The Social World

Tag: Tesla

  • Why you need Big Balls

    Why you need Big Balls

    Big nicknames come with big responsibilities. And the owner of one of the mightiest monikers – Big Balls – feels the weight of his own obligations keenly.

    In a rare interview, Edward Coristine spoke about how his family fled to America from Russia after his grandfather was executed for spying for the US. Valery Martynov was a KGB officer who was recruited by the FBI in the early 1980s. He passed Soviet secrets to his American handlers until he was exposed by Aldrich Ames and Robert Hanssen, two of the most notorious traitors in US history. 

    Recalled to Moscow under false pretenses, Martynov was arrested and executed in 1987. His widow and children eventually sought refuge in America.

    Coristine, now Big Balls, says he was inspired by the same patriotic call to action as his grandfather, who “died so that I could come here and live in this free country.”

    “I feel this great responsibility to serve my country,” Coristine added. For him, his role at DOGE (the Department of Government Efficiency), where both he and his nickname came to public prominence, was a way to repay the country that took his family in.

    “When I started seeing these problems that we’ve got as a government, this $37 trillion national debt and counting… I was like ‘This is insane, is there any way I can help solve this?’”

    Coristine, still only 19-years-old, has already lived several lives. Elon Musk’s presence has been unmistakable in his early years. Briefly, he interned at Neuralink – Musk’s brain-implant company – and launched his own LLC called TESLA.SEXY that dabbled in web domains and AI bots. 

    As the teenage tech prodigy mastered the tech world, Musk juggled a half-dozen projects that were not enough to satisfy him. His Ayn Randian revulsion to public spending led him to the one institution inept enough to merit his time: the federal government. And with his pal Donald Trump headed back to the White House, his DOGE meme dream was set to become reality.

    DOGE featured a team of young, brilliant tech geeks. Coristine was singled out by Musk himself for a job in the big leagues – and nothing in his world was the same again.

    The media seized on him early. Journalists scoured his online trail and discovered TESLA.SEXY, mocking its Russian-registered domains as proof of malintent. They dug into his Neuralink internship, highlighting that he was fired after allegedly leaking internal documents. Coristine denies these accusations. 

    When they discovered he had, for a joke, once called himself Big Balls on his LinkedIn profile, they sensed blood. They published profiles that called him a “concerning” addition to Musk’s team who potentially posed a national security threat. For them, Big Balls was an easy foil: young, reckless, inexperienced, a symbol of what they saw as Musk’s arrogance in reshaping government with MAGA youth.

    Still a teenager, Big Balls held a senior advisory role in DOGE, where he gained direct access to federal systems like the General Services Administration and the National Finance Center, and served as a senior adviser to the Departments of State and Homeland Security. He pushed career bureaucrats to justify their jobs, oversaw plans to close smaller agency offices, and supported the rollout of AI tools to replace clerical work.

    He racked up more accomplishments than career staffers twice his age, apparently, all before being old enough to buy a beer after work.

    Then came the night that made him a martyr.

    It happened during the dim hours of August 3rd in Logan Circle – one of Washington’s busier neighborhoods. 

    According to police, ten young punks closed in on Coristine’s car, surrounding it like a pack of wolves. Coristine got his girlfriend into the car to protect her. He then turned to face the attackers head on, who descended on him in a flurry of blows. Officers on patrol caught the chaos as it unfolded, managing to stop two suspects while the rest vanished into the streets. 

    He was left battered and bloodied, but still standing. Big Balls had earned his nickname.

    News of the attack traveled quickly – and ignited an unprecedented federal response. Within days, President Donald Trump announced that federal forces would be deployed to Washington to address rising crime. His critics decried the move as authoritarian. Supporters called it overdue. Either way, Big Balls’ bravery was the catalyst for the nationalization of DC’s police force and the swarm of National Guard troops now patrolling the nation’s capital. 

    The city went nearly two weeks without a single reported homicide, and over 1,000 criminals have since been arrested. 

    For Big Balls’ critics, diminishing him has been easier than grappling with what he represents. He, like many others, walked out of the US Government when Elon Musk left DOGE. Love him or hate him, Musk has revolutionized modern technology and is idolized by the next generation’s innovators. His ambitious, and often controversial, expedition into government auditing hit a nerve with the elite who rely on a tsunami of taxpayer funds to keep their cups overflowing. 

