Elon Musk’s fervent support for Donald Trump in the upcoming US election could extend far beyond incendiary tweets and campaign cash if the former president returns to the White House.
The world’s richest person has become increasingly present in Trump’s campaign, essentially putting his personal X account, with its nearly 200 million followers, at the candidate’s service.
Following a second apparent assassination bid on Trump on Sunday, Musk questioned why Democratic candidate Kamala Harris and President Joe Biden have been spared such attempts on their lives. He later deleted the post.
Musk has also used his personal account to endorse the unfounded conspiracy theory that a community of Haitian immigrants in Ohio had been stealing and eating the predominantly white population’s pets.
Less publicised is Musk’s agreement with Trump to lead a special commission on reducing federal spending, which would implement “drastic reforms,” according to the former president.
The idea originated from a freewheeling conversation between Musk and Trump broadcast on X in August. Musk proposed a “government efficiency commission” to ensure taxpayers’ money would be well spent.
Trump embraced the idea, praising Musk as “the greatest cutter”, in reference to the Tesla and SpaceX founder’s ruthless approach to running his companies.
“When your employees stop working, you say ‘That’s OK…every one of you is gone,'” Trump said admiringly of Musk.
While Trump didn’t name the company, the reference was clearly to Musk’s 2022 takeover of Twitter, which he later renamed X.
In that acquisition, Musk eliminated 75 per cent of staff, retaining only those willing to abide by his “hardcore” workplace ethos.
The mass layoffs decimated its content moderation teams and ushered in Musk’s reign over the platform, leading to a rise in misinformation and an exodus of advertisers.
According to the New York Times, the two men have had regular conversations about Musk’s workplace philosophy, with the hope that the multi-billionaire can impose it on the US government in a second Trump administration.
When asked on the “All-In” podcast if this meant cutting as much as five per cent of federal staff annually (about 150,000 workers), Musk replied: “I think we’d need to do more than that.”
He declined to be more specific, claiming doing so would put him at risk of being “assassinated”, but said that workers would have time to find new careers.
“The number of disgruntled workers, former government employees will be quite a scary number,” he added ominously.
Public policy scholars cautioned that Musk may be overestimating his potential influence.
In the United States, the power to cut government jobs lies with Congress, which controls the government’s purse strings.
“Our system doesn’t allow that concentration of power into any one office or any one individual that allows them to just rule by fiat the way that Musk can do at X, Tesla or SpaceX,” said Casey Burgat, director of the legislative affairs programme at George Washington University.
However, others worry that a second Trump administration could reset the rules, especially now that a conservative-led Supreme Court has the final say over the laws of the land.
The nine-member top court is now dominated by conservatives, including several Trump appointees, and has made recent decisions increasing the powers of the White House.
Richard Barton, assistant teaching professor at Syracuse University, suggests that Trump could decide to “do whatever he wants and let somebody file a lawsuit and bring it to the Supreme Court, who have been pretty favourable to Trump on matters of executive power”.
Neither Trump nor Musk seem to be bothered by questions of conflict of interest, which are glaring to many observers.
Musk’s diverse businesses are deeply intertwined with government, whether as a supplier to Nasa in the case of SpaceX or as a subject of regulation as with Tesla, which often faces scrutiny over safety issues.
Trump, meanwhile, has a history of appointing family members to top government positions and faces regular accusations of overlapping his business interests with his role as a public servant.
Enforcing conflict-of-interest rules requires the political will of Congress, which Burgat said did little against obvious breaches in the first Trump administration.
“There’s no umpire calling fouls here,” Burgat said.