Elon Musk has an uncanny ability to sort out which of America’s rules are real. It turns out punishment from the National Labor Relations Board isn’t real, punishment from NASA isn’t real, and punishment from the FAA isn’t real. The Delaware Chancery Court is extremely real. Based on the past two weeks, the Delaware Chancery Court may be the only real thing in the entire American government.
Here’s a quick recap. While putative President Donald Trump was busy alienating allies through tariffs and wasting water in California — real mad king hours — Musk pushed out the head of the FAA. Then the reports came fast and thick: Federal employees received a “fork in the road” email highly reminiscent of Musk’s Twitter ultimatum, encouraging them to resign, sent from an insecure server. A bunch of goons, some of them actual teenagers, reportedly got access to the US Treasury systems. (Read-only, reportedly, for now.) Longtime civil servants were locked out of the personnel systems that, by the way, house the personal data for government employees. Musk’s lackeys are in control of the Office of Personnel Management and the General Services Administration. They’ve gotten ahold of classified information, and are now shutting down the US Agency for International Development (USAID). Musk said he “spent the weekend feeding USAID into the wood chipper.”
Did I get everything? Probably not. For instance, Musk has made statements that he “deleted” a department, for instance, but since he’s a known liar, that may not be true. Between whatever Musk is posting about on X, the pace at which events are occurring, and the general confusion among government employees, giving a full summation of events is impossible. Perhaps between the time this is published and you read it, there will be more bullshit.
The clear goal here amounts to a coup over the administrative state
Still, based on the events that have transpired so far, it seems the clear goal here amounts to a coup over the administrative state. My editor reminds me that many of you were not paying attention in civics class and so: our government’s famed checks and balances system relies on Congress controlling spending. Musk’s job was originally framed as making recommendations for programs that Congress could cut.
The present Trump administration, which also did not pay attention in civics class, either doesn’t know or doesn’t care about checks and balances. First, it tried to freeze spending with a legal pronouncement. That was quickly halted by several courts. Then Musk decided to bust into the bureaucracy and start ripping out wires — a technical solution to a legal problem.
If I wanted to destroy democracy in the US, I’m not sure what I would do differently.
Does that sound like liberal hysteria? Okay, here’s Brian Riedl, an economist who works for the conservative Manhattan Institute, and before that, the Heritage Foundation and Republican Senator Rob Portman: “I see a lot of people want to throw out 230 years of constitutional government and replace it with an authoritarian dictator because they have big feelings about the budget and can’t be bothered to work through Congress.”
Musk’s chaos is compounding other crises
At Musk’s functional companies — SpaceX and to some degree, Tesla — he’s put in a playpen where he can’t damage the real work. At Twitter, we saw what happened when there was no padding between him and the company: he began switching things off at random, firing engineers willy-nilly (and then trying to rehire them), and turning its revenue into a giant bonfire. Now Musk has brought this strategy to the federal government.
The most immediate consequences have been borne by USAID, whose programs include George W. Bush’s effort to care for HIV patients in Africa — one that is reputed to have saved 20 million lives so far. The building housing USAID has been shuttered. An email explaining the move attributed it to “agency leadership,” and replies to the email “should be directed to an email address that appears to be associated with Gavin Kliger, whose LinkedIn profile identifies him as a special adviser to the director of the Office of Personnel Management and who works for DOGE,” according to The Wall Street Journal.
And Musk’s chaos is compounding other crises. Take the two plane crashes in major cities last week — one in DC and one in Philadelphia. Days earlier, Musk had pushed out the head of the FAA, who had fined SpaceX for not getting its launch changes approved. The vast majority of air traffic control facilities are understaffed, so it does seem weird that just days before the first crash, those who were on staff had been offered buyouts. After the second crash, a note went out saying air traffic controllers were exempt from a hiring freeze that took place after Trump took office.
Consider again the Twitter playbook — because this is just the beginning. Let’s say Musk gets direct access to treasury payments, which seems very likely to be his aim. Will he stop paying bills, as he did with Twitter’s leases? Might be fun to discover what the military does when they don’t get their paychecks, or how many grandparents get evicted when the Social Security checks don’t go out. How many of Musk’s unsecured servers do you think foreign spies have penetrated already? All of them, maybe?
The real question is: who will stop him?
As for the Treasury stuff — well, if I were a government contractor that wasn’t SpaceX, I’d be nervous. I mean, if you upset Musk, do you think he’s going to pay out your contracts on time?
Does Musk have the authority to do this? Doesn’t matter. As we know from previous Musk experience, the real question is: who will stop him? So far the answer appears to be no one. The CIA, FBI, and NSA appear to be doing nothing. The US attorney’s office in DC is threatening individuals and groups who “appear to violate the law in targeting DOGE employees.” The Democratic party is making strongly worded statements and issuing letters of concern.
The stiffest resistance Musk is getting to his unconstitutional romp through the inner workings of the American government is from the workers themselves — both through union lawsuits and through a simple refusal to do as he asks. Some workers are also suing over the insecure server for the “fork in the road” email. Two unions, the AFL-CIO and the SEIU, are suing the Treasury and Scott Bessent “to halt Defendants’ unlawful ongoing, systematic, and continuous disclosure of personal and financial information contained in Defendants’ records to Elon Musk.”
We are all supposed to pretend this is happening in the name of efficiency and cost-savings, and not as a way for Musk to pursue his shitty personal feuds. How posting to X at all hours of the day is efficient is a question I’m not sure anyone can answer, but then, it’s kind of one of the more minor questions in this scenario. And when I say “this scenario,” I mean that Elon Musk is going to do whatever he wants, and post through it, and threaten anyone who tries to stop him with, apparently, a US attorney.
“Regulations, basically, should be default gone.”
Donald Trump, Musk’s wholly owned puppet, has said Musk won’t do anything without his approval. Sure. Okay. I don’t see what difference that makes. We all remember “executive time,” don’t we? This man only wants to golf and watch TV.
But don’t worry, there’s to be a new sovereign wealth fund, which seems like a wonderful place for Musk and his Silicon Valley friends to siphon off government money, money that is no longer being used for wasteful purposes like Meals on Wheels or the Head Start program. And Musk’s failing X could be propped up by making it the official source of government communications. Oh, and “regulations, basically, should be default gone,” Musk said on a midnight rant on X. In this environment, The Onion’s headline “Elon Musk Offers Self $10 Billion Federal Buyout” reads more like a prediction than satire.
What’s good for Musk isn’t good for the rest of us. His factories are famously unsafe places to work. After he bought Twitter, he drove out security professionals — making the platform more vulnerable to fraud. SpaceX has been busily polluting Texas. Throughout the years he’s been very clear: he’s going to do whatever he wants, whatever the consequences.
Now he’s bringing that sensibility to the federal government. As long as Musk doesn’t have the power to stop payments, he hasn’t completely succeeded. About 90-odd years after the original Business Plot — to overthrow President Franklin Roosevelt and install a dictator — Musk appears to be quite close to finishing the job. So here’s the question: are there any real rules in America, at all?
