I did not write this. It was sent to me by a friend, said it was emailed to him by a friend. I think it is a good summation of Elon Musk and DOGE.
President Trump has put Elon Musk in charge of something called the Department of Government Efficiency (aka: DOGE). For important but boring legal reasons, that "department" is actually just a rebranded and mission-updated executive organization first created by Obama and funded by Congress for IT work on the Obamacare website. They have read-only access to government spending data and other databases and can make recommendations to President Trump (which he often follows-through on). This "department" has been tasked by the President with identifying areas of waste, fraud, and abuse. You can follow the recommended cuts and changes which President Trump has implemented via their website doge.gov or by reading their X account (@doge). --So what's Musk doing and why are people so upset? I generally attribute the upset to one of two reasons. 1) POLITICAL: The spending cuts are impacting various organizations which give lavishly to various politicians. The nature of this giving varies. Sometimes the organization donates directly or indirectly (via their members), but often times they are important for getting out the vote for a politician, ensuring their re-election. Sometimes, these organizations are home to critical allies of the politicians and provide the politicians with channels to reward their friends via grants, government contracts, etc. Sometimes, these organizations provide the politician with certain regulatory powers they might desire for direct or indirect control over some person or company. For more on what that looks like, I encourage you to read the Twitter files or listen to recent interviews with Marc Andreessen or Mark Zuckerberg. When these organizations are stripped of their funding, they either lose power or they collapse altogether. For some number of people, the outcry is an antibody response to the attack on the organs of their power and influence. 2) TACTICAL: Elon Musk is running a playbook. That playbook involves moving extremely fast, creating a sense of urgency, and sometimes intentionally pausing all operations to see what emerges. Walter Isaacson wrote the definitive biography on Elon Musk. In it, he details several instances of Musk creating a "maniacal sense of urgency" in order to accelerate timelines and achieve what many initially believe to be impossible goals. He does this by "creating self-imposed crises" which he has determined causes teams to become hyper-focused and capable of making rapid decisions without losing momentum. If you're wondering how the U.S. launched an average of 20 rockets per year from 1970-2018 and now, thanks to Space X, launched 134 rockets in 2024 alone, it was arguably Musk's ability to instill urgency and drive people to achieve impossible goals that made this possible. Musk is applying that same sense of urgency to his team at DOGE. I speculate this is for two reasons. First, he sees America teetering on the brink of a debt spiral and believes that part of the remedy for this is to cut spending as quickly as possible to avoid this calamity. For perspective, if the government spent at the same level it did in 2019 while taking in the same tax revenues they did in 2024, they'd have an annual surplus they could use to pay down our debt. So Musk isn't crazy to think that making cuts is an important part of the equation to avoiding a crisis. Second, he knows the quickest way to break through gridlock and systemic failure is to put the system under duress thereby compelling people to take decisive action. Some percentage of bureaucrats were too comfortable doing too little. Some percentage intentionally did too little in order to undermine political actions they ideologically disagreed with (keep in mind, 93% of people in DC voted for Kamala). Newton's first law of inertia applies physically and well as psychically: unless substantial external force is applied, people will keep doing what they were doing before. In-addition to creating urgency, Musk is running another playbook. That playbook: "turn it off and target those who cry the loudest." In a recent podcast interview, Musk shared a story from his time at PayPal. He explained that when something went wrong with one of their payments systems, the fraudsters were always the fastest to contact support and they were also the most indignant. He saw this lesson replayed at Twitter. Shortly after acquiring the company, he paused all company credit cards thus stopping all payments to the vendors the company worked with. The vendors who called quickest and were angriest were often ones who had sold some sort of software solution to Twitter that the company *wasn't even using.* These vendors were getting money from Twitter without providing any value. Twitter money was a gravy train. The point about fraudsters being indignant is especially noteworthy today given the headlines. In the interview, Musk stated that normal people respond to a problem relatively calmly, "hey, this didn't work and I'm trying to figure out what's wrong." Fraudsters, by contrast, would be angry and threatening. Why? Motives varied but broadly they were afraid of being found out and were using aggression as a way to intimidate people into restoring things to the way they were. Sound familiar? It is for this reason that Musk asked President Trump to pause all funding flowing from the Executive Branch. As soon as they did this, they identified that the most indignation was coming from USAID. "So that became our target," Musk stated in a recent interview. Fast forward to today and the DOGE website and X feed show story after story of USAID contracts that wouldn't come anywhere close to having popular support were they democratically voted on. Per usdebtclock.org, DOGE has saved the government $114 billion so far and counting. --One rule that Musk often applies within his companies: "Delete as much as you can. If you don't restore 10% of what you deleted, you didn't delete enough." In his biography and also in many interviews you can find online, Musk has explained this principle saying, "Often times, engineers optimize for something that is later removed altogether. It's the greatest downfall of engineers: optimizing things that shouldn't exist." Tesla arguably has the most advanced autonomous driving