconciliation” to by-pass the filibuster.  Higher taxes easily could have been included if they actually wanted to make the rich pay “their fair share.”  Same for repealing the “debt ceiling.” 

Diary of the Second Addams Administration.

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            Is the bureaucracy of the Executive Branch of the government of the United States lean, agile, innovative, and filled with able idealists?  Or is it bloated, hide-bound, unwieldy, and ill-suited to the needs of the new century?  It’s a fair question to ask. 

President Donald Trump and Court Wizard Elon Musk appear to believe that it is the latter, rather than the former.  For Trump, there seems to be the added flaw in the bureaucracy’s hostility to him during his first term.  He may well want “revenge” both for their past hostility and to prevent anticipated resistance in his second term.  For his part, Musk portrayed himself as battling an “unelected bureaucracy” in order to “restore the will of the people.” 

Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) has taken on the task of reducing the federal workforce.[1]  In mid-February 2025, DOGE began firing people in big chunks and very rapidly.  In addition to the thousands of US AID workers on the chopping block, the Department of Agriculture took a heavy hit: 4,000 at the Department and a further 3,400 at its subordinate National Forest Service.  Health and Human Services lost 5,200; the Energy Department lost 2,000; and the Department of Veterans Affairs lost 1,000.[2]  Within these departments, some areas were hit particularly hard: the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the National Institutes of Health, the Food and Drug Administration, and the National Nuclear Security Administration.  More lay-offs took place at the Federal Aviation Agency and the National Park Service.[3]  All this is alarming to terrifying. 

At the same time, and with murky intent, DOGE went after the vast troves of data on ordinary Americans held by the federal government in the data centers of the Social Security Administration, the Internal Revenue Service, the Treasury, and other agencies.[4] 

In his first term, Trump caught a lot of criticism for treating China as a real danger by plastering it with tariffs, trying to build a wall at the southern border to resist massive illegal immigration, and denigrating our NATO allies.  Then Joe Biden kept the tariffs, Russia’s attack on Ukraine revealed that the European allies have been pacifists for decades, and the failure to resist illegal immigration helped cost the Democrats the 2024 election.  Now, some Democrats are admitting that a problem exists, even while they drag on Trump’s coat-tails.  One journalist at the Washington Post accepted that problems did exist with the federal bureaucracy, but objected to indiscriminate mass firing.  On the other hand, others stuck to their last, claiming that the firings were part of “a coup.”  Competent civil servants would be driven out to make space for incompetent Trump loyalists.  That argument is hard to refute when Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., Kash Patel, and Peter Hegseth can be offered as evidence. 

Two questions arise.  One, is Trump just trying to scare the bureaucracy into compliance?  Two, how can a log-jammed legislature reform and reduce a behemoth? 

[1] “Trump makes mass layoffs across government,” The Week, 28 February 2025, p. 4. 

[2] Currently, the federal government employs about 2.1 million civilians and about 600,000 military personnel. 

[3] For context, the Department of Agriculture which includes the National Forest Service, employed 93,000 people at the end of the Biden administration, so the cuts amount to about 7.5 percent of the workforce; Health and Human Services employed about 83,000 people, so the cuts amount to about 6 percent of the workforce; The Department of Energy employed 14,000 civilians and 93,000 contractors, so the cuts amounted to 14 percent of the civilian workforce; and the Department of Veteran Affairs employed over 400,000 people, so the cuts are microscopic. 

[4] Why do they need such information?  They aren’t saying.  Why not?  They’re up to something. 

Diary of the Second Addams Administration 6.

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            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. 

[6] Precedent – Wikipedia 

[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 

Diary of the Second Addams Administration 2.

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            Between 20 January and 1 February 2025, President Donald Trump issues 45 Executive Orders (Eos) that imposed sweeping changes in government policies.[1]  President Joe Biden had issued only 26 EOs ordering sweeping changes in the same period following his inauguration and didn’t hit the 45 mark until 14 May 2021.[2] 

            Some of these EOs struck a nerve with Democrats.  Among many other things, Trump withdrew–more accurately re-withdrew–the United States from the Paris Climate executive agreement[3]; ordered the immediate dismantling of any and all government programs promoting diversity, inclusion, and equity; ordered any federal workers employed on such programs to be placed on paid leave; reversed a Biden EO permitting transgender troops to serve in the military; changed the name of the tallest mountain in the United States from “Denali” back to “McKinley”[4]; ordered that the “Gulf of Mexico” be renamed the “Gulf of America”; and reversed an EO originally issued by Lyndon B. Johnson in 1965 which allowed government to lean on private contractors to take “affirmative action” in hiring.[5]  In short, a bunch of sacred cows went to Bovine University. 

