After the 2024 election, where he pledged hundreds of millions to President Donald Trump’s administration, Trump rewarded billionaire Elon Musk with his own seat in the government. Under his supervision, his cost-cutting agency, the Department of Government Efficiency, has accessed data it was not cleared to see, attempted to forego the power dynamics of the White House and far overreached the bounds of power that were set out for it.
This past week, Musk sent out emails to federal employees saying they had 48 hours to explain what they have accomplished within the past week as a means of evaluating worker efficiency. This threatened employees of the IRS, National Park Service and more, with Musk claiming on X that failure to respond to this email would be taken as a resignation.
As a response, many organizations told their employees to ignore the email. Though some in Congress and federal workplaces know better than to let a faux-politician like Musk boss them around, Musk still holds incredible influence over public perception by his presence in Washington and his control over the social media platform, X.
After his purchase in 2021, Musk became the sole owner of X, where he now gets to pick and choose what content the American public sees on a daily basis. Musk, who you automatically follow upon making an account, is constantly reposting misinformation or alt-right content, according to NBC News. He pushes conservative accounts defending him to the main page, while suppressing progressive accounts for saying “trans” or “cis,” according to Them.
Of course, Musk is not the only political official that poses a threat to our country. However, as an unelected “Special Government Employee” at a department that doesn’t have Senate approval, Musk’s presence in Washington is contributing to a dangerous precedent of wealthy individuals being able to manipulate politics. Further, the fact that the President can create a new position like the SGE role — without congressional approval — is an abuse of executive power that must be checked for the sake of our democracy.
In the meantime, Musk is taking full advantage of the power and influence he has, in a manner similar to his handling of social media platform X. Shortly after taking over, Musk promptly laid off 80% of staff, according to NDTV.
On the surface, Musk’s claims of efficiency may appear valid — he saved X company millions in wages and cut potential redundancies. Though buying out a leadership position and putting thousands out of a job might have worked for his private company, it is certainly not the correct approach to take when it comes to promoting government productivity.
Now, imagine Musk’s reckless abandoning of X employees being applied to our government. That is effectively what DOGE has done so far. Thousands of people have been laid off after just a month of the program — one outside of the understood chain of command — despite no historical precedent or justification for an unelected official having permission to pursue mass-layoffs.
It is too early to pull up statistics saying how these layoffs will impact the economy, however there are already inconsistencies in Musk’s rhetoric regarding his claims to inefficiency, cost-cutting and corruption. He claims DOGE will work to solve all of those issues through layoffs. Is that really feasible? How do we become more efficient by getting rid of employees doing valid work? Is there any evidence-based reason to believe that a National Park employee is corrupt? As of right now, neither Trump, Musk or DOGE have provided a coherent reasoning for the program’s actions or its end goal.
Regardless of your opinion on Musk or his stances, it stands that our country was set up with a powerful yet delicate balance of checks across different parts of our government at its founding. One would hope someone brought in to “trim the fat” might do so thoughtfully and carefully. Instead, Musk is doing a surgeon’s job with a chainsaw.
After Musk had the aforementioned “productivity check” email sent out, president of the American Federation of Government Employees Everett Kelly had a directed message at Musk in an interview with AP News. “It is cruel and disrespectful to hundreds of thousands of veterans who are wearing their second uniform in the civil service to be forced to justify their job duties to this out-of-touch, privileged, unelected billionaire who has never performed one single hour of honest public service in his life.”
For someone representing a party that values the traditional, hardworking nuclear American family, Musk doesn’t seem to mind the fact that Americans that are being laid off have their own families to care and provide for. As of today, the best way to protect federal employees from layoffs would be to support legislation that serves to protect them. One such proposal out of Wisconsin from this week looks to do just that.
Representative Mark Pocan (D-WI) has shared he is planning on introducing the “Elon Musk Act,” which would ban federal contracts for SGEs like Musk.
If DOGE was passed by the Senate like the Departments of Education, Musk would be fully in his right to pursue his cost-cutting agenda, regardless of if you agree with it. However, that is not the case, and for many it feels as if he just bought himself a seat at the table with none of the checks in place to stop him from getting what he wants.
Currently, a SGE like Musk can work 130 of 365 days in any year. Hopefully, Pocan can get the act passed before we have another mini-term of Elon Musk. It is an insult to all elected officials, government employees and everyone with a vote that we can let a figure like Musk have any level of agency and clearance in our government.
Ned Eggert ([email protected]) is a freshman majoring in political science.