Why Musk's DOGE Moves Are ‘Just Like the Twitter Takeover' - CNN Political Briefing - Podcast on CNN Audio

CNN

14-03-2025

David Chalian
00:00:01
Hey, everyone, I'm David Chalian, CNN's Washington Bureau Chief and Political Director, and welcome to the CNN Political Briefing. Earlier this week, President Trump stood on the White House south lawn in front of a row of new Tesla vehicles. In what amounted to nearly 36 minutes of free advertising for the electric car company, trump pitched both the vehicles and the company's owner, Elon Musk, to the American public. Since Musk took on a major role at the White House and became closely associated with the MAGA brand, Tesla has seen sales drop.
President Donald Trump (clip)
00:00:38
They love the product. But because he's finding all sorts of terrible things that have taken place against our country, they want to penalize him in an economic sense. And I just think that's very unfair.
David Chalian
00:00:50
As the head of the Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, Musk is leading Trump's charge to shrink the federal government by cutting spending and eliminating federal jobs. But applying that "move fast and break things" mentality of Silicon Valley to the federal government is certainly not sitting well with Democrats and even some Republicans, and clearly not that well with the American people. A new CNN/SSRS poll this week showed just 35 percent of Americans expressed a positive view of Elon Musk. Musk is new to Washington, but what can we learn about his approach to DOGE from how he's led his companies? Kate Conger is the coauthor of the book "Character Limit," a detailed account of Musk's takeover of Twitter, now called X. And she continues to report on Musk and X for The New York Times. She joins me now to share her insights on Musk and the parallels she sees in his management of Twitter and DOGE. Kate, thanks so much for joining us.
Kate Conger
00:02:08
Thank you for having me.
David Chalian
00:02:09
'So I guess I want to start at the 30,000-foot level and tap into your expertise on all things Elon Musk, as you have observed him before he got involved in government and politics and since, and that's where I want to start, is sort of, do you see any similarities in his approach to what he's doing with DOGE to anything he did with his companies? I mean, I know, the "Fork in the Road" memo was similar from Twitter, but overall the approach here, does it feel familiar to what you observed in his private sector work?
Kate Conger
00:02:43
Yeah. And, you know, it's funny, I feel like a broken record because I just keep saying over and over again, this is just like the Twitter takeover. There's so many things that Musk has pulled from that experience to fashion what he's doing now with DOGE. And I think he really views Twitter as a success story, actually, and thinks that the cost cutting that he did there was really effective and really essential. And that's the model that he's looking to replicate. So, I mean, you see the parallels, not just in the "Fork in the Road" email like you mentioned, but also the people that he's bringing in to advise him. Many of them also worked on the Twitter deal. You know, some of the approaches to getting rid of real estate is something that he tried at Twitter, the mass layoffs, the encouraging people to resign. These are all things that he tried in those first few months after that purchase and really viewed as a success.
David Chalian
00:03:35
And yet, we all know running a company and working in the government are not the same thing. I mean, obviously, I think everyone believes government could be run more efficiently. I would be surprised if you could meet an American who doesn't believe that the federal government can run more efficiently, but in what you're saying, since you see so many similarities, was there sort of no surprise for you in the headlines of what was coming out of his efforts in DOGE, or that he didn't adjust his approach because he's not the CEO here in the government. I mean, he is an advisor to the president. He's not the top dog, ostensibly. And yet, as you note, his approach seems similar. Did that surprise you?
Kate Conger
00:04:19
Him wanting to take this approach is not a surprise. He's really been clear about that, and he's actually a very sort of repetitious person. He makes the same movie references over and over again. He cracks the same jokes, and so to see him reach for this familiar playbook was not a surprise at all. I think what is surprising to me is that Trump has allowed him to do all of this stuff basically unchecked. Going into this, I was thinking there may be some potential for Trump to feel like, you know, he didn't have as much power as he wanted, and that Elon was kind of steamrolling him. And it actually seems like they've had a pretty productive working relationship, and Trump isn't uncomfortable with that. That part of it is a surprise to me.
David Chalian
00:05:00
You had mentioned some of the people who were advising him and helping him and working for him at Twitter, he brought over to this government efficiency effort. Can you tell me a little bit more about Elon's world, if you will? Like, who are these people that are supporting him in this effort in the government?
Kate Conger
00:05:19
Sure. So he tends to operate in a really small circle. He doesn't trust a lot of people, and he keeps the few people that he does trust very close. So one of the people who he's brought over to help run DOGE is a guy named Steve Davis, who's worked with him at SpaceX, at The Boring Company and at X after the transition to help cut the budget. Steve has been really intimately involved in the current work on DOGE. Another example, I think, is Michael Grimes, who is his lead banker on the Twitter deal. He's come in and done some work with Treasury and DOGE, and is someone that Musk really trusted to make that transaction happen, and I think, you know, you see that trust continuing into these new roles in government. And then even some of the kids who are working on DOGE kind of at the lower level, some of them have experience with his other businesses who had worked for Musk, either at X or Tesla or SpaceX. So again, you see him kind of tapping into this pool of trusted candidates who he already knows.
