An experienced puppet master with strings tied onto the federal government
The richest man in the world is not giving up power. He claims to be away to focus more on Tesla and SpaceX, but only because the apparatus used to control DOGE and–therefore many aspects of the U.S. government–is established. In the past, he has not needed a consistent physical presence to run his companies. This ability doesn’t mean his work is valuable or necessary, but it does mean he exerts enough influence to keep the direction of the companies pointed the way he wants them. He will try to do the same with our country.
Musk has made headlines dancing around in his outfits in the White House. That he can parade his wealth and corruption in front of everyone, from using the White House lawn as a showroom to sitting in cabinet meetings as a private citizen, shows just how far our country has fallen and how little our norms did to protect us. Surely he enjoyed the attention and rubbing his overtly corrupt power in the face of his detractors. Yet it’s likely he did not expect the level of blow back that he received from the general public, which is why he is nominally stepping away from his temporary role in accordance with the law. That’s how he operates, using the law only as a convenience.
No, he is not a super genius whose success is inevitable. But making the opposite mistake of pretending that he has no strategic ability would be worse. Despite his slinking into the shadows, we have to do what we can to keep his DOGE efforts front of mind. (Although of course that is difficult given the other crazy things the administration does daily.) The headlines will fade because Musk himself generates a lot of the clicks. In the dark though, now that Elon has set down his chainsaw, DOGE will quietly take its sharpened axe to the roots our democracy.
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