Musk's DOGE mission goes off target

Musk's DOGE mission goes off target with Republicans
Donald Trump's golden boy looks to have lost his touch

By Heather Digby Parton
Columnist
Published April 14, 2025 9:03AM (EDT)


(Salon) When Donald Trump first hooked up with Elon Musk during the campaign last year, I think most people thought it was just a rather flashy example of a rich guy with mega billions in government contracts putting his money behind a politician who promised to cut taxes and regulations, which happens every day in American politics. Musk had famously become red-pilled in the last few years and was a very important cultural figure since he bought Twitter and made it X, a right-leaning free-for-all. But he didn't seem to have direct political ambitions for himself. He just looked to be having fun performing for the adoring MAGA crowds, and Trump obviously enjoyed having the richest man in the world in his entourage.

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I think we all assumed that he'd go back to doing his usual thing, running his mouth on X and running his companies, once the election was over, but instead he became joined at the hip with Trump who didn't seem to mind. Spending the transition period down in Mar-a-Lago along with businessman and now candidate for governor of Ohio Vivek Ramaswamy, he came up with his DOGE (Department of Government Efficiency) project to cut government spending. It appeared to be just another commission to provide advice on where the cut programs, a Washington perennial that usually goes nowhere. The assumption in those early days was that the Project 2025 people, led by soon-to-be Director of the Office of Management and Budget Russell Vought, would be doing the dirty work, such as implementing Schedule F, the order to make all federal workers into at-will employees.

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If DOGE's mission is to cut spending, Musk's doing a terrible job. If its job is to cause misery, it's a rousing success.

Meanwhile, Musk has been watching his personal fortune shrink by the day and his reputation be blown to smithereens like one of his failed starship rockets. The stock in his car company Tesla, has been sliding precipitously and not just because his baby, the Cybertruck, the worst failure of his career, is dragging down the whole company. (He takes great pride in saying that he did “zero market research whatsoever," and it shows.) He apparently didn't realize that by becoming a right-wing MAGA troll, he would alienate the people who buy his cars. There aren't a whole lot of EV buyers in rural America, home to the MAGA base.

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Polls show that only 45% of Republicans hold a favorable opinion of Trump's special advisor. Rolling Stone reports that virtually everyone in the White House finds him irritating, some even questioning if he's high. (His SpaceX reps deny it.) According to Puck's Leigh Ann Caldwell, since his Wisconsin faceplant, Republicans on Capitol Hill are no longer in awe (or terrified) of him either. .................(more)

https://www.salon.com/2025/04/14/musks-doge-mission-goes-off-target-with/