By Nico, Noel, Brooklynn, Scarlett, and IndyKids Staff
During the presidential campaign, Elon Musk, a 53-year-old multibillionaire, spent more than a quarter-billion dollars to back Donald Trump and other Republican candidates, according to CBS News, making him the largest donor in the 2024 election.
On Trump’s first day in office, he created DOGE, or the Department of Government Efficiency, run by Musk, who served as a top adviser to the president. DOGE’s stated role was to modernize federal technology to create maximum government efficiency. Many who work in DOGE have little to no government experience yet have far-reaching access into federal data systems and the ability to shut down “DEI programs” and even entire agencies. Many lawmakers and lawyers representing numerous federal workers allege that Musk has broken laws, union contracts, and civil service protections.
But who is the man who started DOGE, and how did he rise to such a prominent role? Elon Musk was born in South Africa to a wealthy family. He graduated college in 1997 with degrees in physics and economics from the University of Pennsylvania. He co-founded a company that was later renamed PayPal, which was sold to eBay in 2002 for $1.5 billion. Musk then leapt into action and started SpaceX, aiming to create a new NASA, and took over Tesla, an electric car company. In 2022, he bought the social media company Twitter, changing its name to X.
DOGE’s influence has grown to include deciding which career government positions should be filled or eliminated, establishing a mission to reduce the federal workforce, review regulations, investigate which taxpayer money goes to undocumented immigrants, and maximize the transparency of government contracts.
Critics of Musk and DOGE have taken their complaints to court, where judges have succeeded in stopping some DOGE orders, though not all of them. In early June, the Supreme Court ruled in favor of DOGE, allowing it to collect personal and sensitive data on millions of Americans through Social Security Administration (SSA) records, according to NPR. Democracy Forward brought the suit against SSA, arguing that providing DOGE with such sensitive information was not only unnecessary for efficiency purposes, but was in violation of the Privacy Act.
IndyKids reporter Nico and her parents attended a rally protesting against DOGE and the Trump administration as a whole in March. Nico’s mom, Hae-Lin Choi, is the political and legislative director of the Communications Workers of America union. Choi’s union chose to protest against Musk “because DOGE is destroying important services that the government provides for no good reason other than corporate greed,” she said. But she also stressed that the rally is about all of the billionaires who are meddling in American politics.
“I think many of us have felt paralyzed and overwhelmed by the onslaught of attacks by the Trump administration,” said Choi. “When so many people showed up, I think it gave all of us a feeling of taking power back.”
Musk left DOGE in late May. What was accomplished? According to the New Yorker, DOGE cut more than 280,000 government jobs. They pressured government agencies to cancel anything related to DEI, including removing the words “diversity” and “equity” from grants and websites. They gutted USAID, which was responsible for delivering humanitarian assistance throughout the world. It also gutted the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, which helped protect Americans from being taken advantage of by banks and other financial institutions. With all of this, it’s estimated that these cuts represent, at most, less than 3% of the federal budget, according to the New Yorker. Observers note that cutting thousands of jobs is likely to make the government less efficient. Meanwhile, Congress’s budget bill will add trillions of dollars to the national deficit.
Even though Musk has left Washington, his influence there lingers beyond DOGE. His company, SpaceX, is the only company that is sending astronauts to the International Space Station. His other company, Starlink, is heavily relied upon by the military in the Russia-Ukraine war. Tesla is now planning to launch a Robotaxi service. And his ability to use X for his political will gives him unprecedented power. In an article by Ronan Farrow in the New Yorker in 2023, entrepreneur Reid Hoffman described Musk as “like Louis XIV: ‘L’état, c’est moi.’”
