Over the previous few months, Elon Musk has labored his means again into the interior circle of Donald Trump — a circle he as soon as left over local weather change issues, again in a unique 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 accountable for 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 nearly works out, for those who don’t take a look at it too onerous, however it could imply leaving Elon Musk accountable for 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 assist 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 potential a fee might establish tens of billions or presumably a whole bunch of billions of {dollars} in authorities spending cuts however that it isn’t credible to think about the fee chopping trillions of {dollars} with out severely affecting federal companies.
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Now, the rising ties between Musk and Trump are set to be cemented by a governing physique that will most likely put Musk on the middle of U.S. policymaking, if Trump wins a second time period. Regardless of potential conflicts of curiosity together with his sprawling enterprise empire, Musk would both chair or assist lead an impartial fee that will comb by hundreds of federal applications and formally advocate which of them to chop, based on the plan lengthy mentioned by Trump and lots of of his prime advisers. Cuts to authorities spending would most likely want congressional approval, however cuts to authorities rules might typically be at the very least tried by Trump unilaterally, ought to he win the 2024 election.
This is able to be a transfer that matches proper in Musk’s wheelhouse, after he bought Twitter and instantly reduce 80 % of the location’s employees. This has led to widespread technical issues on the location, a sequence of outages, and a surge in hate speech due to 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 more durable, with out concern for burnout and even the fundamental performance of the service he’s having them make. The potential of this strategy being taken to the very perform of our authorities methods — issues like roads — is harrowing to say the least. Our infrastructure is rubbish sufficient as it’s.
