The Week in Musk: "This is our shot"

Elon Musk arrives for the Inauguration of Donald Trump on January 20, 2025. (Photo by Kevin Lamarque - Pool/Getty Images)

It is hard to quantify the scale of the Department of Government Efficiency’s (DOGE) impact across the federal government over the last week. But the bottom line is this: President Donald Trump has granted Elon Musk unilateral permission to bulldoze federal bureaucracy in a manner that conservatives have fantasized about for years. And through DOGE, Trump and Musk are ignoring the constitutional role of Congress to draft laws and authorize spending. “If it’s not possible now, it will never be possible. This is our shot,” Musk said in a conversation he livestreamed on X on Tuesday. “This is the best hand of cards we’re ever going to have. If we don’t take advantage of this best hand of cards, it’s never going to happen.”

Many of the actions they have taken thus far appear to be illegal, according to a lengthy Washington Post report. The article covers how DOGE may have violated laws by offering federal employees buyouts; accessing the Department of Education’s federal student loan data; using personal emails to communicate with staffers at the General Services Administration; and ignoring the due process rights of federal employees at the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), among other potential illegalities. (On Thursday, a federal judge stepped in to block Trump and Musk’s “deferred resignation” program, which seeks to induce mass resignations across the government’s civilian workforce.)

“So many of these things are so wildly illegal that I think they’re playing a quantity game and assuming the system can’t react to all this illegality at once,” Georgetown administrative law professor David Super told the Post.

Musk has maintained that DOGE’s actions are all above board and, in actuality, fairly mundane. “We just renamed US Digital Services, created by Obama, to US DOGE Services, with a mandate to modernize all computer systems in the US government,” he wrote in a Wednesday post on X. “This is something that is sorely needed!”

130 days (or more) of Musk

The White House finally addressed Musk’s official role in the government this week, stating he is serving as a “special government employee” (SGE). The designation means he is limited to 130 working days in a calendar year. However, the 130-day limit is based on the eight-hour work day, according to NBC News. This means the White House could, for instance, claim Musk only works half days, thus extending his SGE status for a total of 260 calendar days. The SGE designation also means Musk does not have to submit the same rigorous financial disclosures typical appointees are required to.

Legally, SGEs cannot dabble in government programs or funds that overlap with their personal financial interests. But don’t expect Musk to be held to that standard. On Wednesday, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said Musk will be afforded the latitude to decide for himself whether his work at DOGE conflicts with his business interests. “If Elon Musk comes across a conflict of interest with the contracts and the funding that DOGE is overseeing, then Elon will excuse himself from those contracts,” she said.

In an interview with NPR, former White House ethics lawyer Richard Painter warned of the potential crimes Musk could commit while leading DOGE. "He may not participate in any United States government matter that has a direct and predictable effect on his financial holdings," said Painter. "If he does, he commits a crime."

SGEs are also subject to the Hatch Act, which bars partisan political commentary. Musk has repeatedly ignored that requirement in recent weeks, repeatedly attacking Democrats on his social media platform.

On the chopping block: The National Weather Service

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), which manages the National Weather Service and National Hurricane Center, appears to be the next federal agency that Musk will target. On Tuesday, Musk’s team entered the agency’s offices in Silver Spring, Maryland, Axios reported. CBS News, citing former NOAA officials still in contact with current employees, reported that the agency was told to expect a 50% reduction in staff and a 30% reduction to its budget.

NOAA primarily gathers data on changes to the climate and weather patterns. The data is particularly vital during extreme weather events, which have become increasingly frequent as a result of manmade climate change. The fact that NOAA quantifies the effects of climate change has made it a target of Republican ire. Project 2025, a Trump administration blueprint crafted by the Heritage Foundation, called for breaking up NOAA, claiming it is a “colossal operation that has become one of the main drivers of the climate change alarm industry and, as such, is harmful to future U.S. prosperity.”

DOGE to be unleashed on air traffic control systems

Musk said on Wednesday that he had received approval from Trump to dispatch his DOGE team to rework the complex safety system designed to prevent planes from smashing into each other. “The @DOGE team will aim to make rapid safety upgrades to the air traffic control system," Musk wrote in a post on X.

The exact changes DOGE plans to make to air traffic control (ATC) procedures are unclear. The only specifics Musk outlined were in reference to a system that informs pilots about potential risks in their flight paths. Musk then argued for automating the Federal Aviation Administration’s ATC system.

Trump shared some additional details on Thursday. “We're all gonna sit down and do a great computerized system for our control towers,” the president said. “Let's spend less money and build a great system done by two or three companies... When I land in my plane, privately, I use a system from another country.”

