Featured Image Credit: Anna Moneymaker / Staff / Brandon Bell / Staff / Getty
Well that didn't take long, did it?
Just months after Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy were appointed co-heads of the Department of Government Efficiency, it looks like Donald Trump's plans for a leaner American government are already starting to crumble.
If you took even the slightest bit of notice of the 2024 election campaign, you'd have seen Musk firmly by the President-elect's side, performing star jumps and cheering 'Make America Great Again’ from the sidelines.
While Musk and Trump once looked like they were sworn enemies, they've become the best of buds as the former looks to be the President's right-hand man in the tech world.
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Still, with Trump pioneering a tech-powered future and Musk's already substantial wealth soaring in the aftermath of Kamala Harris' defeat, he's seemingly in the right place at the right time.
Although it's not an official position in government, Musk's role as the co-head of the DOGE (named after his favorite cryptocurrency) could see him wield some substantial power.
The problem is, cutting $2 trillion from government spending is no mean feat - especially as Trump is expected to invest big in defense.
As federal spending currently sits at $6.8 trillion, slicing $2 trillion off the top might seem impossible. It's not just the general public who fear it can't be done, with Musk now calling that magic $2 trillion a 'best case outcome'.
Stagwell CEO Mark Penn grilled Musk in a recent interview and asked: “Do you think the $2 trillion is a realistic number now that you’re looking more closely at it?"
A brutally honest Musk answered: "I think we’ll try for $2 trillion. I think that’s the best-case outcome."
“But I do think that you kind of have to have some overage. I think if we try for $2 trillion, we’ve got a good shot at getting $1 [trillion]."
The math just ain't mathing, as speaking at a Trump rally in New York's Madison Square Garden on October 27, Musk proudly declared he'd be able to slash the federal budget by ‘at least $2 trillion'.
Expanding on his endgame, Musk told Penn: "If we can drop the budget deficit from $2 trillion to $1 trillion and free up the economy to have additional growth, such that the output of goods and services keeps pace with the increase in the money supply, then there will be no inflation.
"So that, I think, would be an epic outcome."
Although critics were quick to point out that the entire discretionary budget was only $1.7 trillion, and whole departments would seemingly have to be shuttered to reach this mythical $2 trillion, Musk has stood by his numbers until the Penn interview.
There are still some major concerns, like the assumption that DOGE will have to make cuts to the Medicaid health care program that's aimed at the poor. Musk has already said this could lead to 'hardship' for some, which is sure to be a point of contention.
For now, Musk's cutely-named DOGE has a lot to prove.
Brian Riedl, a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute, a center-right think tank, told The Washington Post in October: "There’s a long history of the fantasy that one smart businessman will just identify trillions in waste, but that’s just not how it works." Just because you think there's money being put in the wrong pot, it's clearly not as simple as just moving things around.
