“The great Elon Musk” He is going to head a ministry, but in a lie. Trump has entrusted him with the “Department of Government Efficiency”, which has the same title that is given to a ministry in the US, but is not a real ministry because then Musk would have to go through a thorough FBI investigation and get away from his business, which he is not going to do. The new department Trump clarifieswill be dedicated to “giving advice and guiding from outside the Government.” No real power, but as much influence as Trump wants to grant him.
Musk is excited with its mission to “dismantle bureaucracy, end excessive regulations and waste” and has promised 2 billion in cuts. The millionaire should know something about these topics, since a good part of their business lives off public moneybut just in case he is accompanied in the new ministry by fellow businessman Vivek Ramaswamy. The ‘Indian Trump’, who “confronted” the president in the Republican primaries and proposed firing three out of four public employees.
It is difficult to know whether Trump has given these two millionaires a chainsaw or a mere nail clipper, since the new department will only make recommendations. One cannot trust the president-elect’s austerity promises either, because he already made them in his first term and ended up taking the deficit to historical limits. What is clear is that there is a public relations operation underway, starting with the acronym of the new department in English: DOGE, the name of Musk’s favorite cryptocurrency.
Can Trump and Musk remain friends?
Trump and Musk’s relationship is now in full honeymoon: Elon has put his fortune and his X at the service of the Trump campaign and Trump has distinguished him with his attention, even putting him on the phone in his first post-election meeting with the Ukrainian president. Gone are the times when the former president said that Musk was an “artist of lies” and the richest man in the world I invited him to leave politics. But in Trump’s story there are no eternal loves.
The president-elect does not like anything or anyone to dispute his prominence and the inevitable comments about If Trump is “the puppet” from another man who is also richer than him. That could be the direct path to an explosive and public distancing, which would not be the first time. Or maybe not. Perhaps Elon Musk will know how to play the Trump game better than previous players because it is played more than anyone else.
Elon’s ego probably doesn’t need to run DOGE, but he sure appreciates the joke of his acronym for what it’s worth. Perhaps he also doesn’t care if the recommendations of his fake ministry are taken into account or not, but surely there are other things that Musk does need from Trump. Tariffs on Chinese electric cars that compete with Tesla and more large public contracts for SpaceX and Starlink, without going any further. And also that the new president intimidates the European Commission so that it does not apply to X the laws on hate speech and disinformation, such as has already made it clear who is going to be his vice president.
With two figures so unpredictable and so delighted to have met, you never know, but right now their interests align quite well. And they go far beyond conservative mantras about government efficiency and how angry Trump’s enemies are at seeing the richest man in the world even closer to power.
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