Hey Elon, government isn’t X

Dan Cassino
Nov 7, 2024 | 20:34 IST

World’s richest man wants to cut trillions in US federal spending. Even backed by Trump, Musk will find that difficult, perhaps impossible. One reason: legislators are loath to kill govt departments

Columnist based in New Jersey

With President-elect Trump having promised a substantial role for entrepreneur Elon Musk in his administration as the head of a Government Efficiency Committee, Musk is about to find out how different govt is from the companies he runs.

As Truman said about his successor, General Dwight Eisenhower, “He’ll sit here, and he’ll say, ‘Do this! Do that!’ And nothing will happen…He’ll find it very frustrating.” Musk has promised to cut trillions in waste from the US budget, while furthering policies that would benefit his companies – and, in his view, humanity – but the biggest of these promises are likely to run into the same problems that Truman predicted Eisenhower would face.
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