Transcription
We need to talk about Elon. I have created the brand new Department of Government Efficiency—go perhaps you've heard of it. Elon Musk's Department of Government Efficiency is sweeping through the federal workforce, what can only be described at this point as a purge across multiple government institutions. People are getting fired; people are getting furloughed in droves. They are raiding the government.
Since Trump took power, Musk has taken a central role in the administration, closing agencies, halting payments, and firing thousands of government workers. To Musk's supporters, he is someone with a proven track record of innovation and success, whose bold and decisive actions are just what are needed to fix the US government. But, in the opinion of his detractors—and well, let's be honest, in my opinion—he is a disaster.
Hating on Musk isn't unusual; there are plenty of videos about everything from his hypocrisy on free speech to exposes revealing how often he lies about his video gaming achievements. But what I want to show in this video is that he is a disaster not only for Americans but for Donald Trump and his entire agenda. Now, if you follow this channel, you know that I like to share concepts that explain what is going on at a deeper level, the ideas that explain the news. Well, in this video, I want to do a deep dive on the ideas behind Elon Musk's radical approach to government—a set of ideas about technology and business that are becoming influential in politics, even outside America. I will show how these ideas are already having disastrous results, damaging Donald Trump, his agenda, and ultimately his presidency.
Let's start with Musk's fundamental mission. "I'm a technologist and I try to make technologies that improve the world and make life better. Yeah, and and that's why I like my t-shirt; it says 'Tech Support' because I'm I'm here to provide the president with with Technology support." Musk believes he's here to save civilization using technology. He created Tesla to solve climate change, SpaceX to make humanity multiplanetary, and he bought Twitter to save free speech. Okay, look, I'm not saying I agree with his thinking, but I honestly think this is how it sticks together in his mind: civilization needs to progress, and he's here to help. In fact, there's this one line in one of Musk's interviews which I think is kind of ring really—this is like taking the brakes off of an economy and and of a civilization; it's it's it's we need to snap those strings that are holding Gulla down and preventing us from making progress as a civilization. I think this metaphor of strings tying down Gulla captures the essence of Musk's view of the world. Next to the little people, you have the giants—extraordinary talented individuals that progress relies on. I wonder who he could be thinking of. And yet these extraordinary people and businesses are tied down with regulations, unions, and investigations about why their driving cars keep crashing. But now, in this mission to protect civilization, he needs to help the US government. America is the central pillar holding up Western Civilization; that pillar must be strong. If that pillar falls, the whole roof comes crashing down; there's no place to hide, including his ship; there's no place to run. So that's 0.1: Use tech to save the world.
Okay, next for Musk: once you have the problem, the solution starts with physics and what he calls "first principles analysis." First principles is kind of a physics way of looking at the world, and what that really means is you kind of boil things down to the most fundamental truths and then reason up from there. For example, if you're trying to make a cheaper battery for an electric car, so so first principles would be say, okay, what are the material constituents of the batteries? You can say, okay, it's got Cobalt, nickel, aluminum, carbon. So break that down: if we bought that in London Metal Exchange, what would each of those things cost? Like, oh jeez, uh, it's like $80 per kilowatt hour. If you want to solve problems, forget convention or what the experts say; use your own reasoning and work from there. So that's point two: Ignore rules and convention and trust your own smarts.
The next part of how you solve problems is that you move fast and accept the risk that you'll make mistakes. For example, on a production line, you need to be bold. If you want savings, attempt to delete the part or process step, um, and if you haven't deleted—if you're not forced to put back in at least 10% of what you delete—you're obviously being far too conservative in your deletion. And he believes that same approach should be used in government. Think about like if you if you delete departments and regulations, you can always put them back. It turns out that those were very important; you can always put them back. All this comes from a point of view on risk and failure that's common in business. In fact, Musk is known for sharing videos celebrating failures. The most famous articulation of this idea is Facebook's old motto: "Move fast and break things," and Musk is taking this approach into government. Should say, we also we will make mistakes; we won't be perfect, but when we uh make a mistake we'll fix it very quickly. So this is point three: Move fast, take risks, and if you break things, it's a worthwhile trade-off.
The next part of Musk's thinking is his view of government workers, who he believes do little work and have gone rogue. If the bureaucracy is fighting the will of the people uh and preventing uh the Pres—the president—from implementing what the people want, then what we live in is a bureaucracy and not a democracy. This is partly the MAGA idea of the deep state, but it also comes from Musk's experience at Twitter. So how do you run the company with only 20% of the staff? Uh, it turns out uh you don't need uh all that many people to run Twitter, but 80%—that's a lot—um, yeah, if you're not trying to run some sort of uh glorified activist organization uh with with and you're not care that much about censorship then uh you can really let go a lot of people. Turns out not only do bureaucracies go rogue, but they fill up with little people who stand in the way, and the example of Twitter shows that you can make big cuts without problems. So point four: Bureaucracies hold us back.
