Trump and Musk's Department of Government Corruption

Anyone who thinks this is about "efficiency" is being conned.

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When Donald Trump announced that if elected he would put renowned internet troll Elon Musk in charge of making the federal government more efficient, the response of anyone who knew anything about Elon Musk or the federal government should have been “Well that’s a stupid idea.” Now that Trump has been elected, even though it remains a stupid idea, it’s important that we understand it for what it is. Unfortunately, some credulous people and news organizations are taking it seriously, accepting at face value what is fundamentally a bad and dangerous joke.

First: This is not a story about government efficiency. Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy, whom Trump has said will co-lead this effort (two chiefs are more efficient than one, apparently), will not be reforming, streamlining, or professionalizing government operations. 

This is a story about government corruption. The “efficiency” talk is a sham, a ruse, a charade, a flimflam. This is about the richest man in the world, who just spent $200 million to get Trump elected, being rewarded with the president’s ear and a mechanism by which he can further enrich himself and his companies, undermine his competitors, shape regulations to his liking, and quash the many investigations he is facing from a variety of federal agencies.

Don’t call it a department

Musk suggested that this…whatever it is be termed the “Department of Government Efficiency,” mostly because that would give it the acronym DOGE, well known as an internet meme featuring a Shiba Inu saying funny things, which eventually became the name of a cryptocurrency (Dogecoin) that Musk is constantly promoting online. It’s unclear to what extent he is invested in Dogecoin, though he denies it. “I’m actually not actively involved in crypto,” he has said. “I make Dogecoin jokes and stuff because I just kind of like Dogecoin—because it’s got the best sense of humor and it has dogs and memes, and I love all those things.” Because Musk is, like Trump, a very powerful toddler, he thinks naming this department DOGE is hi-freaking-larious:

But the Department of Government Efficiency is not a department, and never will be. We use the word “department” to refer to the 15 major units of the federal government, each led by a Senate-confirmed Secretary; the last time we created one it was the monstrosity that is the Department of Homeland Security, in 2002. If Trump wants to create a new department he can try, but that would require an act of Congress and a whole lot of money. 

In this case, there will be nothing of the sort. In all likelihood, the Trump White House will assign a few staff members to assist Musk and Ramaswamy, who will look around the government for silly-sounding programs they can criticize or offices they can recommend for closure. They will not find $2 trillion worth of inefficiency as Musk has claimed, a number he pulled out of the air. If you were to set aside the things Trump has either promised he won’t cut, or legally can’t — Social Security, Medicare, the military, veterans’ benefits, and interest on the debt — what’s left is $2.25 trillion, meaning you’d have to eliminate virtually everything government does, whether it’s the Border Patrol or food inspections or federal prisons or air traffic control or a thousand other things you never think about. 

So that’s never going to happen. It’s a joke. Nevertheless, I’m sure many voters will say “Musk is a business guy like Trump, I’ll bet he could clean that mess up,” which they believe because, like Musk, they are in the grip of a fantasy that people who know nothing about government are the best ones to reform it. But government is not a business, it is not meant to turn a profit, and the tasks it is charged with carrying out are so numerous and complex that if he actually tried to grasp them all they would boggle Musk’s mind. 

That’s not to say there isn’t plenty of inefficiency in government. There is, just like there is in any large organization (and lots of small ones). If you’ve ever worked for a big company, you know. But here’s the next thing to keep in mind: Neither Elon Musk nor Donald Trump actually cares about government efficiency. If you think Musk is going to be poring over the org chart of the National Agricultural Statistical Service to see if its operations could be combined with the USDA Economic Research Service to streamline the production of data on crop yields — in between running his multiple companies and spending hours every day on social media — I’ve got a Cybertruck to sell you.

So what is the DOGE really? It’s an excuse for Trump and Musk to pursue vendettas, destroy the things the federal government does that they just don’t like, and serve Musk’s personal financial interests, all of which will be dressed up as “efficiency.” You’ll get headlines like “Department of Government Efficiency recommends cuts to environmental enforcement,” leading at least some people to say, “Well, I guess it’s good because things will be more efficient.” 

Don’t be fooled

In a better world, Musk’s efficiency farce would meet the same fate as a hundred other such efforts: He’d be put on a commission, which would study the issue and come up with a set of recommendations, which would be printed up in a report, which would be promptly forgotten. This happens all the time, even when the people involved are very smart and well-meaning. But it’s usually for things the president wants to look like he cares about but doesn’t really want to do anything about (case in point: the commission Joe Biden assigned to study Supreme Court reform). 

There have been serious efforts at improving government efficiency before; you may remember the “Reinventing Government” project Al Gore took on when he was vice president, which was actually pretty successful. But this is not serious, and if it succeeds it will only be insofar as it lines Elon Musk’s pockets and makes government worse. 

To repeat: THIS IS A STORY ABOUT CORRUPTION. The world’s richest man helped put Trump in the White House and he’s going to get repaid, in the form of limitless contracts, quashed investigations, regulations altered to his liking, and the targeting of programs he happens to dislike.

Corruption is going to be one of the most important themes of the next four years. Trump has been unleashed to grab every dollar he can for himself, and use the power of the government to enrich a parade of America’s worst people, from Wall Street bloodsuckers to crypto goons to the swarm of two-bit grifters that has always surrounded him. Don’t fool yourself into thinking Musk’s phony “department” is about anything else.