Musk, 53, the richest man in the world and a Trump buddy, has established a new hub of power in Washington in just two weeks as he carries out Trump’s cost-cutting plan to shrink the US government.
Due to his quick takeover of two U.S. government agencies, South African-born entrepreneur Elon Musk has been able to start a radical remaking of government and impose unprecedented power over America’s 2.2 million federal employees.
As he implements Trump’s cost-cutting plan to shrink the size of the U.S. government, Musk, 53, the richest man in the world and a Trump buddy, has established a new center of power in Washington in just two weeks.
Since Trump’s inauguration on January 20, Musk, the CEO of Tesla and the founder of SpaceX, has moved quickly, using groups of current and former workers from his firms as his operatives.
Musk’s initiatives have occasionally threatened to eclipse Trump’s own agenda and have sparked public demonstrations in Washington and a surge of panic among government employees.
This week, Musk’s attempt to abolish USAID, the Agency for International Development, America’s primary humanitarian aid organization to the world, and Trump’s fluctuating trade battle with neighboring Canada and Mexico fought for attention on front pages.
Musk’s actions are a part of Trump’s enormous government reorganization, in which he has dismissed and marginalized hundreds of public servants as part of his first efforts to reduce the bureaucracy and replace it with more loyalists.
People are seeing “an extraordinary centralization of power in someone who lacks a top-level security clearance and has not been subject to any Senate confirmation process,” according to Don Moynihan, a professor at the University of Michigan’s Ford School of Public Policy.
“Musk has unprecedented and centralized control of the basic plumbing of government,” he stated.
But Musk does what Trump wants him to do. On Monday, the president informed reporters that the billionaire needed to have White House consent before acting.
“Elon cannot and will not do anything without our consent. Where appropriate, we will grant him permission; otherwise, we won’t. However, he reports in.
According to a White House source, “those leading this mission with Elon Musk are doing so in full compliance with federal law, appropriate security clearances, and as employees of the relevant agencies, not as outside advisors or entities.”
When asked about their top concern over the possibility of losing their job, a General Services Administration employee who oversees federal property and services responded, “Musk. Nobody is actually discussing Trump.
Trump has appointed Musk to lead the Department of Government Efficiency, as both men refer to it. Despite its name, DOGE is not a department, Musk does not receive a government salary, and the establishment of the agency sparked litigation from public interest organizations, government unions, and watchdogs.
It’s unknown exactly who makes up DOGE. A list of DOGE personnel has not been made public by the Trump administration. It also doesn’t specify how many have joined each agency or how they are compensated.
The computer systems of the General Services Administration and the Office of Personnel Management have been taken over by Musk and his DOGE lieutenants.
The U.S. government’s human resources department, OPM, is in charge of 2.2 million employees. Following that, emails with financial incentives for federal employees to resign have been distributed during the previous week. The GSA is in charge of managing federal property and most government contracts.
According to sources who spoke to Reuters, a group of at least four Musk aides, both current and past, have taken control of OPM and are preventing some senior managers from accessing their own computer systems. According to an official, Musk paid a visit to the GSA last Thursday while his team members were relocating there.
The U.S. Treasury Department’s payment system, which disburses over $6 trillion annually on behalf of federal agencies and holds the personal data of millions of Americans who receive tax refunds, Social Security benefits, and other government funds, was made accessible to a Musk team on Friday.
According to Michael Linden, a senior official in the former President Joe Biden administration at the Office of Management and Budget, a strong organization in charge of the federal budget, Musk’s assistants’ access to payment systems gives them unprecedented potential influence.
“They could get to pick and choose which payments the federal government makes,” Linden stated during an interview.
A request for comment was not immediately answered by Musk or the White House.
Trump has stated time and time again that the federal bureaucracy has to be reduced because it is ineffective and fat. He also claims that a large number of federal employees are liberal ideologues who are trying to obstruct his plans.
MUSK GOING BEYOND HIS PERMIT
“Those of us who have worked at Elon’s companies can see his fingerprints all over what’s happening inside the federal government right now,” said Thomas Moline, a senior avionics engineer at SpaceX in the past. “It’s a very seat-of-the-pants affair with Elon’s loyalists scrambling to execute his every whim and desire as fast as possible.”
According to governance experts, Musk seems to have already exceeded the authority allowed by the executive order that Trump signed on January 20th to establish DOGE.
It was required by that directive to update federal software and technology “to maximize governmental efficiency and productivity.” According to additional directives on recruiting and hiring freezes, DOGE should collaborate with other organizations to offer suggestions.
It seems like Musk and his associates are doing much more than just offering suggestions.
DOGE employees have been significantly involved in the downsizing of USAID and have argued with security officials over access to sensitive material at the agency’s Washington headquarters.
Many public servants are experiencing fear, so they have taken to Facebook, Signal, and Reddit to report on what is happening within their agency and talk about how to react. They further caution that in order to find suspected leakers, DOGE employees are watermarking emails and adding other identifiers, such as extra spacing.
Democratic MPs are among Musk’s detractors who have charged him with hostile takeover of the government. In order to prevent Musk from accessing private computer systems, federal labor unions filed a lawsuit.
At a demonstration outside USAID headquarters, U.S. Representative Jamie Raskin, a Democrat from Maryland, told reporters, “We don’t have a fourth branch of government called Elon Musk.”
“FORK ON THE ROAD”
An email titled “Fork in the Road” was issued to all government employees offering deferred resignation and a plan to pay staff until September if they offered to retire by February 6. This was reminiscent of the wording Musk used when he cut Twitter’s employment after purchasing the social media business in 2022.
A further communication urged government employees to look for more lucrative positions in the private sector. Since it is unknown how the payoffs would be financed, federal employee unions have cautioned that workers should not accept the offer because it might not be lawful.
U.S. officials told Reuters that over 20,000 workers were intending to leave, but unions representing the workers filed a lawsuit on Tuesday to stop the administration’s intention to grant buyouts.
According to Nick Bednar, an associate professor of law at the University of Minnesota Law School, Musk and his associates’ vast influence over federal employees and federal funding is extremely worrisome “when they seemingly have very little accountability.”
He said that it was remarkable that Musk, whose businesses had numerous contracts with the US government, had been placed in a situation that would raise so many concerns regarding conflicts of interest.
