When Elon Musk bought X, formally known as Twitter, in 2022, the company was worth an estimated $44 billion. Today, it is valued at $9.4 billion, a 78% drop.
Musk’s business strategy has been described as a “move-fast-and-break-things approach.” He acts without thinking of the larger legal and ethical ramifications just to claim a temporary win.
For example, Musk directed his team at X to “find $500 million in annual savings,” and when they raised concerns about legal repercussions, they were told: “we don’t have to follow those rules.” As a result, X stopped paying rent for the company’s offices, cut severance for its staff, violated labor laws, refused to pay contractors and ignored building permits.
While these decisions immediately cut costs, the company soon owed millions in lawsuits and fines, resulting in the “worst merger-finance deal for banks since the 2008-09 financial crisis.”
Similarly, Tesla has been sued for unethical labor practices including racial discrimination and harassment.
Even though Musk has a history of illegal and expensive business practices, the Trump administration allowed him to lead a financial agency. The Department of Government Efficiency or DOGE was created to “slash federal funding.” Yet, the actual objectives are murkier.
DOGE is not a federal agency; it is not even a governmental agency. However, they have been given access to classified information, including payment systems across several agencies.
Musk’s role is classified as a “special government employee,” which is a temporary position he can hold for no more than 130 days. Yet, these employees are still held to the same standards as all government workers, meaning they cannot work on issues that impact other jobs they hold.
Musk’s companies, SpaceX and Tesla, have received $17 billion from the federal government since 2015, creating an obvious conflict of interest. His job is to identify where the government can make budget cuts but conveniently avoids any departments that fund him.
Instead, Musk has primarily attacked the US Agency for International Development (USAID). USAID not only offers foreign aid and disaster recovery but also funds disease research and prevention.
Musk reasoned that cuts to USAID were necessary, calling it a “criminal organization” that “needs to die.” But the crimes that he accused the agency of committing have been largely fictitious.
He claimed USAID funded a research nonprofit that created COVID-19, paid news organizations like the BBC and The New York Times to publish negative articles about Trump, spent millions of dollars to create “transgender mice” and sent $50 million worth of condoms to Gaza.
All of these allegations and more have been proven false. While some are rooted in an element of the truth, Musk grossly misrepresented USAID.
COVID-19 was not created in a lab. USAID helped fund a nonprofit that studied viruses; however, none of them were similar enough to COVID-19 to create a pandemic.
USAID workers were given subscriptions to outlets like The New York Times, but the news agencies did not receive “tens of millions” by the federal government, as Musk claimed.
The agency did fund research around hormonal treatment, and mice were used as the subjects, but the intention was not to “make” them transgender, rather to observe behavioral shifts from different hormones.
USAID gave the International Medical Corps $68 million for aid across Palestine, but it was spent on emergency medical treatments, not contraceptives.
Yet, Musk’s war on the enemies he created will have real victims. St. Jude’s Research Hospital, which provides treatment for children with pediatric diseases will see their budget cut by $40 million a year. Ugandans suffering from Ebola rely on doctors sent from USAID. The agency fights to counter violent extremism, not only keeping other countries safe but also protecting America.
By cutting USAID, Musk prioritizes eliminating the “woke mind virus” over actual diseases.
USAID makes up 1% of total government spending. Even if DOGE manages to dismantle the entire agency, Musk’s promise to cut $2 trillion from the federal government will be far from accomplished.
The costs associated with cutting USAID have already started to pile, a result of Musk’s historical carelessness. $500 million worth of food is at risk of spoiling after nearly all USAID employees were put on leave. While this food was intended to feed 36 million people, Musk would rather see it in landfills than concede that the agency might not deserve to be gutted.
Musk’s reckless strategy has been devastating for his own companies, but his sloppiness will have deadly effects on people globally.
He has waged a culture war against “woke” bureaucracies and sent patients to the front line, fueled by misinformation of his creation.