The announcement came one week after an Army Black Hawk helicopter collided with a commercial flight attempting to land at Reagan Washington National Airport, resulting in 67 deaths and the worst domestic aviation disaster in almost 15 years.

Musk is collaborating with the Department of Transportation on the project, according to Trump’s Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy. Duffy wrote on X that he plans to let the DOGE team “plug in” to the ATC system to install unspecified upgrades. “We’re gonna remake our airspace,” Duffy said. “And we’re gonna do it quickly.”

The demolition of USAID

USAID is a government agency established by a law passed by Congress. Musk, however, has said that Trump has given him the authority to shut down USAID, which he has described as an “evil,” “criminal organization.” Here’s more reporting from the Associated Press:

The apex of Musk’s work so far came on Monday at the Washington headquarters for the U.S. Agency for International Development, or USAID, where yellow police tape blocked access to the lobby and hundreds of employees were locked out of computer systems. Musk said Trump had agreed to let him shutter the agency

The new USAID website, presumably created by DOGE, states that “all USAID direct hire personnel will be placed on administrative leave globally” effective Friday, February 7. The agency will reportedly be whittled down to under 300 employees, according to Wired.

Is anyone doing anything to stop him?

Democrats in Congress are attempting to muster a response to Musk’s mayhem. Senator Ed Markey, a Democrat from Massachusetts, has introduced a bill aimed at preventing unauthorized access to the Treasury’s payment systems, while Representative Mark Pocan, a Democrat from Wisconsin, has introduced the Eliminate Looting of Our Nation by Mitigating Unethical State Kleptocracy (ELON MUSK) Act.

The bills are unlikely to gain much traction, with the Senate and House both under Republican control. Republicans in Washington have already stepped in to block Democratic efforts to subpoena Musk.

Musk supports sending U.S. citizens to a foreign prison

After Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele offered to allow Trump to use his sprawling prison complex to lock-up U.S. citizens, Musk could barely contain his glee, calling the proposal a “Great idea!!” on X. A right-wing authoritarian, Bukele has already imprisoned tens of thousands of Salvadorans, often on spurious gang-related charges. The Trump administration responded by saying it will need to “study” the “legalities” around Bukele’s “very generous offer.”

Tesla sales tank in key markets

Tesla suffered dismal sales figures in the month of January across much of Europe.

In Germany, where Musk has worked to help elect the far-right AfD party, new Tesla registrations fell by 60% in January, according to the trade group VDA. The story was much the same on the western side of the Rhine: The French trade group PFA’s January report found a 63% drop in Tesla sales. And in Norway, sales of new Teslas dropped by 38% last month.

While U.S. sales figures for January have not been compiled yet, Tesla is already staring down some bad news in California, its top U.S. market. Registrations of new Teslas in California slumped by about 12% last year, according to the California New Car Dealers Association, despite overall sales of electric vehicles improving by 1.2%.

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Musk Minutes

DOGE employees have gained access to payment and contracting systems at the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. (Wall Street Journal)

A federal judge issued an order Friday temporarily barring Musk from accessing U.S. Treasury payments data. (Financial Times)

DOGE employee Marko Elez, one of two DOGE members granted access to the Treasury’s payment systems, has resigned after the discovery of a social media account he used to promote racism and eugenics. (Wall Street Journal)

There’s a chance one of Musk’s DOGE engineers, 19-year-old Edward Coristine, would not pass a federal background check under ordinary circumstances. Wired found that Coristine operates a site with a Russian web domain and worked at a tech startup that hired criminal hackers. (Wired)

Polling data from the Economist/YouGov found Republican views on Musk have soured since Trump took office. A survey released Wednesday shows 26% of Republicans want Musk to have “a lot” of influence on Trump, down from 47% when the same question was asked shortly after Trump’s victory in November. (The Economist/YouGov)

NASA employees are concerned about the agency’s ties to Musk’s space exploration company SpaceX following the appointment of Michael Altenhofen, an engineer who spent the last 15 years working for the company. Altenhofen was named a senior advisor to the NASA Administrator. (ArsTechnica)

Musk wanted a non-U.S. citizen to work for DOGE but Trump officials put the kibosh on the idea, fearing the optics of using an immigrant to fire thousands of Americans. (The Atlantic)

DOGE does not want the public to know what it’s doing, as evidenced by a 404 Media report on the outfit ordering its employees to stop using Slack as it transitions to a records system not subject to FOIA requests. (404 Media)

Finally, civil servants have informed CBS News that their personnel files were deleted following DOGE’s takeover of the Office of Personnel Management’s HR databases. The personnel files then suddenly reappeared. “I don’t know whether any have been doctored — [it’s] more likely that they’re running all the documents through AI,” one federal employee said. (CBS News/Jennifer Jacobs)