    As for Big Balls, the name remains, and perhaps that is fitting. He now lives larger than life in the MAGA memory – the kindle which sparked a military mobilization to restore order in the nation’s capital.

  • Larry Ellison briefly eclipses Elon Musk

    Larry Ellison briefly eclipses Elon Musk

    Something happened in the news yesterday that was so monumental, it may change the course of American history forever. I’m talking, of course, about the fact that, very briefly, Oracle’s Larry Ellison overtook Elon Musk to become the World’s Richest Man. Larry Ellison life goal, unlocked.

    After Oracle’s earnings report yesterday, the stock shot through the roof, and Ellison owns 40 percent of the company. That must have been some earnings report! On the earnings call, Ellison said that his Oracle AI chatbots, run from his Oracle computing centers, are on the verge of being able to run the stock market, design drugs, fully operate factories and provide basic legal and sales services at companies. Foolish humans, you are an inconvenience. “AI changes everything,” Ellison said on the call.

    We must use this moment to contemplate what AI is doing to our society, and to our souls. To which we must answer: It is making them awesome, and making us all rich. As I reported here last week, I soon stand to bring in a five-figure windfall because a company forgot to ask me for permission to use my precious novels to train its AI writing software. Whoops, their bad, but my gain. Ellison, who, to be fair is 81 and has been waiting patiently for his turn atop the pyramid, is just like me, but $40 million times more so.

    Elon’s portfolio is more diversified, but still pretty AI heavy. Therefore, by the end of the day, Ellison’s surge ended, and Musk was back on top of the wealth ladder, $384.2 billion to $383.2 billion. This is very relatable to those of us for whom chiseling $10,000 off the top of anything is an almost unimaginable windfall. Musk wins again.

    What will the consequences of this be? I envision a world where everything is affordable, everything is convenient, and there’s nothing for ordinary humans to do all day except murder one another for their political beliefs. Oracle will upload our consciousnesses into a cloud, where they can also continue to murder one another over their political beliefs. Hell is other people, and also not other people.

    AP reports that with their net worth, Musk and Elllison could “tell all of South Africa to take a vacation for a year and produce nothing, based on its gross domestic product.” Very cute, AP. We’ve all heard what Musk wants South Africa to do, and that includes not murdering one another over political beliefs. But who does he think they are, the Amish?

    Grok, Elon’s personal AI assistant, says it matters who the world’s richest man is because it “often signals broader shifts in technology, markets, and power dynamics.” True enough, and then it adds:

    “Ultimately, it matters because the richest aren’t passive; they steer humanity’s direction. Musk’s Mars ambitions or Ellison’s AI bets could solve (or worsen) existential challenges. If nothing else, it reminds us: In 2025, tech titans aren’t just rich – they’re architects of tomorrow.”

    What are we all going to be doing tomorrow, thanks to the world’s richest men? Not a whole hell of a lot, by design. Thank you, Larry Ellison.


  • Elon Musk is in exile

    Elon Musk is in exile

    Elon Musk is in exile. He’s forgotten by friends, embattled by enemies. He now quietly (for him) goes about his business, fighting non-government battles after those strange few months he spent standing behind the President’s desk with his toddler son X, who punched Musk in the face while he was seemingly running the country.

    Musk’s fate is a case study in what happens when Donald Trump rolls up the red carpet. Trump operated his first term as President more like a season of The Apprentice and less like an administration. It was a revolving door of exile. Reality-show worthy characters like Omarosa Manigault Newman and Anthony Scaramucci came and went with drama that fell just short of an episode-ending boardroom ceremony.

    The second attempt has been more controlled and disciplined. Trump’s original cabinet is more or less intact eight months into the term. There has been a little fraying around the administration’s edges, with the sudden dismissals of IRS head Billy Long after two months and CDC head Susan Monarez after a few weeks, but considering the man in charge, it’s been pretty much business as usual, with no major exiles from his court.

    With one notable exception: Elon Musk. Musk’s brief turn as shadow co-President already seems a distant history. But it filled our lives with intrigue. Who can forget his “Nazi salute” the day before Trump’s inauguration, accompanied by the very un-Nazi-like utterance “my heart goes out to you”? That induced a moral panic unlike any other we’ve seen in our time. Then in February, wearing sunglasses and a black baseball cap bearing the “Make America Great Again” slogan in gothic lettering, Musk waved the “chainsaw for bureaucracy” on stage, causing millions of angry liberals to soil their adult diapers.

