South African billionaire Elon Musk may end up serving as a cabinet-level hatchet man for President Donald Trump should the Republican win in November.
In their
70-minute conversation on X Spaces last week, Musk raised the possibility of working under a future Trump administration on a novel committee tasked with eliminating inefficiencies and waste. On Monday, Trump spoke further to the possibility of having Musk on his team.
Shortly after
explaining why Trump's "inspiring" reaction to being shot on July 13 was part of what prompted him to explicitly endorse the Republican, Musk broached the subject of maximizing government efficiency.
"Inflation is caused by government overspending," said Musk. "Would you agree that we need to take a look at government spending and have, perhaps, a government efficiency commission that just ... tries to make the spending sensible and so that the country lives within its means?"
"The waste is incredible and nobody negotiates prices," said Trump.
'The Matrix will fight back.'
The former president shared the story of how upon first taking office, he was presented with an outrageously expensive deal from Boeing to modify two 737 jumbo jets to serve as Air Force One.
Upon learning the terms of the deal were allegedly based on a prior understanding had with elements of the former Obama administration, Trump indicated he told Boeing to pound sand. Ultimately, the company agreed to more favorable terms, only later
confirming that it ate over $1.1 billion in costs related to the deal.
"I shaved [the price] by $1.6 billion for the exact same plane," continued Trump. "You can now take that and multiply that out times thousands of other items and the numbers are astronomical."
Musk stressed that there should be a government efficiency commission "that takes a look at these things and just ensures that the taxpayer money — that taxpayers' hard-earned money — is spent in a good way. And I'd be happy to help out on such a commission."
Musk
previously shared with Lex Fridman his aspirations of manning a government-shrinking committee in Washington, D.C., but noted doing so would be no picnic.
"The antibody reaction would be very strong. You're attacking the Matrix at that point. The Matrix will fight back," said Musk.
The "Matrix," which some may alternatively refer to as the administrative state,
has already taken steps to hinder a future Trump administration from maximizing efficiency in government.
Trump — who expressed admiration for
Argentine President Javier Milei's apparent success taking a "chainsaw" both to his predecessors' failed leftist policies and to bureaucratic overgrowth — sounded amenable to Musk's idea of a waste-cutting commission, noting the X CEO has demonstrated himself a capable "cutter."
"I look at what you do — you walk in, you just say 'You want to quit?' They go on strike — I won't mention the name of the company — but they go on strike and you say, 'That's okay, you're all gone."
Months after taking over Twitter, Musk
confirmed in a 2023 interview with the BBC that he had fired over 80% of the workforce.
"This is not a caring [or] uncaring situation," Musk said at the time. "If the whole ship sinks, then nobody's got a job."
Trump may have, however, been referring to Tesla's
termination of at least 18 employees last year, which the New York Times alleged was in response to a union organizing campaign at a plant in Buffalo. The company alternatively indicated that the firings were the result of a semi-annual performance review and planned prior to the publication of the union campaign.
When pressed Monday about whether he would consider naming Musk to an advisory role or a cabinet-level position, Trump
told Reuters, "He's a very smart guy. I certainly would, if he would do it, I certainly would. He's a brilliant guy."
Musk subsequently took to X to emphasize, "I am willing to serve."
The image accompanying his post shows Musk behind a podium emblazoned with the proposed title, "Department Of Government Efficiency," along with its acronym, which users recognized alluded to another meme: "Doge," the shiba inu dog immortalized in the cryptocurrency Dogecoin.
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