platform in the world. In 2016, this platform was powered by 300,000 lines of C++ code. Thanks in no small part to Musk's policy on deletion, in 2023 Tesla reduced the total lines of code to 3,000. This substantial code reduction was achieved while *improving* the accuracy of Tesla's self-driving technology. In 2016, Tesla reported their cars averaged 3 miles of autonomous driving before drivers intervened. In 2023, their cars averaged 12 miles of autonomous driving before drivers intervened. This proven approach is what Musk is applying to federal regulations and spending. Just in the last week, DOGE found $1.9 billion in HUD funds that were *misappropriated* to a program that no longer existed. The improper appropriation was deleted and the money was returned to the U.S. Treasury. --Some quick replies to common refrains against Musk:"Musk is really dumb." - The guy taught himself how to build rockets, then built them, and then built massive chopsticks to softly pluck them from the sky for reuse. Do you think he's smarter or dumber than your congressperson or senator? "Musk is greedy." - Musk is worth $100B but lives relatively modestly and has put his entire fortune on the line many times so he can achieve goals like accelerating the world's transition to clean energy or making human life multi planetary so as to prevent the light of consciousness from being obliterated by an astroid. "Musk is self-interested." - While his peer group of billionaires travel the world in mega yachts and build island bunkers for self-preservation, Musk is sleeping on a cot in the Eisenhower Executive Office Building combing through mountains of poorly maintained databases / government spreadsheets with a group of young super nerds in order to save you and me hundreds, thousands, if not tens of thousands of our money from going to waste. Show me the "self-interest" in that."Musk is 'some billionaire.'" - He's not some billionaire. He's the world's most capable industrialist and arguably the most qualified person on earth to do exactly what he's doing. "Musk is unvetted." - Musk has had a Top Secret clearance for years now. His company, SpaceX is subject to International Traffic in Arms Regulations (ITAR). Why? Because those rockets are weapons-grade technology theoretically capable of carrying nuclear payloads. In terms of vetting, clearances, and access, Musk ranks in the same class of people as very senior elected officials and very senior members of the military. He's vetted. The government has a line of sight on everything he's connected to. "Nobody elected Elon Musk..." - Everyone I know of who voted for Trump voted for him knowing that he was going to put Elon Musk in charge of doing exactly what he's doing. Trump essentially ran a "coalition government" platform composed of many high-profile team members who were Democrats as recently as the Obama administration and some as recently as the Biden administration. Every Republican, Democrat, Libertarian, and Independent that voted for Trump knew that Elon was part of the package.
President Trump has put Elon Musk in charge of something called the Department of Government Efficiency (aka: DOGE). For important but boring legal reasons, that "department" is actually just a rebranded and mission-updated executive organization first created by Obama and funded by Congress for IT work on the Obamacare website. They have read-only access to government spending data and other databases and can make recommendations to President Trump (which he often follows-through on). This "department" has been tasked by the President with identifying areas of waste, fraud, and abuse.
You can follow the recommended cuts and changes which President Trump has implemented via their website doge.gov or by reading their X account (@doge).
--
So what's Musk doing and why are people so upset?
I generally attribute the upset to one of two reasons.
1) POLITICAL: The spending cuts are impacting various organizations which give lavishly to various politicians.
The nature of this giving varies.
Sometimes the organization donates directly or indirectly (via their members), but often times they are important for getting out the vote for a politician, ensuring their re-election.
Sometimes, these organizations are home to critical allies of the politicians and provide the politicians with channels to reward their friends via grants, government contracts, etc.
Sometimes, these organizations provide the politician with certain regulatory powers they might desire for direct or indirect control over some person or company. For more on what that looks like, I encourage you to read the Twitter files or listen to recent interviews with Marc Andreessen or Mark Zuckerberg.
When these organizations are stripped of their funding, they either lose power or they collapse altogether. For some number of people, the outcry is an antibody response to the attack on the organs of their power and influence.
2) TACTICAL: Elon Musk is running a playbook. That playbook involves moving extremely fast, creating a sense of urgency, and sometimes intentionally pausing all operations to see what emerges.
Walter Isaacson wrote the definitive biography on Elon Musk. In it, he details several instances of Musk creating a "maniacal sense of urgency" in order to accelerate timelines and achieve what many initially believe to be impossible goals. He does this by "creating self-imposed crises" which he has determined causes teams to become hyper-focused and capable of making rapid decisions without losing momentum. If you're wondering how the U.S. launched an average of 20 rockets per year from 1970-2018 and now, thanks to Space X, launched 134 rockets in 2024 alone, it was arguably Musk's ability to instill urgency and drive people to achieve impossible goals that made this possible.
Musk is applying that same sense of urgency to his team at DOGE. I speculate this is for two reasons.
First, he sees America teetering on the brink of a debt spiral and believes that part of the remedy for this is to cut spending as quickly as possible to avoid this calamity. For perspective, if the government spent at the same level it did in 2019 while taking in the same tax revenues they did in 2024, they'd have an annual surplus they could use to pay down our debt. So Musk isn't crazy to think that making cuts is an important part of the equation to avoiding a crisis.