    Musk has learned the hard way that America, like a Tesla robotaxi, can pretty much drive itself

    For months, the world’s richest man functioned as Trump’s useful idiot, his ketamine-huffing court jester, making showy noises about reducing the size of government through his newly formed Department of Government Efficiency (DoGE), introducing us to sub-jesters like “Big Balls,” sleeping on a cot in his makeshift DC headquarters, and causing USAID and State Department employees to weep into their potted plants on the way out the door. While Trump began enacting his aggressive second-term agenda, Musk drew much of the flak. Angry vandals and protesters set Teslas on fire and scratched swastikas into their doors. We didn’t elect this man, the people (some people) screamed. Get him away from our Social Security numbers!

    Then, weeks before the summer solstice, it was over. On Memorial Day weekend, Trump said a fond goodbye to Musk, who was wearing a black T-shirt that read “The DOGEFATHER,” in the Oval Office. Trump said that Musk had brought about a “colossal change in the old ways of doing business in Washington.” It was the “most sweeping and consequential government reform effort in generations.” Also, Trump added, Elon was “really not leaving.” “This will be his last day, but not really, because he will, always, be with us, helping all the way,” Trump posted on Truth Social. “Elon is terrific!”

    “DoGE is a way of life,” Musk told reporters. “Like Buddhism.”

    Immediately after, Musk veered off the eightfold path. He started criticizing Trump’s tariff policies and called the Great Big Beautiful Bill “a disgusting abomination.” In response, Trump threatened to sell the “everything is computer” Tesla that he’d purchased in a showy Rose Garden ceremony. He called Musk “the man who has lost his mind.” Musk, in response, said he was starting a third political party, the “America party,” and said that Trump was named in the Epstein Files.

    After a few brief détente tweets, the Musk administration was over, and the Musk Exile had begun. By July, the Wall Street Journal was reporting that Musk was “burning through executives.” Around the time that Musk’s Grok AI on X transformed itself into “MechaHitler,” Musk announced that Linda Yaccarino, the head of X, was leaving. “Thank you for your contributions,” Musk said, in a decidedly non-Trumpian way. Around the same time, Omead Afshar, head of sales and operations for Tesla North America, also left Musk’s orbit. In order to stabilize matters, Tesla’s board of directors offered Elon a $29 billion stock package to stay on at the company, and to stay focused, an amount of money that, even for Musk, had to reduce his attention deficit.

    As for the “America party,” it appears that will never get off the ground. The Wall Street Journal reported in late August that “Musk and his team haven’t engaged with many prominent individuals who have voiced support for the idea of a new party or could be a crucial resource to help it get off the ground, including by assisting with getting on the ballot in crucial states.” That doesn’t seem promising. “It’s almost an eerie silence,” said a previously hopeful Libertarian party official.

    Instead, rumors abound that Musk, who spent $300 million to help Trump get re-elected, including handing out random million-dollar checks to voters, is planning to throw his support behind J.D. Vance’s 2028 campaign. The world’s richest man, no longer allowed at Trump’s court, is back to courting favors with his checkbook again. Meanwhile, Trump has quietly not cut any of Musk’s government contracts, and Musk himself has been relatively silent in public. His X feed has been reduced to endless complaints about the world’s declining birthrate and wan retweets of “England has fallen” threads.

    The most manic episode in American history is over. Elon Musk has gone from shadow President to shadow-banned, but the “I bought this car before he went insane” bumper stickers remain on Teslas all around blue ZIP codes. It’s time for Elon to get back to colonizing Mars. He’s learned the hard way that America, like a Tesla robotaxi, can pretty much drive itself.

    This article was originally published in The Spectator’s September 15, 2025 World edition.

  • Trump should buy Hooters

    Trump should buy Hooters

    In the wake of the US government taking on a 10 percent equity stake in Intel, Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick is floating the idea of the government investing in defense companies like McDonnell Douglas. “If we are adding fundamental value to your business, I think it’s fair for Donald Trump to think about the American people,” he said.

    When this news broke last week, Kentucky Senator Rand Paul, the last true living conservative, told Politico, “If conservatives endorse this now, they hand Democrats a blueprint to expand government ownership over the private sector later. Socialism is literally government control of the means of production.” Sure Rand. While that idea might fly in your senior-year political science independent study seminar, this is Donald Trump’s America we’re talking about here. He is running the “HOTTEST” economy the world has ever seen. America has the best companies, but no one runs companies quite like Donald Trump. Here are some other companies where a US investment would be not only valuable, but vital.

