Over the previous few months, Elon Musk has labored his manner again into the internal circle of Donald Trump — a circle he as soon as left over local weather change considerations, again in a distinct time. Now, regardless of Trump’s obvious private dislike of Musk, it appears the previous President has massive plans for the world’s richest man in a future administration: Setting Musk in command of huge cuts to authorities spending, totaling within the trillions of {dollars}.
Earlier this week, Trump got here out in favor of a fee to audit authorities spending, with the aim of offsetting trillions in tax cuts by merely spending trillions much less. The mathematics form of virtually works out, for those who don’t have a look at it too exhausting, however it could imply leaving Elon Musk in command of deciding which authorities applications keep and which go. From the Washington Post:
Trump’s advisers have mentioned the fee for months, and Musk has publicly expressed curiosity in it on X, the social media platform he owns. Trump, the Republican presidential nominee, formally expressed his help throughout a speech right here.
“This fee will develop an motion plan to completely eradicate fraud and improper funds inside six months,” Trump mentioned, including that the brand new fee would save “trillions of {dollars}.” Funds consultants have mentioned it’s attainable a fee might establish tens of billions or probably lots of of billions of {dollars} in authorities spending cuts however that it isn’t credible to think about the fee reducing trillions of {dollars} with out severely affecting federal providers.
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Now, the rising ties between Musk and Trump are set to be cemented by means of a governing physique that may in all probability put Musk on the heart of U.S. policymaking, if Trump wins a second time period. Regardless of potential conflicts of curiosity along with his sprawling enterprise empire, Musk would both chair or assist lead an impartial fee that may comb by means of hundreds of federal applications and formally advocate which of them to chop, in response to the plan lengthy mentioned by Trump and lots of of his high advisers. Cuts to authorities spending would in all probability want congressional approval, however cuts to authorities laws might usually be at the least tried by Trump unilaterally, ought to he win the 2024 election.
This may be a transfer that matches proper in Musk’s wheelhouse, after he bought Twitter and instantly reduce 80 p.c of the location’s workers. This has led to widespread technical issues on the location, a collection of outages, and a surge in hate speech because of cuts to content material moderation, in addition to the platform’s unilateral ban in Brazil. Customers have run from Twitter in droves following the modifications, however what occurs when these modifications are made to one thing that may’t be fled?
Musk’s basic plan to cost-cutting seems to be merely working fewer folks tougher, with out concern for burnout and even the essential performance of the service he’s having them make. The potential for this strategy being taken to the very operate of our authorities techniques — issues like roads — is harrowing to say the least. Our infrastructure is rubbish sufficient as it’s.
