As students, we are taught that hard work and innovation lead to success. Few embody this idea more than Elon Musk, the world’s richest person, worth $350 billion as of Mar. 2025. The billionaire entrepreneur is the founder and CEO of Tesla, xAI, SpaceX, and The Boring Company, as well as the chairman and CTO of X (formerly Twitter). His legacy as a businessman is unmatched, having revolutionized entire industries. But now, Musk isn’t just shaping the future of technology—he’s reshaping the government, and that has far-reaching consequences.
Musk has always been a name associated with innovation, and many see his successes as a model for entrepreneurship. He was one of the first to spearhead the mass adoption of electric vehicles, with the company holding a 55% EV market share as of 2023. Tesla’s advancements in battery efficiency, self-driving software, and AI have positioned it as a leader in sustainable transportation. With a market valuation exceeding $1 trillion, it is the 7th most valuable company in the world. SpaceX, founded by Musk in 2002, has equally transformed space exploration, controlling over 60% of the global commercial launch market and drastically reducing the cost of spaceflight with reusable rockets with the ultimate plan of colonizing Mars by the 2030s. In 2020, SpaceX became the first private company to send astronauts to the International Space Station. Additionally, its Starlink satellite network has deployed over 7000 satellites, delivering high-speed internet to over 4.6 million users worldwide, particularly in remote regions.
But while his technological achievements may be groundbreaking, his recent political involvements raise serious concerns about how much influence one billionaire should have over government policies. In 2022, Musk made headlines with his $44 billion acquisition of Twitter, now rebranded as X. Promising to champion free speech, he implemented sweeping changes, including mass layoffs, the removal of content moderation policies, and the introduction of paid verification. The platform’s ad revenue reportedly dropped by 50%, and user engagement became increasingly polarized. This shift has been noticeable. News and discussions online have only made it harder to distinguish facts from conspiracy theories. Social media plays a huge role in shaping what we believe, and Musk’s approach to running X has made navigating online information even more difficult. The situation escalated when, in a public interview in late 2023, Musk told advertisers to “go f**k themselves.” Major brands, including Apple, Disney, and IBM, left X shortly after.
Following the attempted assassination on then 2024 presumptive Republican nominee for President Donald Trump, Elon Musk announced his endorsement of Trump on X. This marked a significant shift for the Tesla CEO, who had previously positioned himself as politically independent, often criticizing both major parties. In the weeks following his announcement, he funneled over $75 million over three months into America PAC, a pro-Trump Super Political Action Committee (PAC) he created. Through America PAC, he initiated the controversial “$1 million-a-day giveaway” aimed at promoting voter engagement in swing states. Participants were required to sign a petition supporting the First and Second Amendments, with the incentive of potentially winning $1 million in daily draws. Attorney Generals from multiple states argued that the initiative resembled an illegal lottery and could be called vote-buying. His lawyers later claimed that all of the people who had won were not randomly picked after being sued in federal court.
Returning the favor, President Trump appointed Musk as the chairman of the newly established Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) shortly after taking office in January 2025. The agency, created through an executive order, was tasked with “cutting wasteful spending and streamlining federal bureaucracy,” though critics saw it as an attempt to hand the tycoon unchecked power over the government’s inner workings.
His first major action was the shutdown of USAID, the federal agency responsible for foreign humanitarian aid. He dismissed it as “a money pit funding America’s enemies” and redirected its $30 billion budget (or around 1% of our GDP) toward domestic infrastructure projects. Nearly all of its 10,000 staff members have cleared their belongings from the Ronald Reagan Building with the expectation that they won’t return. On Feb. 22, Musk posted on X that all federal government employees would soon be sent an email by the DOGE team asking them to list five bullet points of “what they got done last week.” Those who failed to respond, “would be taken as a resignation,” he said.
This is a terrifying level of power for any individual to hold, let alone an unelected individual. The billionaire was recently granted classified information and made changes which typically have to go through Congress without any congressional approval. Career civil servants—the term used for hired government employees—who have spent decades in public service are being eliminated overnight, branded as “useless” by Musk without any real justification. His actions show no regard for the expertise that these officials provide to the government, instead prioritizing his own vision of efficiency, which more closely resembles corporate-style purges than actuality.
What Musk fails to realize is that the federal government isn’t a company. It’s a complex system designed to serve the people, not turn a profit. His approach of gutting entire agencies and dismissing seasoned professionals without a legitimate reason doesn’t make the government more efficient; it makes it weaker. The individuals he is firing are experts in national security, disaster response, and countless other fields that keep the country running. The National Park Service (NPS), whose mission is to preserve America’s natural parks, was at the top of the list of government agencies seen favorably by U.S. adults, according to a Pew Research study conducted last July. Still, the employment of nearly 1,000 National Park Service employees was terminated on Valentine’s Day. As a result, several parks have announced reduced operations or new park hours, including the Florissant Fossil Beds National Monument in Colorado.
Unfortunately, this is no longer just an issue affecting adults. On Feb. 11, DOGE canceled 89 contracts totaling $881 million at the Department of Education (DOE), reducing their educational research and data-gathering initiatives. The President has continuously reiterated his intention to dismantle the department entirely and for individual states to take over its responsibilities. As state resources and priorities vary widely, such a move would lead to disparities in educational quality and access across the country.
Despite legal challenges and mounting public backlash, Musk remains unfazed and unlikely to stop. U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan allowed him to continue the mass firings and his access to internal government data on Feb 17. While his defenders—usually those on the far-right—praise his willingness to ensure Americans aren’t wasting their tax dollars, his opponents fear that his actions are threats to our democracy. Whether Musk is truly fixing inefficiency or simply reshaping the government into the President’s desires is unclear as of now. And that should concern us all.