    Disney

    Even Snoop Dogg is balking at Disney products these days, saying he’s “scared” to go to the movies with his grandchildren because there was a same-sex couple in Lightyear. Snoop’s right, that movie was terrible, and the lesbians worthless pandering. This isn’t America’s Disney that we grew up watching. We’ve had enough weird CGI dwarves and princesses of power. A US equity investment would ensure a return to Disney’s optimistic world of tomorrow and would also restore the original Disney from the adult-baby wokeism that has taken over the franchise. The Country Bears will sing the Song of the South once more, as the Trump administration awakens Disney with true love’s kiss.

    Cracker Barrel

    I think we can all agree by now that the Cracker Barrel revamp is a national embarrassment, turning a beloved roadside institution into something bland and generic. A Trump Administration equity stake is just what the restaurant chain needs. Let’s restore the rocking chairs on the porch, the buckets of stale candy and the shelves of wind-up raccoon toys. And let’s beef up the menu with literal extra beef, plus some Trump-branded items. Chicken and Trumplings, anyone?

    Meta

    Aren’t you tired of an unaccountable mega-corporation operating in secret, gathering intelligence on you even while you sleep, never having your best interests at heart while trying to rot your brain with propaganda slop? That’s the government’s job! The feds should take 10 percent of Meta so it can replace our tax revenue with slow-burn ad dollars from comedy videos about Gen X getting older and the difference between dating in the US and France. Welcome to the AI-narrated “A Day In The Life Of A Jack Russell Terrier” video economy.

    Tesla

    We know President Trump and Elon Musk have had their difficulties. No one’s missing the DoGE era. Well, we are, because it was fun to write about, but the country isn’t worse off without Elon grinding his chainsaw on stage every five minutes. But now that Musk is out of the national spotlight and back to running his 19 companies, his companies actually have value again. It’s definitely in the national interest for the government to control the transportation industry, the media, space travel, and Las Vegas underground train systems. Let’s just make sure Elon signs an NDA this time.

    Gold’s Gym

    Fitness is back. US schoolkids have to run a mile again, RFK Jr. is doing pull-ups in jeans, the Kennedy Center is honoring Sylvester Stallone and the UFC is going to stage a battle royale on the grounds of the White House. But if the Trump administration wants Americans to bulk up, it’s going to have to provide subsidized gym memberships. Exercise equipment for 400 million couch blobs is expensive. A 10 percent equity stake in any one of our fine national fitness chains would do the trick. And the TVs would no longer be tuned to the Fake News Media.

    Hooters

    Word broke this week that Neil Keifer, the man who’s trying to take over America’s run-down “breastaurant” chain in bankruptcy court, will revitalize the brand by bringing back hot pants and making it “delightfully tacky.” The Golden Age of Hooters is long behind us, but we also thought the Golden Age of America was behind us. So why not Hooters? It’s already bankrupt. A national investment would be inexpensive, with an easy return. President Trump could oversee the redesign himself. He knows a thing or two about Hooters. We want more sauce, shorter pants, and the most beautiful waitresses in the world. Hooters is for sale, America. Let’s grab it by proverbial.

  • History does not favor Musk’s new America party

    History does not favor Musk’s new America party

    The world’s richest man, Elon Musk, has announced that he intends to create a new third party called the America party. After his own poll on X showed that two out of three favored the venture, the outspoken billionaire has now put his money where his mouth is and taken the plunge to found and finance his new party.

    Although the 54-year-old owner of X, Tesla, SpaceX and other hi-tech enterprises has been a US citizen since 2002, because he was born in South Africa he cannot run for president himself. But he says he will fund the new party after spectacularly falling out with President Trump in May following Musk’s short stint as Trump’s DoGE czar with a brief to cut government waste, largely by firing federal employees.

    Musk hates Trump’s recently passed “big, beautiful bill” to cut taxes and spending, saying it will ruin business. And so the billionaire, with an ego almost as big as his wallet, now believes that Americans frustrated with both the Democrats and Trump’s Republicans are ready to support an entirely new party. History, however, does not favor his plan.

    There have been many third party launches since the Democrat versus Republican duopoly emerged in the 1850s just before the American civil war, but all have failed. The Republicans themselves were born then, originally as a progressive anti-slavery movement. They challenged the Democrats, then an agricultural party strong in the south, and after the north won the civil war, the Republican “Grand Old Party” dominated both the presidency and wider politics until the 20th century.

