Elon Musk is campaigning for former President Donald Trump and making a lot of big claims. But his track record in business makes me wonder if he can deliver.
Musk and Trump have talked about giving the CEOs of Tesla and SpaceX a place in the government if Trump wins the election.
Musk and Trump haven’t said much about the job, but Musk has joked that he might be in charge of a Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, which is the name of his favorite meme and cryptocurrency.
Trump said last week on Fox News that Musk could be the “Secretary of Cost-Cutting,” which is another title for a government position that doesn’t exist yet.
Musk has said on the campaign trail and in an August X interview with Trump that if he were to lead some kind of task force, he would suggest big cuts to useless spending that doesn’t help Americans. He might use AI to figure out where to cut.
He has also said that he would push for a huge reduction in government rules, which is something he has long been unhappy about. Musk has promised to be gentle, giving generous retirement packages to government workers who are fired while also proposing a system that would threaten to fire employees who are wasteful.
All of those are things Musk has done or said he would do at his businesses. His track record isn’t great. Musk did not answer when asked for a response.
Steep cuts
In his August chat with Musk and in public talks about Musk’s possible role in the government, Trump praised the CEO for being very tough on layoffs. It was in August that the UAW autoworkers union brought charges against the two after Trump called Musk a “cutter” and said he would fire autoworkers who were on strike.
Trump said in September that Musk would bring up “drastic reforms” as part of his plans for Musk’s possible role.
Musk said in a Pittsburgh town hall meeting on Sunday that big cuts to government spending would have to be made if he were to help the government: Musk said, “The first thing you need to do is spend a lot less of it.” “Let’s begin over.”
But Musk’s businesses haven’t always done well with changes.
Musk has fired a lot of people at X, letting go of about 80% of the company’s staff. That has made the product buggy and unstable, as shown by the terrible tech problems he had when meeting Trump and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis in 2023 and 2024, respectively. Musk has also got rid of X’s trust and safety teams, which has made hate speech and spreading false information worse and caused advertisers to leave the platform.
Fidelity says that X is worth 80% less than what Musk paid for it in October 2022.
Rolling back regulations
Government rules have been bothering Musk for a long time. He has shouted against what he calls “red tape” and “unnecessary bureaucracy.”
That’s something that business leaders have said before. What makes Musk’s way of skirting or bending the rules different is that it has sometimes led to terrible effects.
Musk has worked hard at Tesla to implement “full self-driving” technology, even though there have been several crashes and the government has warned and is investigating.
Tesla has recalled some of its technology more than once, but the company has said that its automatic driver software saves lives and that any problems will be fixed later.
Friday, America’s top safety regulator said that Tesla would be the subject of yet another probe. This comes after a fatal accident in which a Tesla fully self-driving car hit a pedestrian.
The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration said last year that the technology has “led to an unreasonable risk to motor vehicle safety based on inadequate adherence to traffic safety laws.” It also said that FSD might break the law at some intersections “before some drivers may intervene.”
And SpaceX’s attempts to get around rules set by the California government have made people very angry and led to lawsuits in a Texas town where the company set up shop to launch and test its huge rockets.
People are complaining about things like theft, broken windows, and big piles of trash. Musk moved a lot of SpaceX’s business from California to Texas because there were too many rules there. As of last week, the business also sued a California official.
Taking care of laid-off employees
The Wall Street Journal, which went to a number of Musk’s Trump events, said that he suggested giving fired government workers two years’ pay. Musk said on Friday, “The point is not to be mean or make people unable to pay their mortgage.”
But Musk at X was sued several times for not keeping his promise to respect the severance packages of people who were fired. This included the former CEO and other top executives, who were cheated out of hundreds of millions of dollars.
Before Musk bought Twitter (now X) in 2022, the company had a layoff plan that said workers who stayed on after the purchase but were then fired would get up to six months of pay plus one week of pay for every year they worked for the company. But the cases against Musk and the company say that the company turned down that payment.
Early this year, Musk won one of these lawsuits, but others are still going on.