Musk's DOGE is ineffective chaos. But he's still getting richer thanks to Trump. | Opinion
Republicans are making a habit of helping the rich get richer. Nobody embodies that better than Elon Musk.
You might be assuming that Elon Musk, the world's wealthiest man, has been pushed out of President Donald Trump’s administration so he can return to fixing the company he tanked. You'd be wrong.
Musk has been, though, significantly quieter than he was during Trump's first 100 days in office. On May 19, a Politico analysis even found that Trump hasn’t posted about Musk on Truth Social in more than a month.
Prior to April, Musk’s fingerprints were all over the White House and all over the news as Americans and elected leaders reacted to the sweeping cuts he was bragging about. So what's he up to now?
A deeper look into the Tesla CEO’s recent actions shows that he is still in the picture and reaping the benefits of his close connection to the Trump administration and the Republican infatuation with making billionaires richer.
And his recent disappearance from the political sphere doesn’t change the damage he was able to do as the head of the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE). Instead of actually helping the United States, all he did was get richer while he plunged the country into chaos that ultimately only benefited him.
Trump does his best to boost Musk's foreign deals
Musk is still in the president’s orbit. On May 13, he was present for Trump’s summit with officials in Saudi Arabia. During the visit, he announced that his company, Starlink, had struck a deal to bring the communications service to the country.
That’s not the only business deal Musk has reached since becoming involved in the Trump administration. Countries faced with tariffs imposed by Trump have also adopted Starlink after the United States pushed for these nations to allow satellite companies to operate in these countries.
It’s led to business deals with India, Somalia, Lesotho and others. While the Washington Post assured its readers that the State Department isn’t specifically asking for this product to be adopted in exchange for lower tariffs, it doesn’t seem like a coincidence that these partnerships have come to fruition in the wake of Trump’s tariff tirade.
To be clear, these partnerships wouldn’t have been possible without Musk’s proximity to the president. Even if the two men are no longer being pictured side-by-side in the Oval Office, Musk is still reaping the benefits of being Trump’s “first buddy.”
It's a perfect example of the actual Republican doctrine: help the wealthy continue to amass money and power while regular people are harmed by cuts to SNAP and Medicaid in the party's latest legislative initiative. They made Musk a victim, and regular people who need help are the villains. Classic Republican.
Musk made sure to get federal welfare before going quiet
Within the United States, Musk is also faring well for himself.
According to the New York Times, SpaceX will potentially see billions of dollars in federal contracts under the new administration. The Boring Company, another of Musk’s businesses, is in talks with Amtrak to take over the building of the Fredrick Douglass Tunnel program.
Aside from new business deals, he’s also getting off the hook for alleged discrimination at several of his companies. Multiple investigations against Musk-owned companies have been dropped, while agencies that are charged with investigating businesses have seen their departments slashed by DOGE cuts.
It isn’t right that Musk is continuing to gain from his proximity to Trump, but it’s perfectly aligned with what we know about the administration and the slimy way that the president conducts business. In a perfect world, the world’s richest man would not be able to leverage his relationship with the president to further enrich himself and hurt regular Americans.
Then there is the big lie of DOGE and government spending
While Musk’s involvement with DOGE is coming to an end, the ramifications of its actions during the first part of Trump’s presidency will be felt for a long time. DOGE has dismantled agencies, laid off federal workers, and cut funding to U.S. programs. While the department claims to have saved the United States $160 billion, third-party groups found that Musk’s chainsaw approach will actually cost the country $135 billion.
It does seem that Trump is finally learning how toxic Musk is for the presidency. Ahead of the Politico report about Musk’s dwindling popularity within the executive branch, an ABC News/Washington Post/Ipsos poll found that the majority of Americans disapproved of the billionaire.
Personally, I don’t believe it’s right that the richest man in the world has been given so much control over the United States government, nor do I think it’s OK for him to be benefiting so greatly from it. But Republicans seem pretty excited about it.
They let Musk lie to the American public and somehow turned him into a victim when, in reality, he accomplished nothing and did little to further the fake Republican goal of shrinking government spending. The sooner Musk is actually out of our government, the better. But expect to see him next to Trump for the foreseeable future.
Follow Paste BN columnist Sara Pequeño on X, formerly Twitter, @sara__pequeno