    A feud between conservative and liberal Republicans saw former Republican president Teddy Roosevelt launch his Progressive or “Bull Moose” party in 1912, which split the Republican vote and handed the presidency to Democrat Woodrow Wilson.

    On the other side of the aisle, increasing industrialization and class conflict between the world wars led to socialist Norman Thomas running for the White House six times – and failing every time. Instead, left-wing urban voters and ethnic minorities backed the statist high spending New Deal policies of Democrat Franklin D. Roosevelt – and sent him to the White House an unprecedented four times. By then, the Republicans had evolved into a right-wing party backing big business and free enterprise.

    An attempt by radicals to launch a left-wing Progressive party after World War Two failed, as did right-wing efforts to form an Independent party led by the racist southern Governor George Wallace in the 1960s. Like Norman Thomas, left-wing ecologist Ralph Nader repeatedly ran for the presidency on a “Green” ticket – and just as often failed.

    In the 1990s businessman Ross Perot tried to break the two-party system with a right-wing Libertarian party, but failed yet again. Trump did break the mould in 2016 when he captured the GOP with his own unique brand of patriotic nationalist rhetoric, but he was still working from within the two-party system.

    Partly in reaction to Trumpism, the Democrats have now moved sharply to the left. The party is predominantly woke and identifies with sexual and racial minorities (who don’t always return the favour). It also is mainly internationalist and anti-Israeli. Musk is hoping that with his own brand of radical right-wing politics, he will achieve the same kind of breakthrough that Trump managed, aided by his own command of social media, his large public profile and his almost limitless wealth.

    There is, though, precious little evidence that the attention-seeking tycoon commands the same levels of uncritical personal popularity and mass support that Trump can count on with his MAGA base, and history offers him little encouragement either.

  • The Trump-Elon bromance is over

    The Trump-Elon bromance is over

    The Elon-Trump bromance may have breathed its last today, with their relationship descending into a social-media flame war – on their respective apps, of course.

    The source of the discord is Musk’s opposition to the “Big, Beautiful Bill” presently being debated in the Senate, which, among other things, does not codify the cuts his Department of Government Efficiency had made since Trump’s inauguration. The bill also strips away Biden-era tax credits for consumers who purchase electric vehicles, which had been benefiting Musk’s firm Tesla.

    Musk took his grievances to his over 200 million X followers and, let’s face it, everyone else on the app too. On Tuesday Musk wrote, “I’m sorry, but I just can’t stand it anymore. This massive, outrageous, pork-filled Congressional spending bill is a disgusting abomination. Shame on those who voted for it: you know you did wrong. You know it.” This followed a CBS interview at the weekend in which Musk said, “I think a bill can be big or it can be beautiful, but I don’t know if it can be both.”

    In subsequent posts, Musk called for the firing of “all politicians who betrayed the American people,” reasoning the bill’s spending levels will lead to “debt slavery” for the American people.

    Trump responded to Musk’s BBB denouncement to reporters in the Oval Office Thursday, during a bilateral meeting with Germany’s Chancellor Friedrich Merz. “He’s worn the hat – ‘Trump was right about everything,’ and I am right about the great Big, Beautiful Bill,” the President said. He added that he and Elon “had” a great relationship, but explained that after the tirade, he’s not sure the friendship will continue.

    Trump then blasted Musk on Truth Social right after the bilateral meeting. “Elon was ‘wearing thin,’ I asked him to leave, I took away his EV Mandate that forced everyone to buy Electric Cars that nobody else wanted (that he knew for months I was going to do!), and he just went CRAZY!” the President wrote.

    He followed up with a solution for cutting more out of the spending bill: “to terminate Elon’s Governmental Subsidies and Contracts. I was always surprised that Biden didn’t do it!”

    Musk took a moment this afternoon to claim that Trump’s victory in November came largely because of his $288 million donation. “Without me, Trump would have lost the election, Dems would control the House and the Republicans would be 51-49 in the Senate,” he wrote. “Such ingratitude.” He also offered what was, in his own words, a “really big bomb.” Tagging the President, he wrote, “@realDonaldTrump is in the Epstein files. That is the real reason they have not been made public. Have a nice day, DJT!” Musk then quote-tweeted a post saying, “President vs Elon. Who wins? My money’s on Elon. Trump should be impeached and JD Vance should replace him.” “Yes,” wrote Musk.

