Why the Trump-Musk bromance exploded like a SpaceX rocket
Elon Musk exploded like a SpaceX rocket. The debris rained down across Washington.
Everyone has been awaiting the breakup of the most public bromance between the most powerful man in the world and the richest man in the world.
What could go wrong? Too much power and too much ego. President Donald Trump has exerted executive authority to rule by command. And no one has seen anything like Musk's wealth. Will Musk become the world's first trillionaire – before any landing on Mars? What he gave to Trump's campaign was obscene, over $US230 million ($353 million) – more than enough to help Trump finance winning a second term.
Trump is cunning as hell. He had his blueprint for what he would do from the moment he was inaugurated president to dominate and control the executive branch of the government: Project 2025. As Carlos Lozada wrote, what is so compelling is 'how far the authors are willing to go in pursuit of that agenda and how reckless their assumptions are about law, power and public service'.
Cabinet secretaries and senior officials were to march into their departments and ensure that all the woke culture values of the radical left extremist Marxist monsters were eradicated. Anything having to do with promoting women and people of colour was suspect. Anything honoured in historical reference – such as Black soldiers and airmen who were heroes in World War II – was to be expunged. Anything trans was to be exterminated. The Department of Education and US foreign aid programs were cancelled. Everyone coming into the country was to be scrutinised, down to their social media history. There would be a slashing of programs and government employees.
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The shocker was bringing in Musk to turbocharge Project 2025. What was unprecedented was the ability of a private citizen to seize control and decapitate the leadership of government agencies, scrub spending and cancel contracts, all while ordering the remaining employees to tell Musk, if they wanted to keep their jobs, what they had done over the past five days.
By bringing in one of the most formidable wielders of digital technology in the universe, Musk and the 'department of government efficiency' had access to the databases of virtually all the government – even the most sensitive servers in the Treasury, the Internal Revenue Service and the Social Security Administration. DOGE was looking for 'waste, fraud and abuse', but they were also able to see the personal e-files of tens of millions of users and recipients in the systems.
Why did it have to end this badly? In his formal farewell to Musk, Trump consistently praised Musk for his dedication to the task, notwithstanding the risk to his businesses from his enforced absences. Musk was 'tirelessly helping lead the most sweeping and consequential government reform program in generations'.
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