The final element of Musk's approach is an attitude of what we might call, "You don't have to like me. I I I have no problem being hated, by the way; I hear you hate away." He loves to say false and offensive things, especially online, and generally acts like his job is a chance to have fun. Partly this is Musk being an entrepreneur—people who gain success by going counter to everyone else. Partly it's the "screw you" mentality of someone who's made so much money they don't need to care. But besides all this, he's a troll, enjoying all the attention negativity can bring. [Music] Okay, so there's the Musk worldview. So how is this all going to go wrong and hurt Donald Trump?
Elon Musk has repeatedly called his actions in government a revolution—a word that sounds dynamic and impressive. But if you think of the history of actual political revolutions—in China or Russia, for example—they're often violent, destroy the economy, and make their countries weaker. The most famous person to make this argument was Edmund Burke, who, back in the 1700s, predicted the French Revolution would end in disaster. At the heart of Burke's argument was a belief that making sudden radical changes based on abstract reasoning was dangerous. Boil things down to the most fundamental truths and then reason up from there. In other words, trusting just your own smarts with something as complex as politics is a mistake. "Men little think how morally they act in rationally meddling with what they do not understand," he wrote. This idea is actually a key part of the conservative tradition. For example, the economist Frederick Hayek, often revered by conservatives, once gave a famous lecture where he cautioned about how hard it is to understand complex systems like the economy and explicitly warned about trying to imitate the procedures of the physical sciences. First principles is kind of a physics way of looking at the world. The lesson here is that if you're someone like Musk trying to enact big change, then you should do it cautiously, mindful of how little you know. But is this the approach Elon Musk is taking? No, of course not, which is why him and his team keep doing things in a dumb way.
First, let's talk about the waste: dozens of clinical trials frozen and abandoned midway through, with millions of dollars of US taxpayer funds already spent to start those trials, now wasted; food aid in warehouses that's already been paid for but now can't be delivered to those that need it; even the pointless deletion of all the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau's explainer videos. Sorry, maybe I took the cuts to explain the videos a little too personally. There's lots more that's been done. For example, Musk's "fork in the road" email offering federal workers eight months' pay for no work if they agree to resign. Even if you agree with the aim of reducing the federal workforce, this is a bad way to do it because those most likely to take the offer aren't the useless left-wing activists Musk believes fill the workforce, but those most able to get private sector jobs—in other words, probably the best and most effective workers. Musk has even fired over 6,000 IRS workers who help collect taxes when he's meant to be cutting the deficit. I mean, I run a business, and if I was in financial trouble, I wouldn't fire the person that collects payments. Musk's actions also indiscriminately affect military families and veterans. I've served my country for 11 years, nine of them on active duty. I deployed twice. I spent so much time away from my family—um, oh no, I was gone when my mom passed away—um, and I missed that. Even if you support Musk's asses, and even if you don't care about military veterans, needlessly gifting your opponent sympathetic stories like this is not exactly smart. The point isn't that Musk is dumb; I actually think Elon Musk has a track record of impressive achievement, though I'm not sure we're getting the most aware or capable version of Musk at the moment by any means. The point is that politics isn't physics. When you just reason from first principles and arrogantly reject expertise and knowledge, you'll do dumb things, waste money, and make mistakes. And in fact, mistakes takes us to our next [Music] point.
Musk is carrying out a revolution, and in revolutions, you can make mistakes. However, as we saw at the start, taking risks and making mistakes are part of how you succeed in business—a philosophy of "move fast and break things." Besides, when mistakes are made, they're fixed quickly. "Make a mistake; we'll fix it very quickly," uh, so for example with uh USAID, uh one of the things we accidentally canceled very briefly was Ebola prevention. I think we all want Ebola prevention, so we restored the Ebola prevention immediately, and there was no interruption. But let's see how this worldview does when it comes to the things government does. It took us nearly two years to get visas to enter Sudan, and what we found was deeply distressing: a country in the grip of the largest humanitarian crisis in the world. In the tangent camps where families have fled war, every newly arrived child is critically starving. Sudan is in the middle of a civil war, and the US has been funding a large food aid program. But in January, a stop-work order was issued without warning, meaning staffers at a half-dozen USF-funded medical facilities who care for severely malnourished children had a choice to make: defy President Trump's order to immediately stop their operations or let up to 100 babies and toddlers die. In the end, the staff ignored the order and continued their care. Finally, four days later, the administration, in effect, admitted it had made a mistake and said life-saving humanitarian efforts would be given waivers and allowed to continue. There have been countless other mistakes: women with medical devices left inside them, and at least one woman appears to have died after her oxygen supply was cut off following the sudden freeze. Plus, over a month after humanitarian projects were apparently exempted from cuts, money is apparently still not flowing. In fact, even the canceling of Ebola prevention—the mistake Musk promised was fixed quickly—hasn't actually been fixed yet. Of course, there are problems with waste and corruption in overseas aid, but even if you agree with the policy of reducing aid, why not put the waivers in place first? Why not give local health services warnings so that they could take over programs that were being stopped? Well, because that's not the philosophy. Think about like if you if you delete departments and regulations, you can always put them back. Musk says you can just reverse mistakes, but in government, if you move too fast, it's not things you break, but people. The FDA is looking to rehire around 300 people; the Trump administration will reverse staffing cuts to the 9/11 Health Fund; hundreds of workers at the National Nuclear Security Administration fired, then nearly all rehired days later. USAID is not the only area where there have been many mistakes, and it's likely we'll see more in the future as Elon Musk takes big risks with everything from IRS data to the Treasury payment system.