    Ashley St. Clair, mother of Musk’s 14th and most recent child, posted Thursday afternoon, “hey @realDonaldTrump lmk if u need any breakup advice.”

    Several anti-BBB senators also found themselves pulled into the ring. On Wednesday, Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky refuted Trump’s praise of the bill for making the 2017 tax cuts permanent. “Unfortunately, that’s not the reality with this bill. It includes the largest increase of the debt ceiling ever and will have the United States borrowing $5T over the next 2 years. This bill is the opposite of conservative, and we should not pass it,” he wrote. Musk reposted Paul’s statement and wrote, “💯.”

    Musk only departed his unpaid, special government position at the Department of Government Efficiency on Friday, when all appeared to be well. Trump praised him as “one of the greatest business leaders and innovators the world has ever produced,” thanked him for his late-nights of service, for bearing the brunt of the anti-Elon movement and gave him a (fake) golden key to the White House. Karoline Leavitt and Margo Martin from the Trump press shop posed in the red Tesla Model S Elon had gifted the President. Back in February, Musk was posting things such as, “I love @realDonaldTrump as much as a straight man can love another man.” All that seems aeons ago now.

    It’s easy to get caught up in the high-drama maelstrom of posts between the bickering billionaires. But this week’s fallout could also result in a deeper fracture between the tech bros who went public with their Trump support last summer and the old MAGA loyalists who have been on the Trump train since 2015. How uncomfortable could time in Trumpworld become for the likes of crypto czar David Sacks, AI policy advisor Sriram Krishnan or influential DoGE advisor Marc Andreessen? For all of DoGE’s accounting efforts, the tech wing of MAGA coalition could find itself a victim of the LIFO Method: last in, first out. Unless a peace is brokered of course: “Broooos please noooooo 🫂 We love you both so much,” tweeted Kanye West just now. Perhaps an unlikely diplomat…

  • Why you should fear the post-DoGE right

    Why you should fear the post-DoGE right

    Elon Musk’s departure from Washington was celebrated by many in the media. In the space of just a few years they had transformed him from a “Yay Science!” rocket-building Tony Stark stand-in doing awkward cameos on Rick and Morty into a crazed inhuman boogeyman, whose cars must be keyed, firebombed or layered with bumper stickers saying, “I bought this before Elon was a Nazi.” (Before you say that’s an exaggeration, there’s literally a Tesla with that sticker in my neighborhood – you can buy them on Etsy.)

    The rapidity of Musk’s arrival, his whirlwind attempts to impose some kind of corporate fiscal responsibility on intransigent government, only to find himself sinking in the morass of bureaucratic backlash, depression and frustration amounts to what political observer John Ekdahl describes as a speed-run of Republicans’ failure pattern:

    Yet the same leftists who at this moment are celebrating Musk’s step away from politics – viewing it as a harsh lesson that “when you mess with one bureaucrat, you mess with all of us” – may come to regret the way they treated this moment in the future. DoGE’s mission was still fundamentally advisory in form, empowered only to the degree the White House wanted it to be, and pushback against its movements from members of Congress could actually have an impact. The media played up the approach as chaotic, which it looked like from inside and out, but it was also vulnerable to political and public pressure. When Elon’s group touched things that had defenders, backers on Capitol Hill or elsewhere could brush them back.

    What lesson will the right’s fiscal hawks take from DoGE’s limitations, then? Are they going to throw their hands in the air and just give up on cutting government spending? Will they stop caring about the gargantuan levels of waste and fraud Musk’s team identified just because without touching popular entitlements, it won’t be enough to balance the budget? 

    Of course not. For as much as an alternate fiscal view is ascendant at the moment on the right – the economic populists held a celebratory gathering at the National Building Museum just last night, where J.D. Vance took umbrage to being described as an intellectual – the fundamental position of conservatives on the need to cut government isn’t going away. DoGE Committee Chair Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene and her Freedom Caucus friends represent far too significant of a portion of the party conference on the Hill to shift the GOP away from, at minimum, the rhetoric of fiscal responsibility that is such a familiar muscle memory.

    So what lesson will they take away? Perhaps the most obvious one: the problem with DoGE is that Elon Musk wasn’t powerful enough. It is a mirror image of the position the American left has held for a century, from the days of Woodrow Wilson to fond desires do be “China for a day”: what if we just had a strongman, free to act to make all things right? 

