Elon Musk reminds me of a little boy I knew who liked to pull the wings off flies just for fun. He now runs the “Department of Government Efficiency” which was created by an Executive Order issued by President Donald Trump on his first day in office of his second term.
(An Executive Order is a powerful tool of Presidential power, but it cannot enact a new law or repeal a law passed by Congress or violate Constitutional restraints. For instance, President Harry Truman’s Executive Order nationalizing the steel industry to prevent a labor strike during the Korean War was ruled unconstitutional by the Supreme Court in 1952.)
If I were given the title of “Director of the Department of Government Efficiency” I would at least like to make it look like I was running it efficiently. Creating chaos is not efficient; firing thousands of people, barging into government offices backed up by government cops and raiding files full of citizens’ personal information without either right or reason is not much more than thuggery.
It is like coming home to find your front door wide open and that little boy who pulled the wings off flies for fun all growed up and now sitting in your living room in your favorite chair, drinking your beer and looking through your checkbook while his “Junior G-man” employees ransack your house. “Elon, Elon, look what we found in the underwear drawer!!”
All that does is create fear and uncertainty, which I think is exactly what it is supposed to do. Maybe you can do that if you own a company, but you can’t do it if you work for me, or for you or you or you or all of us who are Americans, because we are the owners of the company called America. Yes, we elected Donald Trump, but we sure as hell didn’t elect the world’s richest man-child to create chaos for him.
How much disdain must Musk have for people to turn their lives upside down? Maybe that’s the wrong question. Maybe it should be how much love does he have for his ability to do what he wants.
Remember Henry Plummer, the 1863 sheriff of Grasshopper Gulch—now called Bannack in Madison County, Montana – who went after thieves and robbers until the people found out he was the mastermind behind the thieves and robbers? Same thing.
All of this is supposedly being done to “save taxpayer dollars”. To them, efficiency means getting rid of regulations. Look, the only people who want their kind of “efficient government” are people who want to make money faster than they are already making it which in the case of the tech people is plenty fast enough.
I do, however, want an “effective government” which protects the little people from the big people. If you want to get government spending down, fine, but you won’t do that by giving billionaires tax breaks and cutting protection for children and the elderly. You won’t do that by attacking “the little guy.”
Here’s what Steve Bannon, no shrinking violet when it comes to cutting government, says about Musk and his kind:
“With these guys you’re talking about genius level intelligence. These are not dumb people. But they’re not with us when it comes to the little guy.”[emphasis added]
“They don’t believe in this country. [emphasis added] They believe in this country right now because it protects them and provides some benefits to them.”
[interview with Steve Bannon by Ross Douthat of the New York Times, January 31, 2025.]
Yes, we have regulations and lots of them seem stupid, but let’s be effective and selective about getting rid of them and let’s not get rid of regulations that actually protect the American people from its own government and the spoiled rich kids of our great nation.
Jim Elliott served 16 years in the Montana Legislature as a state representative and state senator. He lives on his ranch in Trout Creek.