Elon Musk Would Serve as Secretary of D.O.G.E. under Trump?

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Elon Musk might be placing Tesla folks in an actual pickle, and never within the methods you might be considering. Or perhaps it’s only a not-very-thought-out “yeah, let’s do it!” after some combination of imbibed potions however would by no means really occur. Both manner, since he’s put it on the market and there are doubtlessly causes he’d go that route, let’s shortly discover a couple of situations for Musk and Tesla.

First, what the heck are we speaking about?

A few days in the past, Elon Musk posted this:

I’m keen to serve pic.twitter.com/BJhGbcA2e0

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) August 20, 2024

That was within the midst of many different right-wing posts, together with claiming that Donald Trump didn’t name neo-Nazis and white supremacists in Charlottesville “very fine people” in 2017 (oy vey) and lamenting that gun emojis look an increasing number of like toy weapons relatively than actual weapons.

The purpose of this tweet embedded above seems to be that Elon Musk would fortunately function the top of a “Department of Government Efficiency” (DOGE). Naturally, that’s a reference to the Dogecoin cryptocurrency Musk puffed up for years. So, there’s a query of whether or not that is all a joke, however that appears unlikely since he says “I am willing to serve” and has indicated elsewhere that he might work in a Trump administration on this kind of factor.

The primary issues that got here to thoughts for me with this had been:

1. Tesla followers and shareholders could also be proud of Musk stepping into authorities beneath the belief that he might affect issues from there to assist Tesla in varied methods.
2. Nonetheless, Musk would want to chop again considerably on his Tesla work if he took that job, and most Tesla followers and shareholders nonetheless see him as vital to progress within the firm. (There are lots of others who’ve come to conclude the alternative, however the latest shareholder vote appears to point these individuals are within the minority.)

Would the identical individuals who can be comfortable about Musk getting that job be comfortable about him stepping again from Tesla (to not point out X, Neuralink, SpaceX, The Boring Firm, and no matter different ventures I’m forgetting now)?

Nonetheless, I wasn’t even considering deeply sufficient about this. As CNN factors out, “Anything’s possible, of course, in a Trump 2.0 White House. But to take on any major role in that administration, Musk would have a mountain of conflicts of interest to climb.” Ah, yeah, you’ll be able to’t simply work within the US authorities whereas operating a enterprise — there are conflicts of curiosity with that. (To not say Trump wouldn’t work to dismantle them, however that’s the story at this time.)

“By law (and by common sense), you can’t work on government matters that would affect your own personal finances. That’s a big problem for someone like Musk, whose $245 billion fortune is largely tied up in shares of Tesla, SpaceX and X (formerly Twitter), along with his holdings in the fields of biotech, artificial intelligence, satellite communications and road infrastructure projects.”

Sure, and, apart from Tesla, which is regulated by varied authorities companies identical to different automobile firms, SpaceX will get big contracts from the US authorities. How would Musk disentangle himself from all of that? By promoting his shares in these firms? Hahahathat’s not taking place. “Much would depend on what the job is and how it relates to his economic interest,” mentioned Richard Briffault, a professor at Columbia Legislation Faculty. “Is there anything that wouldn’t relate to his economic interests? I’m not sure what that would be.”

It appears to me that is one other not-very-thought-out concepts from Trump and Musk geared toward two issues: getting extra consideration and assist for themselves. On the identical time, each are comfortable — if not keen — to interrupt guidelines, even legal guidelines, and spend the results of that using extra attorneys. So, who is aware of what they’d push and take a look at? Nonetheless, simply as Dogecoin by no means went to the moon like Musk hyped for months and even years, don’t count on Musk to enter authorities service.