Musk and Trump: The Bromance That’s Led to Catastrophe
Eliot Bicknell
November 24, 2024
Over the past week, President-elect Donald Trump has announced a slew of his future appointments to his cabinet. The list is all-around perplexing, listing Fox News presenter Pete Hegseth as Secretary of Defense and Congressman Pam Bondi as Attorney General, both of whom are woefully inexperienced and involved in their own respective sex scandals. Even more surprisingly though, Elon Musk, CEO of Tesla, was announced as the head of the new Department of Government Efficiency along with Vivek Ramaswamy.
Despite an extensive history of being politically unaffiliated, Musk has been heavily involved in the Trump campaign over the last year. In July, he pledged to donate around 45 million dollars to the campaign every month and has followed through on that promise. He has also appeared on stage at several rallies, serving as a socially inept hype man for the soon-to-be president. This cabinet appointment is his reward.
Despite the fact that Musk has clearly bought it, his friendship with Trump seems to have developed over the past month. Musk spent election night with Trump and his family, and the two have embarked on various excursions together, including a trip to Texas for a SpaceX launch. Their companionship makes sense to some extent: the two are both wealthy and seemingly insecure. However, this friendship, and now political affiliation, is likely one with a short fuse. Musk and Trump both have large personalities and have been known to sever relationships without warning. Similar to Trump firing many cabinet members in his last term, Musk has a history of firing employees over minor disagreements. It is uncertain whether this relationship will stand the test of time or blow up in a battle of egos.
But what is the Department of Government Efficiency? Will Musk have any real power? The answer to these questions remains unclear thus far. Trump put out a vague statement last week saying that the new department would “slash excess regulations, cut wasteful expenditures and restructure federal agencies” and “provide advice and guidance from outside of government.” The department’s description aligns with the Republican agenda to cut federal agencies such as the education and transportation departments, but it will act outside the government. This aspect of the department exists to protect Musk from conflict-of-interest law as his companies interact with the government regularly, meaning if he was an official government employee he would likely be prosecuted. We don't know yet what Musk’s role will entail.
Donald Trump has a way of doing appallingly unprecedented things that jeopardize democracy, and he has done so yet again with this appointment. He seems to have obvious designs for a dictatorship and a general distaste for morality. Although this rhetoric is a tired one in 2024, we cannot allow these horrific actions to fade into the status quo more than they already have. Our president may be beginning to reinstate an oligarchy in front of our very eyes, we cannot sit idle. The frequency of these inept decisions does not detract from the ramifications of every single one. Incompetence has become the expectation, and rightfully so, but we cannot let a dictatorship become our reality. Atrocities need to keep being treated as atrocities, no matter how acclimated to them we may be.