Donald Trump and Elon Musk are the US government’s merchants of chaos, sowing disruption, discord and sometimes even disgust wherever they intrude – from taking the axe to the federal workforce to upending the Atlantic Alliance between America and Europe.
There’s something to be said for their approach.
Previous conventional attempts to cut the 3 million-strong federal bureaucracy have yielded very little. When it’s pruned, like Topsy it just grows back again.
Even the great Ronald Reagan, a passionate believer in smaller government, struggled to make much headway.
Nor, almost 80 years after it was founded out of the ashes of World War Two, can the NATO alliance count on business as usual. America is rightly fed up doing all the heavy lifting for Europe’s defense (especially now it has China to contend with too) and it’s long overdue for Europe to do more – much more. Gentle nudging hasn’t worked. Time for Uncle Sam to yield the big stick.
So, the Trump-Musk Axis, currently calling all the shots, has waded into federal government and European affairs with hobnailed boots, trodding hard on all before it, taking no prisoners in the process.
It’s great fun to watch and there’s a special delight in seeing who it upsets the most, from Washington’s jumped-up jobsworths to Europe’s self-important panjandrums.
If these folks are angry, then Trump and Musk must be doing something right.
Donald Trump and Elon Musk are the US government’s merchants of chaos, sowing disruption, discord and sometimes even disgust wherever they intrude – from taking the axe to the federal workforce to upending the Atlantic Alliance between America and Europe.
The Trump-Musk Axis, currently calling all the shots, has waded into federal government and European affairs with hobnailed boots, trodding hard on all before it, taking no prisoners in the process. (Pictured: Musk holding a chainsaw at a conference in February).
Then there’s the anguish of the Democrats. They largely created the massive modern federal state and are its main beneficiaries, since nearly everybody who works for the government seems to vote Democrat.
It’s become a massive job creation scheme for the white-collar liberal-left, paid for by everybody else. Musk is taking chunks out of its fiefdom, which is why he’s become its public enemy number one.
But bread and circuses are all very well. There comes a time when the public grows exhausted by the relentless rows and controversies, entertaining as the Trump-Musk vaudeville act is.
Voters want to see some real progress, not just sound and fury, and perhaps a little less chaos and a little more calm. The current pace is all too exhausting.
For all his determination to be the radical disrupter, the jury is still out on whether Musk will actually deliver a slimmed down government as promised.
There have been some symbolic wins (exposing the expensive self-serving mess that is international aid) and even some real progress (job cuts at various bloated bureaucracies and ending the farce of working from home). But as much seems to be going wrong as going right.
Thousands of federal employees have been laid off and tens of thousands have applied for a buyout. So, some progress is being made. But Musk’s DOGE (Department of Government Efficiency) has started to make all manner of bold claims about the multi-billion-dollar savings already achieved – and not all of them withstand scrutiny.
So much so that DOGE has deleted all five of the biggest ‘savings’ on its online ‘wall of receipts’. Yet it raised the total costs it claims to have saved so far to $65 billion – a $10 billion increase from Friday – with no explanation of how it arrived at that total. It is a very Trumpian approach to figures.
Musk’s Saturday night email asking all federal employees to detail what they did at work last week was probably just performative, designed to tweak the tails of those already irritated by his approach.
But it has proved to be less than useless. Turns out you won’t be fired – as was threatened – if you don’t reply. It’s not even clear that all replies will be read. And it has irritated cabinet members and agency heads who rightly reckon it’s their job to do the hiring and firing.
For the moment Trump and Musk remain united in their effort to root out waste and fraud. Musk was paraded before the cabinet by Trump on Wednesday where he said he’s looking to save $1 trillion of a federal budget of over $6 trillion. There’s a very long way to go, for all the fire and brimstone.
Trump is urging him to be even more radical – though it’s noticeable that the president is not getting his own hands dirty. Should Musk fail to deliver or screw up big time — both distinct possibilities — we can be sure Trump will junk him as quickly as he hired him.
‘Truth is we don’t really know how this [the Trump-Musk bromance] will end,’ one senior Republican close to Trump said to me. ‘But no room is big enough to contain these two egos for long — and the chances are it will end in tears.’
That is not imminent, for Trump has an insurgency of his own to pursue. Just as Musk was doing his ‘bull in a china shop’ rampage in America, Trump was crashing through several china shops of his own on the other side of the Atlantic.
That Europe must do much more in its own defense is now uncontested, even among reluctant Europeans. That the Ukraine war is now in stalemate, giving both sides an incentive to search for peace, is both realistic and humane. But Trump is going far beyond these positions.
And as he contemplates a US retreat from Europe, the continent is having to contemplate a NATO with almost no US participation at all. Europe has come to the stark realization that America is far from the ally it was.
Trump seems keener to placate President Putin than stand shoulder to shoulder with America’s European allies. He’s given the store away to the Kremlin before negotiations have even begun.
Trump seems keener to placate President Putin than stand shoulder to shoulder with America’s European allies. He’s given the store away to the Kremlin before negotiations have even begun.
He calls the democratically elected president of Ukraine a ‘dictator’ while having not a word of criticism for the real dictator who invaded it. This week, in a jaw-dropping development, America voted with Russia, Belarus and North Korea against a UN motion condemning Russian aggression in Ukraine, which all America’s NATO allies supported. Brave, new, scary world indeed.
It is all very destabilizing, which is why markets are edgy. US consumer confidence is dropping as uncertainty causes people to save rather than spend. Home sales fell 5 percent last month. The huge service sector is weak.
Trump’s poll numbers are softening and Republican congressmen are getting a tough time at town hall meetings with constituents worried that Musk’s axe is poised over the likes of Medicaid. He has already caused some outrage on the right by sacking veterans at the Pentagon. Even Fox News baulked at that.
If inflation starts rising again, public anxiety about the economy will take off. The jobs market is already shaky.
Trump will proceed with 25 percent tariffs against Mexico and Canada, threatening carnage in the auto industry. Europe looks like being next. It is all a dampener on the global economy which will impact America.
Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway doubled its holding of cash and bonds to $334 billion last year in anticipation of rockier times to come. An increasing number of investors think it is time to batten down the hatches.
But the Trump-Musk Axis rolls gaily (or grimly) on, challenging conventional wisdom as it goes.
Permanent revolution is the modus operandi, much as it was for Mao’s Red Guards, of whom Musk’s young geeks rampaging through government are the modern American equivalent. As for Chairman Mao, so for President Trump and Fanboy Musk, permanent havoc has become the chosen style of government.
For the moment Trump and Musk are united in this unprecedented common endeavor, at home and abroad. It was not always that way.
After their first meeting, five years ago, Musk reportedly referred to Trump as a ‘f***ing moron.’ Trump is said to have more recently used the F-word to describe Musk.
Instability and uncertainty are the order of the day even when they are united. But if and when they fall out, it could be even worse: America and the world should prepare to be awash in a Krakatoa of disruption.