            More substantively, Trump withdrew the United States from the World Health Organization, (W.H.O.); said that the United States would “take back” the Panama Canal; reduced restrictions on oil and gas production that had been imposed by the Biden administration; created a “Department of Government Efficiency” (D.O.G.E.) to be led by Elon Musk; and ordered an end to “birthright citizenship.”[6] 

            More orders followed hard on the heels of the first few days.  He issued, then quickly rescinded, an order temporarily halting the payment of federal grants, loans, and other forms of assistance to a wide range of groups outside the federal government.  “The order sparked chaos at universities, charities, local government, and other bodies reliant on federal funding,…”[7]  Not satisfied with shaking hearts and minds with such dramatic action, the administration also issued a warning to federal employees that there were going to be big job cuts.  The e-mail message offered many of them the choice between retiring immediately and being paid for eight months or risking being laid off when Musk got around to them.  “Which will you have?”[8] 

            To top off the disruption, Trump fulfilled his pledge to pardon the 1,600 convicted rioters from 6 January 2021.  Or, in the words of the WSJ, “Cop Beaters.”  He’s good for his word, alas. 

[1] List of executive orders in the second presidency of Donald Trump – Wikipedia 

[2] List of executive actions by Joe Biden – Wikipedia  Biden issued his final EO, his 162nd, on 19 January 2025. 

[3] Like the Iran agreement, President Barack Obama had known that he couldn’t get a treaty through the Senate because the Constitution requires a two-thirds vote of approval for any treaty.  So, in both cases, he settled for executive agreements whose durability depended upon retaining control of the White House.

[4] Still, if you go to a GMC dealer, you won’t be offered a test drive in the “exciting new McKinley.” 

[5] Commonly believed to mean quotas. 

[6] He did not exactly end “birthright citizenship.”  He restricted it to exclude children born of parents who were illegal immigrants, and to exclude children born to a foreign national mother in the United States on any kind of short-term or temporary visa and whose father was also not a citizen.  Furthermore, the change was not retroactive and applies to children born after 19 February 2025.  The 14th Amendment had been adopted long before there had been any idea of illegal immigration. 

[7] “Trump orders cause whiplash in Washington,” The Week, 7 February 2025, p. 4.  See also: “Trump returns with a barrage of orders, pardons,” The Week, 31 January 2025, p. 4. 

[8] True Grit (2010) “Fill Your Hands!” 

In a Bunch.

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            Elon Musk is the owner of SpaceX, Tesla, X (called Twitter), “and, oh, some other stuff.”  He is the current “world’s wealthiest person.”  When NASA and Boeing couldn’t find a way to safely retrieve two astronauts from the space station, they asked Musk.  He obliged. 

            During the first Trump administration, Musk became exercised over what he saw as Progressives’ censorship of speech that they disliked.[1]  He bought Twitter, then used it as a platform to support Trump’s run for a second term.  He also spent $190 million in support of Trump during the months before the November 2024 election.  Now he is a court “favorite.”[2] 

Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy have been instructed to create an extra-governmental “Department of Government Efficiency” (DOGE).  Their mission, should they decide to accept it, is to identify “trillions [as in $2 trillion] in possible budget cuts.”  More than that, they will “slash excess regulations, cut wasteful expenditures, and restructure Federl Agencies.”[3]

This development stirred up the hornets.  Normally, government officials and politicians spend a lifetime in public employment.  Their wealth is in the stock market and real estate investment.  If necessary, it can be placed in blind trusts.  This creates a reassuring sense of propriety among the public.  Not Elon Musk.  Like Donald Trump, he’s going to continue operating his big and important firms even while looking for places to cut spending (i.e. jobs).  “Look, and by the way,” he’s a Libertarian with a lot of government contracts.  So not fair! 

Democrats warn that Musk “could reap a windfall from deregulatory moves” if he has some kind of leverage on government agencies that regulate his business empire.  That’s a more than fair point, so it is fair to ask how much leverage he would have.  The “DOGE” would be a non-governmental advisory committee, not a real government department.[4]  The “DOGE” could recommend changes, but they would need Congressional action to take effect. 

Then there is Musk’s record on overhauling his own companies.  After he bought Twitter, he fired 80 percent of the employees.  That definitely got expenses down.  Will he recommend the same thing to the federal government?  Cutting the Departments of Education seems like a no-brainer, while foreclosing on the Housing and Urban Development would free up office space.  It would be necessary to cut 85 percent of government’s non-entitlements, non-defense, and non-interest payments to get $2 trillion out of the budget. 

If it can’t all be got that way, then sacred cows are going to “Bovine University.”[5]  Some people believe that Trump and Musk are “planning to cut Social Security and Medicare.”  Perhaps all of the chopping by Musk and Ramaswamy in the rest of the government is intended to show that the national finances cannot be repaired without “changes” (either cuts or efficiencies) to these two programs.  All this—mindlessly—leaves higher taxes off the table. 

[1] “Payback: The United States of Elon Musk,” The Week, 22 November 2024, p. 34. 

[2] See: Favourite – Wikipedia  It’s actually kind of reassuring. 

[3] “Trump’s MAGA administration takes shape,” The Week, 22 November 2024, p. 4. 

[4] Without wanting to stretch the point too far, during the Cold War the U.S. government had a group of “wise men” to consult on international crises.  See: Walter Isaacson and Evan Thomas, The Wise Men: Six Friends and the World They Made (2013).  Curiously, Isaacson now is at work on a biography of Musk.  Similarly, the “9-11 Commission” made important suggestions about improving government action against foreign terrorism.  It isn’t clear how these recommendations have been followed. 

[5] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zR_4h5A5z_A