David Chalian
00:06:22
And when you say kids, we're not talking about child labor laws being violated here. They're young adults, but yes.
Kate Conger
00:06:29
Yes, they're 20 year olds. I should not be calling them kids. It's a bad habit.
David Chalian
00:06:34
I think we all do that. I agree with you about the sort of, I also was surprised that Trump has given him as much leeway as it seems that he has given him. And there was all that talk when the TIME magazine cover came out with Musk behind the Resolute Desk, and if that was going to upset Trump, and then yet we did see, you know, Trump responded a bit to some of the blowback he was getting from his cabinet officials, from some Republicans on the Hill. And there were these reports of him trying to rein him in a little bit. But then we learn of this explosive cabinet meeting from your colleagues at The New York Times, where he gets apparently into a heated back and forth with Marco Rubio, a heated back and forth with Sean Duffy, the transportation secretary. What did you make of that report, and what do you make of the fallout from that becoming public, and how Rubio and Duffy sort of responded or how Musk responded after the fact?
Kate Conger
00:07:33
Well, I think that reporting was so interesting because it reflects, again, these kinds of things that Musk returns to over and over. One of them is asking for the specific data. He really likes to ask for that when he's feeling challenged and make someone prove their point to him. And you saw him do that with Secretary Duffy where he said, give me the names of the specific air traffic controllers that you've been asked to fire. And Duffy couldn't do it. And so that's an interaction that Musk feels like he's won, and Duffy is lying to him because he wasn't able to pull these names out of a hat and provide them. And so it's really interesting to see him kind of engage in that rhetorical device over and over again.
David Chalian
00:08:14
Perhaps that's what led to the unfollow on X.
Kate Conger
00:08:18
Yes, so the fallout like, yeah, is really interesting. You know we saw him and Marco Rubio go on X and kind of patch things up. And then with Duffy he went and unfollowed his accounts, and I think was sort of dismissive of him. So, you know, it's interesting to see how his relationships with the cabinet members shifted after that meeting.
David Chalian
00:08:36
I mean, Rubio went on X to really try and say, no, no, no, I'm doing the stuff you asked us to do. We've cut 83% of the programs at USAID. Thank you, DOGE. You know, I mean, it seemed like Rubio did not want to be perceived as in an antagonistic place to Elon Musk, despite the fact that he's the Secretary of State.
Kate Conger
00:08:56
Right. Yeah. And I think there is a lot of uncertainty right now between Musk and the cabinet members about who is in charge. And we saw this with these emails going out that Musk sent, asking people to list five bullet points of things they accomplished during the week, and then some of the cabinet members pushing back and saying, my agency reports to me, they don't report to Elon Musk. They're going to tell me what they did this week, but you don't have to tell him. And so I think there is a little bit of tension there, and people are kind of trying to figure out where their power stops and where Musk's begins.
David Chalian
00:09:30
We're going to take a quick break. We're going to have a lot more with Kate Conger in just a moment.
David Chalian
00:09:47
Welcome back. We're here with New York Times reporter Kate Conger talking about all things Elon Musk, which has just got to be one of the most fascinating beats for a reporter to be on. I do wonder what you and how you approach in your reporting and thinking — it's not as if Elon Musk is a disinterested party to the United States government. I mean, his private companies get a lot of contracts from the United States government. Is there anything in your reporting or your research into him that would indicate that while he's doing this government assignment, he is very much keeping in mind how the work is benefiting perhaps his companies?
Kate Conger
00:10:27
Definitely. I think that that is very much front and center. And, you know, we saw recently him and Trump going onto the lawn at the White House and doing basically a commercial for Tesla. There are so many conflicts like that. And I personally see it actually a lot with X in the way he's tried to reshape that platform to basically be a pulpit for the administration. You know, he himself does a lot to promote Trump, obviously, but he's also set up all of these DOGE accounts on X: the main DOGE account itself and then all these individual agency accounts for DOGE updates and tips. And so he's really kind of fuzing the platform with the administration in really interesting ways and making it kind of, I don't know, a new media empire. And I think that that is an interesting conflict that's starting to emerge in addition to, I think, the more obvious ones, the federal contracts that he has with SpaceX and Starlink.
David Chalian
00:11:24
We have a brand new poll out this week from CNN that shows Musk is not wearing well with the American people broadly. He's at a 35% favorable rating with the American people, according to our newest poll. And that's largely driven by Republicans rallying around him. He's got like a 75% favorable rating with Republicans, but more than 6 in 10 of independents, 60% of independents, have an unfavorable view of Musk. I mean, he's — those are not numbers that anybody in public life would want to see. And you noted the sort of commercial on the south lawn for Tesla. His stock, obviously, in Tesla was taking a beating in large part, I think, to political opposition to some of the cuts he's been putting forth in his role in DOGE. And, clearly, Trump wanted to boost him. How much do you think Musk is consuming how his own personal brand is being affected by this assignment he's taking on? I mean, all of these guys are obviously very, you know, these are big egos, right? And like, he's a player as the richest man in the world on a very unique space and all of that. But, you know, if his stock goes down because of what he's doing, if his numbers are bad with the American people, will we see Musk change course or alter in any way from any of the history of him that you followed?