    Elon Musk is a brilliant man, but he didn’t know Washington. Imagine if he did. Imagine if someone comes along who does, and wields the power to do it. If that ever happens, the post-DoGE right may turn out to be the left’s boogeyman made real.

  • Trump bids Elon ‘the DoGEfather’ farewell

    Trump bids Elon ‘the DoGEfather’ farewell

    Sporting a black eye and a shirt with the words “The DoGE Father” on the chest, Elon Musk joined President Trump in the Oval Office Friday afternoon to announce the formal departure from his role in the Department of Government Efficiency. While Musk will no longer be a special government employee and will direct his workday back to his several companies, the world’s richest man will remain a “friend and advisor” to the President when needed.

    “Today it’s about a man named Elon, and he’s one of the greatest business leaders and innovators the world has ever produced,” Trump said, opening the press conference. After reading a long list of DoGE findings and their purported savings price tags, the President described DoGE’s efforts as the country’s “most sweeping and consequential government reform program,” adding that the department is “going to be much more substantial with time.”

    Trump praised Musk’s business ventures including his space chopsticks, the Boring Company, Starlink, the Twitter-to-X transition and more. “He happens to be a very good person who loves his country,” Trump said after presenting Musk with a gift: a massive gold key.

    While the government position’s originally allotted 130 days have drawn to a close, Musk added that the department’s mission will not conclude with his departure. “This is not the end of DoGE, but it is really the beginning,” he said. “I’m confident that over time we will see $1 trillion in savings”: a reduction from his original target of $2 trillion.

    Musk added that although he believes colonizing Mars is likely more difficult than eradicating fraud, waste and abuse from the federal government, he described the DoGE process as tedious. “It’s going through millions of line items and saying, does each one make sense?” he said.

    President Trump cut in, referencing the anti-Elon movement spurred by his involvement with DoGE, and praised the entrepreneur for withstanding “slings and arrows” from both the media and the American people. A reporter then asked Musk about his black eye, which he said came from playing with his five-year-old X. The child apparently has a more powerful right-hook than Musk was anticipating.

    However, Musk and his associates have been taking hits from people with a longer reach than X. “We became the DoGE boogeyman,” Musk said. Since Trump’s inauguration, Musk has seen a violent worldwide movement against Teslas and massive instability in his companies’ share values. Model Ys adorned with “Anti-Elon Tesla Club” stickers now silently drive city streets from LA to DC, and can be bought on Red Bubble for less than $5.

    As Matthew Lynn noted Thursday, however, Musk may not be leaving Capitol Hill with his personal finances in as rough a spot as anti-Musk agitators may have hoped.

    Reporters at Musk’s Oval Office farewell also asked the President if he was pleased with the “big, beautiful bill,” which passed the House by one vote and is now waiting in the wings in the Senate. Musk had previously expressed dissatisfaction with the bill, which he believes effectively nullify most DoGE cuts. “I think a bill can be big, or it can be beautiful, but I don’t know if it can be both,” Musk told CBS. 

    The President defended the bill, maintained it will deliver monumental tax cuts for Americans and added that “some” of the DoGE cuts were put into the bill, “but most of it is going to come later. We’re going to federalize it in Congress,” he said.

    Trump also notably offered President Emmanuel Macron of France a word of marital advice after he received a very public slap from his wife. “Make sure everything happens behind closed doors,” the twice-divorced Trump said with a chuckle. The President added that he’d talked to Macron about it earlier: “He’s fine; they’re fine.”

  • Is Elon Musk OK?

    Is Elon Musk OK?

    Elon Musk understands astrophysics, yet seems to have failed to grasp the strange laws of gravity which govern Washington politics. Last night, the world’s richest man confirmed what everybody in Washington already knew: his time as a “special employee” in the White House is over and he’s leaving his formal role as head of the Department of Government Efficiency (DoGE). “I would like to thank @realDonaldTrump for the opportunity to reduce wasteful spending,” he said. “The DoGE mission will only strengthen over time as it becomes a way of life throughout the government.”

    Musk’s public resignation may have been a necessary response to one of his many ongoing legal challenges. This week, a district judge in Washington, DC ruled that a lawsuit alleging Musk and DoGE are illegally wielding power over federal government operations could move forward. It’s become imperative, then, that Musk proves that Team Trump’s defense is true: that he is, and always has been, a temporary employee within the administration.

