Elon Musk might achieve a new level of prominence as an American tycoon if former president Trump’s proposal to appoint him to head a government efficiency committee materializes.
The specifics surrounding the commission and Musk’s participation remain unclear; however, the billionaire proprietor of Tesla, Space X, satellite firm Starlink, and social media platform X—distinctive enterprises that have profited from government contracts, tax credits, and incentives—would gain even more clout with any official position in the government.
“This is like a red light, all kinds of conflicts of interest,” remarked Project on Government Oversight head Danielle Brian.
Putting aside the inherent conflicts of interest, Musk’s likely entry into politics would be a remarkable turn of events for the tech magnate, who would essentially hold a position at the pinnacle of business, manufacturing, the media, and Washington.
Meanwhile, Trump’s approach to government would be perfectly aligned with the idea of offering Musk a seat in his prospective administration. Despite having significantly weaker public profiles than Musk and less to gain directly from their involvement, the previous president appointed billionaires Wilbur Ross and Steven Mnuchin to serve in his Cabinet.
“Musk is just the most recent example of a very technical, very gearheaded Silicon Valley man who thinks the government is too complicated. “Let me work on it and I’ll find a solution for you,” stated Peter Leyden, who founded Reinvent Futures and was the managing editor at Wired before. “He’s just the most recent in a long line of such characters.”
To anybody who has followed Musk’s career trajectory—from electric vehicle innovator to space entrepreneur to owner of X—and online troll of liberals—his foray into politics comes as no surprise. A Silicon Valley entrepreneur unfamiliar with the intricacies of government bureaucracy may find Washington to be challenging terrain, according to IT experts.
He has always taken a different tack, according to Will Rinehart, a senior scholar at the American Enterprise Institute. Despite the fact that electric automobiles were unpopular at the time, he continued working on them. Even when none else was interested, he persisted in working on space.
“I think being a contrarian is valuable because that has pushed him into this space.”
Musk, who had previously positioned himself as a moderate, switched loyalties and officially endorsed Trump following the July attempted assassination.
“No pay, no title, no recognition is needed,” Musk wrote on X, adding, “I look forward to serving America if the opportunity arises.”
Musk has shown animosity against government oversight, similar to Trump’s stance, especially in California.
Aside from his many conflicts with the state’s influential labor groups, the billionaire also has long-running feuds with the state’s deeply blue administration. Despite warnings about the COVID-19 pandemic, he persisted in making cars at Tesla’s Fremont plant early in the outbreak. He went on to sue to overturn the limits, which he criticized as “fascist,” and even threatened to relocate the company’s headquarters to a different state.
Later that year, he relocated some of the company’s operations to Texas, although he kept expanding Tesla’s presence in California. Outraged by new LGBTQ+ youth protections, he threatened earlier this year to relocate X and SpaceX to Texas, making similar withdrawal threats. He made the announcement last month that the social media site will be moving its headquarters out of downtown San Francisco and into neighboring Palo Alto and San Jose.
Concerning his treatment of employees at Tesla and X, Musk has also been the subject of legal investigation. In 2017 and 2018, he and several officials at Tesla were found guilty by a California judge of violating labor laws by undermining attempts to organize workers. After he bought Twitter for $44 billion in 2022, he was accused by hundreds of former employees of not paying severance.
California Labor Federation chief Lorena Gonzalez and the millionaire have been feuding for years. State lawmakers frequently saw Musk in a positive light, she said, praising Tesla as a major California firm and subsidizing it to the tune of millions of dollars.
He was often referred to as a “enviro” in her description of his merchandise. “However, his character did not indicate that he was a liberal or progressive.”
A request for comment was not responded to by Musk.
When Musk bought Twitter in 2022 and rebranded it as X, he increased his influence in national politics. Partisans said that by implementing reforms that promoted free speech, he was facilitating misinformation and harassment on the platform, and he promptly ordered large layoffs. Musk has presided over a precipitous decline in X’s value, costing investors more than $24 billion.
The majority of the guests at Thursday’s Reboot conference, which was organized by the right-leaning tech think group Foundation for American Innovation, paid little attention to Musk’s bold promise to head Trump’s commission.
Since it seemed unrelated to any of Musk’s tech endeavors, Patrick Blumenthal, founder of the Anomaly venture capital fund, said that it demonstrated a typical degree of dilettantism in the tech industry.
With respect to technology and politics, Blumenthal expressed the opinion that the two are irreconcilable, to a certain degree. “However, given the abundance of brilliant minds in the industry, it is to be expected that some of them will seek out other fields to test the limits of their intellect.”