Second, he knows the quickest way to break through gridlock and systemic failure is to put the system under duress thereby compelling people to take decisive action. Some percentage of bureaucrats were too comfortable doing too little. Some percentage intentionally did too little in order to undermine political actions they ideologically disagreed with (keep in mind, 93% of people in DC voted for Kamala). Newton's first law of inertia applies physically and well as psychically: unless substantial external force is applied, people will keep doing what they were doing before.
In-addition to creating urgency, Musk is running another playbook. That playbook: "turn it off and target those who cry the loudest."
In a recent podcast interview, Musk shared a story from his time at PayPal. He explained that when something went wrong with one of their payments systems, the fraudsters were always the fastest to contact support and they were also the most indignant. He saw this lesson replayed at Twitter. Shortly after acquiring the company, he paused all company credit cards thus stopping all payments to the vendors the company worked with. The vendors who called quickest and were angriest were often ones who had sold some sort of software solution to Twitter that the company *wasn't even using.* These vendors were getting money from Twitter without providing any value. Twitter money was a gravy train.
The point about fraudsters being indignant is especially noteworthy today given the headlines. In the interview, Musk stated that normal people respond to a problem relatively calmly, "hey, this didn't work and I'm trying to figure out what's wrong." Fraudsters, by contrast, would be angry and threatening. Why? Motives varied but broadly they were afraid of being found out and were using aggression as a way to intimidate people into restoring things to the way they were. Sound familiar?
It is for this reason that Musk asked President Trump to pause all funding flowing from the Executive Branch. As soon as they did this, they identified that the most indignation was coming from USAID. "So that became our target," Musk stated in a recent interview. Fast forward to today and the DOGE website and X feed show story after story of USAID contracts that wouldn't come anywhere close to having popular support were they democratically voted on.
Per usdebtclock.org, DOGE has saved the government $114 billion so far and counting.
--
One rule that Musk often applies within his companies: "Delete as much as you can. If you don't restore 10% of what you deleted, you didn't delete enough."
In his biography and also in many interviews you can find online, Musk has explained this principle saying, "Often times, engineers optimize for something that is later removed altogether. It's the greatest downfall of engineers: optimizing things that shouldn't exist."
Tesla arguably has the most advanced autonomous driving platform in the world. In 2016, this platform was powered by 300,000 lines of C++ code. Thanks in no small part to Musk's policy on deletion, in 2023 Tesla reduced the total lines of code to 3,000. This substantial code reduction was achieved while *improving* the accuracy of Tesla's self-driving technology. In 2016, Tesla reported their cars averaged 3 miles of autonomous driving before drivers intervened. In 2023, their cars averaged 12 miles of autonomous driving before drivers intervened.
This proven approach is what Musk is applying to federal regulations and spending. Just in the last week, DOGE found $1.9 billion in HUD funds that were *misappropriated* to a program that no longer existed. The improper appropriation was deleted and the money was returned to the U.S. Treasury.
--
Some quick replies to common refrains against Musk:
"Musk is really dumb." - The guy taught himself how to build rockets, then built them, and then built massive chopsticks to softly pluck them from the sky for reuse. Do you think he's smarter or dumber than your congressperson or senator?
"Musk is greedy." - Musk is worth $100B but lives relatively modestly and has put his entire fortune on the line many times so he can achieve goals like accelerating the world's transition to clean energy or making human life multi planetary so as to prevent the light of consciousness from being obliterated by an astroid.
"Musk is self-interested." - While his peer group of billionaires travel the world in mega yachts and build island bunkers for self-preservation, Musk is sleeping on a cot in the Eisenhower Executive Office Building combing through mountains of poorly maintained databases / government spreadsheets with a group of young super nerds in order to save you and me hundreds, thousands, if not tens of thousands of our money from going to waste. Show me the "self-interest" in that.
"Musk is 'some billionaire.'" - He's not some billionaire. He's the world's most capable industrialist and arguably the most qualified person on earth to do exactly what he's doing.
"Musk is unvetted." - Musk has had a Top Secret clearance for years now. His company, SpaceX is subject to International Traffic in Arms Regulations (ITAR). Why? Because those rockets are weapons-grade technology theoretically capable of carrying nuclear payloads. In terms of vetting, clearances, and access, Musk ranks in the same class of people as very senior elected officials and very senior members of the military. He's vetted. The government has a line of sight on everything he's connected to.
"Nobody elected Elon Musk..." - Everyone I know of who voted for Trump voted for him knowing that he was going to put Elon Musk in charge of doing exactly what he's doing. Trump essentially ran a "coalition government" platform composed of many high-profile team members who were Democrats as recently as the Obama administration and some as recently as the Biden administration. Every Republican, Democrat, Libertarian, and Independent that voted for Trump knew that Elon was part of the package.
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