Kate Conger
00:12:46
'You know, I don't think so. I mean, he is someone who's so self-assured, and when he becomes uncertain, often what he'll do is run a poll on X and ask his followers, hey, should this be happening? Famously, we saw him do this at Twitter when he was still the CEO. He ran a poll saying, should I remain CEO? And his followers said no. And he said, okay, fine, I'm going to find another CEO and step out of the role. And he's done that recently, asking his followers, is DOGE doing a good job? Do you support what I'm doing? And I think when he runs those polls, it's a sign that he's feeling the pushback. But I think X has shifted so far to a platform that is for and about Elon Musk, that all of those polls now go in his favor. You know, he's not having people saying, hey, yeah, you should step down, and you probably shouldn't be CEO of the government. It's just people who are his fans who are voting in those, and he takes that as affirmation that he's doing a good job. I've never seen him pay attention to poll numbers before, but he did share some the other day that were again favorable to him. And I wonder if that's coming out of his connection with Trump and knowing that Trump is interested in poll numbers and so wanting to demonstrate interest in that and show that he has support.
David Chalian
00:14:00
What did you make of that image at CPAC, the Conservative Political Action Conference outside of Washington, D.C., a few weeks back, where he held up a chainsaw on the stage?
Elon Musk (clip)
00:14:11
This is the chainsaw for bureaucracy.
David Chalian
00:14:15
I mean, it's instantly become an image that Democrats are putting in their campaign ads already. But I'm just wondering if that was sort of classic Musk or not.
Kate Conger
00:14:24
'Yeah. So something that he's really into is recreating memes in real life. And we had this in some reporting recently where he had his desk set up in the Eisenhower Executive Building with a DOGE sign on it. When we published the photo, people were responding and pointing out to me that one of the periods is missing. So it's, you know, there's not a period after every letter in the DOGE acronym. And people are asking me, why is that? It's because he made that sign based on an AI-generated image, and the AI had left out a period. So he did it as well when he recreated it in real life. So he has this real penchant for trying to take memes and make them into reality. And I think that was a big part of what was going on at CPAC. You know, he kind of had this, this meme idea of himself as the government cost cutter. Obviously, he's taken a lot of inspiration from Milei, who's come up with the taking a chainsaw to government metaphor and gifted him the chainsaw onstage. And so, you know, he's kind of pulling on all of these online references to create his image and create these kind of viral moments that he knows are then going to go on X and go viral there.
David Chalian
00:15:33
'It has sounded to me in some of what Trump has described, you know, Musk is not anticipated to stay for the duration of the whole four-year term or not. Do you have a sense of how long Musk is in this for, and whether or not we have a sense of if he's enjoying it, this whole notion of government service and being a senior adviser to the president? Like, is this something that really appeals to him that maybe he wants to find other roles to continue to serve in this kind of public way?
Kate Conger
00:16:01
'Initially when he was debuting the idea for DOGE, he said he was going to do it for two years and be done. I have a hard time imagining him stepping away from it. He's just kind of an all-in personality, and he's clearly enjoying this a lot. You know, he's spent so much time in Washington, I think to the detriment of his companies, which are kind of suffering without his oversight.
David Chalian
00:16:26
Which, by the way, in a very lengthy pregnant pause in an interview on Fox recently, when asked about his companies, it seemed he — I read that as he completely affirms your assessment just there that it is not easy to continue to run his companies and do what he's doing in the government.
Kate Conger
00:16:43
I mean, I don't think it's easy to run five companies if that's your only job. And then you add running the government on top of that. I mean, things are going to slip through the cracks. They have to. But I think he is really enthralled with this and intoxicated by the power that it gives him. And I think it will be really hard for him to voluntarily step away from that.
David Chalian
00:17:05
Kate, thanks so much for your time. Really appreciate it.
Kate Conger
00:17:08
Thank you. This was really great.
David Chalian
00:17:11
That's it for this week's edition of the CNN Political Briefing. Remember, you can reach out to us with your questions about Trump's new administration. Our contact information is in the show notes. CNN Political Briefing is a production of CNN Audio. This episode was produced by Emily Williams. Our senior producer is Felicia Patinkin. Dan Dzula is our Technical Director, and Steve Lickteig is the Executive Producer of CNN audio support from Alex Manasseri, Robert Mathers, Jon Dianora, Leni Steinhardt, Jamus Andrest, Nichole Pesaru, and Lisa Namerow. We'll be back with a new episode next Friday. Thanks so much for listening.