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Elon Musk made a transparent promise after Donald Trump determined to place him answerable for making the federal government extra environment friendly.
“It’s not going to be some sort of backroom secret thing,” Musk mentioned final 12 months. “It will be as transparent as possible,” maybe even streamed live online.
It hasn’t worked out that way so far.
In the three weeks since the Republican president has been back in the White House, Musk has rapidly burrowed deep into federal agencies while avoiding public scrutiny of his work. He has not answered questions from journalists or attended any hearings with lawmakers. Staff members for his so-called Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, have sidelined career officials around Washington.
It is a profound challenge not only to business-as-usual within the federal government, which Trump campaigned on disrupting, but to concepts of consensus and transparency that are foundational in a democratic system. Musk describes himself as “White House tech support,” and he has embedded himself in an unorthodox administration the place there are not any discernible limits on his affect.
Donald Okay. Sherman, govt director of Residents for Duty and Ethics in Washington, mentioned Trump has allowed Musk to “exert unprecedented power and authority over government systems” with “maximal secrecy and little-to-no accountability.”
The White Home insisted that DOGE is “extremely transparent” and shared examples of its work so far, such as canceling contracts and ending leases for underused buildings. House Republicans said the Trump administration also discovered that Social Security benefits were being paid to a dozen people listed as 150 years old.
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Elon Musk speaks at an indoor Presidential Inauguration parade event in Washington, Jan. 20, 2025 (Copyright 2025 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.)
Trump, Musk and their allies are betting the American people will support their efforts to wipe out excessive spending, regardless of concerns about how it is being done. The president said Friday that Musk is “finding tremendous fraud and corruption and waste.” Trump was notably passionate about efforts to close down the U.S. Company for Worldwide Growth, the place Musk has labored to choke off funding.
Requested if Musk ought to publicly reply questions on his work, the president mentioned, “Oh sure.”
“He’s not shy,” Trump mentioned. “Elon’s not shy.”
That’s true, not less than judging by Musk’s social media, the place no thought seems to be suppressed. His X account is a flood of web memes, assaults on critics and professions of loyalty to the president. He has made clear the grand scope of his ambitions, speaking in existential phrases about the necessity to reverse the federal deficit, reduce authorities spending and roll again progressive applications.
“This administration has one probability for main reform which will by no means come once more,” he posted on Saturday. “It’s now or never.”
Musk is used to doing issues his personal manner. The world’s richest particular person, he grew to become rich with the net fee service PayPal, then based the electrical automobile producer Tesla and the rocket firm SpaceX. Extra just lately, he purchased Twitter and rebranded it as X, reducing jobs and remaking its tradition.
He appears to be taking the same strategy to the federal authorities, however he might be tightlipped about his plans. For instance, he has not defined how his group will make the most of entry to fee methods that embody delicate knowledge on individuals in the US.
A lot of DOGE’s work is occurring behind the scenes. Crew members have proven up on the Division of Veterans Affairs, the Treasury Division, the Federal Emergency Administration Company and the Nationwide Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, amongst different businesses. Their arrival is rarely publicly introduced, and profession employees members are trying over their shoulders for unfamiliar faces within the hallways.
On the Training Division, DOGE workers are figuring out of a convention room on the seventh flooring, which additionally homes the secretary’s workplace.
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Folks protest throughout a rally towards Elon Musk exterior the U.S. Division of Labor in Washington, Wednesday, Feb. 5,
Sheria Smith, president of a federal workers union that represents a few of the company’s employees, mentioned it’s unclear what inside methods have been accessed by Musk’s group and for what motive.
“It’s the lack of transparency that’s alarming,” she mentioned.
Whereas longtime employees members fret about their future, DOGE staff have been noticed cheerfully buying and selling high-fives with one another.
“They don’t appear to reply to anybody and aren’t partaking with anybody in our company,” Smith mentioned.
Generally a rumor circulates that Musk himself is making the rounds. However he usually has been on the White Home complicated, the place he has an workplace.
David Sacks, a Musk ally engaged on synthetic intelligence and cryptocurrency points for the administration, mentioned he stopped by to verify on the DOGE group.
“The whole room was full of young coders,” he mentioned throughout The All-In Podcast, which Sacks hosts with three different enterprise capitalists. “The facilities people don’t know what to do because they’ve never had people ask to stay late on Friday night before.”
Journalists have been piecing collectively the identities of people that work for DOGE, discovering a cadre of younger acolytes with expertise and engineering backgrounds.
Some had been beforehand employed by Musk’s corporations, and Musk has mentioned it’s a crime to disclose their names. He has not cited any regulation that will be damaged by such a disclosure.
It doesn’t seem like an idle risk. Ed Martin, the Trump-appointed interim U.S. lawyer within the nation’s capital, mentioned final week that “we will pursue any and all legal action against anyone who impedes your work or threatens your people.”
Martin adopted up on Friday to thank Musk for referring suspects who had been “stealing government property and/or threatening government employees.” No further info was supplied by Martin’s workplace or the White Home.
Vitality Secretary Chris Wright defended DOGE’s work, saying in a CNBC interview Friday that members of Musk’s group had been like “young gun management consultants coming in to take a critical look at how things are run.”
“They’re part of a team assembled by DOGE, friends in Elon’s broader circle that are very good at IT and very good at systems,” Wright said.
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People protest during a rally against Elon Musk outside the U.S. Department of Labor in Washington, Wednesday, Feb. 5, 2025. (AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana)
It took more than two weeks after Trump’s inauguration on Jan. 20 to figure out that Musk had formally joined the administration as a special government employee. The White House said Musk will file a financial disclosure report, but it will be kept secret. Because of Musk’s sprawling business interests, the report would likely be among the most extensive ever compiled.
It’s unclear whether Musk swore an oath to the Constitution like other federal workers. Even though Trump promised that Musk would steer clear of any areas where he has a conflict of interest, no details have been provided on how that is being evaluated. A test of that arrangement could come soon, with Musk set to review spending at the Pentagon, where SpaceX has billions of dollars in contracts to put satellites in orbit.
Democrats on the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee tried to issue a subpoena to force Musk to testify, but the effort was blocked by Republicans.
“Who is this unelected billionaire, that he can attempt to dismantle federal agencies, fire people, transfer them, offer them early retirement, and have sweeping reform or changes to agencies without any congressional review, oversight, or concurrence?” mentioned Rep. Gerald Connolly of Virginia, the committee’s high Democrat.
Home Democratic chief Hakeem Jeffries of New York mentioned Republicans had been “doing the bidding of an unelected, out of control, billionaire puppet master.”
Trump mentioned he was nonetheless answerable for Musk, saying “I’ll tell him to go here, go there, he does it.”
He additionally backed Musk’s aggressive strategy.
“We’ve to take a few of these issues aside to search out the corruption,” he mentioned.