    Musk is eager to stress that, whatever the dreaded mainstream media may say, he and Trump have not fallen out. But it seems ridiculous to deny that his relationship with the White House has grown more distant. This week he even dared to criticize Trump’s cherished “big, beautiful” tax bill. “I was disappointed to see the massive spending bill, frankly,” he told CBS, in an interview that will be aired in full on Sunday. “I think a bill can be big or beautiful. I don’t know if it can be both.”

    What a difference five months makes. At the start of Trump 2.0, Musk was everywhere. He was involved in key hiring and policy decisions, and, through the creation of DoGE, Trump appeared to have given him license to hack away at every federal government department. Musk’s team of youthful DoGEsters roamed the corridors of power, freezing all sorts of spending, laying off thousands of federal staff and upsetting the Washington blob in every way they could.

    But DoGE was always going to run into the great wall of the legal and administrative state. And it did. Trump insiders quickly realized that, while Musk’s merry band of hackers could highlight or suspend government fraud or waste, the executive department had little constitutional authority over federal funding. “If it’s Elon versus the Machine, he’s shone a light on how the machine works,” one insider told me this week. “But he’s done nothing to throw a spanner in the works.”

    While Trump himself may still be supportive of Musk’s work, his cabinet and senior staff have grown tired of Elon’s disruptive behavior. He’s clashed with Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy, among others. In his public appearances – wielding a chainsaw on stage at CPAC, wearing two hats at cabinet meetings or parading his son X around the White House – Musk at times appeared to be exhibiting signs of hypomania. So much so that even some of his friends and family have asked themselves: is Elon OK?

    He’s under a lot of strain, clearly. His biggest business, Tesla, has struggled since he became involved in frontline politics. This week, ahead of the car maker’s big “Robotaxi” launch, Musk’s own brother and a senior business partner sold off almost $200 million in stock. Elon’s ownership of X (formerly Twitter) has proved challenging, too. He may have turned the most influential news site in the world into a free-speech zone, but “user engagement” has flatlined, while other social media giants continue to thrive.

    This week, too, Musk saw his precious SpaceX starship crashing back down to Earth following its ninth test launch. He desperately wants to colonize Mars, maybe so that he can get away from his problems here on Earth. You can’t conquer all of the worlds all of the time.

    The above is taken from Freddy Gray’s weekly Americano newsletter. To subscribe click here.

  • How Elon Musk profited from his time in government

    How Elon Musk profited from his time in government

    Nobody wants to buy his cars anymore. He has been too distracted to pay any attention to his companies and his fortune has been shredded. As Elon Musk brings his short spell in government to an official close today, and gets back to the day job, his many political opponents will take a malicious pleasure in noting that getting mixed up with President Trump has been a financial disaster for the billionaire. But hold on. As so often, their math is more than a little wonky. In fact, public service has been very lucrative for Musk. 

    He will leave the government richer than ever, and remains one of the most remarkable entrepreneurs of his generation

    “As my scheduled time as a Special Government Employee comes to an end, I would like to thank President @realDonaldTrump for the opportunity to reduce wasteful spending,” the billionaire wrote on his social media platform X yesterday. According to the White House, the “off-boarding” process has already started, but as Musk never bothered with a job title, or a salary, HR – if the Trump White House has anything as “woke” as Human Resources staff that is – probably won’t have a great deal to do. His spell as a government employee will have come to an end. 

    The liberal-left has gleefully noted that it has all cost Musk a fortune. After all, Tesla sales have collapsed, especially in Europe, where the owners’ association with Trump has proved very unpopular. And he has had too little time to devote to his many other businesses. And yet, as he leaves, it turns out the balance sheet is not what you might expect. Tesla has admittedly been through a rough patch. But it has recovered sharply over the last few weeks. The shares now stand at $356, compared to $288 on November 6, the day after President Trump won the election. Musk’s stake is worth a lot more than it was seven months ago.

    SpaceX is privately held, but when it raised cash in December it was valued at $350 billion, and is probably worth more now. Even X has done reasonably well, with a valuation in March of $44 billion, allowing Musk to break even on his investment.

    And only this week, Neuralink, Musk’s brain-computer interface start-up, was valued at $9 billion as it raised extra funding. In reality, Musk’s spell in government may have been mixed politically, and we will have to wait and see whether his Department of Government Efficiency can deliver any long-term results. But it has not hurt his wealth. He will leave the government richer than ever, and remains one of the most remarkable entrepreneurs of his generation.