At the heart of all this is what we might call the "government is a business" fallacy—the mistaken idea that what works in business should necessarily work in government. Elon Musk has created some important and valuable businesses, but if one of Musk's risk-taking ventures goes wrong and ends up crashing the value of the company, the damage is contained. Whereas in government, where you're dealing with things like humanitarian aid, Ebola prevention, and nuclear security, the cost of things going bad are so much higher. Extreme risks are fine in business, but governments aren't businesses, and it's a mistake to think they're the same.
Next, let's look at Musk's war on the bureaucracy, who he believes have gone rogue and who he knows from his experience at Twitter can be cut drastically without impact. Well, the first thing to say is there will be impact. I've saved lives dangling off of cliffs in the North Cascades; I saved the life of a of a cardiac patient on the Naches Loop Trail just outside Mount Rainier National Park; I stood in the way as 100-foot flames burned toward the town of Naches, and myself, along with numerous other now-fired federal workers, prevented that town from burning. Over 4,000 workers from the US Forest Service and the Park Service have been fired, where, according to reports, cuts will mean fewer people to clean bathrooms, collect fees, and rescue lost hikers. That's not waste where you cut costs but maintain the same output; that's just cutting the output. Similarly, if you cut thousands from the VA, hundreds of staff from NOAA—the agency that helps with weather forecasts—or half the Social Security Administration's workforce, this isn't going to be impact-free. Second, Musk's actions are self-defeating because the way he's doing it is destroying what is often known as "state capacity"—the ability of the government to execute on what it's directed to do. Think about it: Donald Trump and his people—they have things they actually want to do with state power: deport migrants, grow the economy, invade Greenland, whatever. But Musk's mad revolution is disrupting everything, even the agencies that Trump values. Just while I was recording this, Musk had a bright idea to send an email to all federal employees asking them to report on what they'd done that week. There was little warning, confusion over the email's purpose, and worries about national security, with one agency warning employees to assume the email would be read by "malign foreign actors." The disruption affected everyone: the State Department, Defense, National Security Agency—parts of government which aren't exactly unbusy at the moment. As a result, even Trump's own cabinet have started pushing back against Musk, sick of the way his chaos is disrupting their ability to get things done. Musk believes that bureaucracy holds us back, but as you realize when you start destroying it, it is actually essential.
Okay, Musk is doing dumb things, making mistakes, and causing needless damage and harm. But you might be thinking, will this really affect Donald Trump? After all, Trump screwed up his first term, and people still elected him in 2024, and he certainly doesn't seem to care about Musk's recklessness. Now, will any of Musk's madness actually damage Donald Trump? To answer this question, I want to start here. "But I now have $80,000 worth of material and signed contracts for labor that are going to install the water lines in the upcoming few weeks and months, and with that being said, they called me today and said, 'Hey, I know we have this signed contract; we're reneging on it.'" This is a farmer called Skylet Holden, who is now $80,000 out of pocket because of one of the sudden stops on government payments. Holden isn't a Democrat; he voted for Trump and is from a state that supported Trump. "I spent money based on the contract that we signed; they're reneging on it; I'm just screwed, and unless they lift this pause on payment, I'm going to lose this farm." Holden's situation isn't unique; there are thousands in similar positions as federal grants and funds have been suddenly stopped—often in red states. Republican-voting states have been impacted in other ways, too. The cuts to USAID have hit farmers that supply the programs; the cuts to research funding have hurt places like Alabama, where universities are the state's largest employers. And it turns out there are lots of federal workers in Republican states; Texas, for example, has the second highest number in the country. So the answer to whether Musk's actions will affect Trump is yes, because—and I know this sounds simplistic—if you keep doing stupid and unpopular things, voters will notice, and you will lose political support. From Georgia to Oregon to Kansas, Americans are angry with President Trump's sweeping layoffs and Elon Musk's drive to slash government spending, packing rowdy town halls. Elon Musk has contracts with the federal government; conflict of—he's done some very good things. I think I'm not a Democrat, but I'm worried about the veterans, man. And while American democracy is on the decline, we're not at the point yet where support doesn't matter. Unlike in business where you have complete control, in politics you need to stay popular—at least with your own side. Already we're seeing rowdy town hall meetings in Republican districts and increasing signs Republican lawmakers are becoming unhappy. Musk's approach, of course, is "you don't have to like me," happily clashing with other Trump supporters and even agreeing that "we hope that when all is said and done, all politicians, Democrat and Republican, are furious with Doge." But Musk will find out you can't ignore politics; it's like the law of gravity. You can pretend it's not important, but in the end, it will make itself felt.
