Like so many other billionaire exponents of libertarianism, he has turned the government into a spectacular profit center. His company SpaceX relies on contracts with three-letter agencies and the Pentagon. It has subsumed some of NASA’s core functions. Tesla thrives on government tax credits for electric vehicles and subsidies for its network of charging stations. By Politico’s tabulation, both companies have won $15 billion in federal contracts. But that’s just his business plan in beta form....I have no doubt that Musk would like to award himself massive contracts to do things the government is doing now. I'm sure Trump would back him, and I'm sure the federal courts would allow this to happen.
Trump has already announced that he will place him in charge of a government-efficiency commission. Or, in the Trumpian vernacular, Musk will be the “secretary of cost-cutting.” SpaceX is the implied template: Musk will advocate for privatizing the government, outsourcing the affairs of state to nimble entrepreneurs and adroit technologists. That means there will be even more opportunities for his companies to score gargantuan contracts.
But would Musk want Musk-led companies to do everything the government does now? If there's anyone delusional enough to think that could be possible, it's Musk, but I don't really believe he wants to oversee national parks or generate labor statistics. I think he'd try to capture the parts of the government that could make him the most money (and get him the most publicity) and simply decide that the boring stuff doesn't need to be done at all. He'd do what he did at Twitter: announce a jaw-dropping reduction in the federal workforce (at Twitter, he said he cut 80% of the staff) and simply leave every most of the federal government (apart from the military) underfunded and understaffed. That's what a "secretary of cost-cutting" would be expected to do, right?
Musk is an attention addict. He wants to be loved and feared. His motives these days clearly aren't limited to making money. Proposing this would get him a lot of attention and make him seem like a fearless Randian destroyer of uniparty pieties about the size and role of government. He'd love that.
Trump would also be thrilled. Remember, he's been a Fox News addict since long before MAGA. From Fox he's imbibed the Reaganite dogma: government is always bad.
Of course, Musk might be propose cuts where the Project 2025 crowd might want to keep the head count the same and simply replace the old workers with zealot loyalists. I think we could have dueling crackpots with dueling agendas.
I don't buy the stories about Trump's attempts to distance himself from Project 2025 -- I certainly don't believe the recent Politico story claiming that people linked to Project 2025 will be banned from working in a Trump White House -- but I don't think Trump particularly cares about the Project 2025 agenda one way or another, except for the parts that are personally beneficial to him. If he wins, I think the 2025ers will be one faction of extremists in his White House who'll be competing for his attention. I know there's a widespread belief that he'll be too impaired to be a full participant in his own administration if he wins, but even in weakened form, I think he'll demand deference. Anyone who's dealt with people in their declining years knows that they can be very demanding as they decline. That's what I expect from Trump if he's president again.
In a second Trump White House, the dueling power centers won't be the Establishment right vs. the right-wing crazies. It'll be multiple varieties of right-wing crazies competing with one another. The rest of us will be rooting for injuries.
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