There's another way Musk's "you don't have to like me" style is going to go wrong. Musk is addicted to attention, but his unceasing desire to offend people—calling workers who are losing their jobs "evil," "criminal," and a "ball of worms," for example—his constant stream of lies and falsehoods, and the general way he's treating the whole thing as a game, not only means he's unpopular—actually a drag on Donald Trump—but it's creating a kind of accountability trap for the whole Trump Administration. Trump, like all populists, likes to blame things or people when things go wrong. For example, after the midair collision in Washington that killed 67 people, Trump speculated it could have been caused by DEI policies. But the next time there's a plane crash, critics will be able to point to the fact Musk fired hundreds of technicians and engineers who maintained critical air traffic control infrastructure, and voters will be more likely to buy this argument because one, the cuts may well be to blame, and two, Musk's attention-grabbing style will mean voters remember these cuts happening—after all, it was all over the news. Or consider the next time there's a weak response to a natural disaster, and you realize critics can point to the cuts to FEMA. If there's a hazardous accident and the cleanup is poor, the spotlight will be on the cuts to the EPA. If there's a disease outbreak, people might remember how Musk cut over 12,200 staff from the CDC. I mean, as I'm recording this, two people have died from a measles outbreak, and just two months ago, a lethal strain of bird flu claimed its first victim in the United States. Elon Musk might be having fun, but "you don't have to like me" is bad politics, and politics still matters.
I guess some people listening to this might be thinking, but don't we need some kind of change in government? I agree; we need change. And in fact, even our old friend Edmund Burke wasn't against reform, saying, "A state without the means of some change is without the means of its conservation." But rejecting mad revolution doesn't mean we have to stick to the status quo. Instead, we have boring old reform that aims to achieve change without the unnecessary mistakes and damage of Muskian chaos. In fact, Trump and his administration have a way to reform government—a mechanism designed for it; in fact, it's called politics—you know, writing legislation, negotiating with Congress. But Musk represents a move away from that, disregarding politics and opting for tech revolution in a way that will—well, not work. First, there's the way the judiciary has repeatedly stopped and delayed Musk's actions; ignoring the political process doesn't seem to make it go away; it seems—but second, using the political process is the only way to really achieve results. Doge has boasted of some $65 billion in savings, though journalists have found many errors in their maths. The bigger problem is that government overspending was 1.8 trillion last year, so all the apparent Doge savings don't even add up to 4% of what's needed. Fundamentally, overspending will be solved only when tax revenue increases or voters can be convinced to be happy with less spending on the things the taxes provide. That's a political project, not a technology project. And even if you're a Trump supporter that doesn't even care about the deficit particularly, think about what a waste of political capital it's been—so much noise, so much burnt political capital spent on a project that hasn't really achieved anything. During the French Revolution, there emerged the phrase, "You can't make an omelet without breaking a few eggs," as a way of saying some people get hurt by change, but it's worth it. But Musk is a failing revolutionary—the equivalent of breaking the eggs but not making the omelet. Not everything is a tech issue, and sub problems can't be solved without politics. There's nothing wrong with using technology to improve government; there's nothing wrong with a good-faith effort to reduce government spending or improve the bureaucracy. But this reckless, arrogant, lethal chaos is not that. There's so much I haven't talked about in this video: the damage to the rule of law, the conflicts of interest, the risk of corruption, and why so much of this agenda is just bad for America. But I wanted to make the case that even if someone admires much of what Musk has done in business—in fact, even if someone supports Donald Trump and the whole agenda—this is clearly a disaster. And while it's little comfort to the everyday people caught up in all this, I do really think this revolution will come back to haunt Elon Musk and Donald Trump. After all, as another saying from 1700s France goes, "Revolutions devour their children," and that's true even if they do a lot of damage first.
Hi, my name's Brendan, and thanks for watching. Uh, if you enjoyed that, then I recommend signing up to my Substack down in the description; it's a good free method to get notified when I do publish a video. And if you do want to sign up for one of the paid options, there's lots of good stuff there as well as it being a way to support this work. So if you do that, thanks very much.