This article was originally published on the website CapitalAndMain.com.
Tesla workers at the automaker’s massive factory in Fremont are all too familiar with CEO Elon Musk’s efficiency approach that he’s now using to slash government programs as one of the most powerful members of President Donald Trump’s administration.
Back in April, Musk cut Tesla’s workforce by 10%, informing workers in a late-night company-wide email. The layoffs came in the wake of an 8.7% year-over-year drop in revenue at the automaker.
In the email to workers, he said: “There is nothing I hate more, but it must be done. This will enable us to be lean, innovative and hungry for the next growth phase cycle.” Since then, though its stock price has doubled, automotive revenue has declined again, dropping 6% for the year.
Musk has repeated that approach at his other companies. He fired 80% of X’s workforce and even auctioned off coffee makers and office chairs soon after buying the company in 2022, when it was known as Twitter. He dismissed employees at SpaceX who complained about his leadership and sacked whistleblowers at The Boring Co., his tunnel construction firm.
Musk’s modus operandi is “Take it over, ruthlessly purge anyone who he sees as opposition and crash operations to remake it in his worldview,” said Emily Horne, who was head of Twitter’s global policy communications before joining former President Joe Biden’s administration, in an interview with the Associated Press. It often backfired, as when Musk had to reach out to rehire several dozen software engineers at X whom he’d fired by mistake.
Now Musk is applying that ruthless management style to government, leading Trump’s so-called Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, where he has made headlines by claiming to have saved billions by eliminating long-standing agencies and firing thousands of essential workers such as air traffic controllers and food safety inspectors.
The slash-and-burn tactic can be disruptive in the private sector, but when applied to government, it can be disastrous and destructive to millions of Americans, management experts said.
“The question facing Americans isn’t whether government needs modernization; it’s whether they’re willing to sacrifice democracy in pursuit of Musk’s version of efficiency,” said Allison Stanger, distinguished endowed professor at Middlebury College in Vermont. “When we grant tech leaders direct control over government functions, we’re not just streamlining bureaucracy—we’re fundamentally altering the relationship between private power and public governance.”
Musk did not immediately reply to a request for comment.
The focus on cutting costs without taking into consideration outcomes or effects—and neglecting to increase investment in government programs that have been shown to improve the lives of Americans—can be extremely harmful, experts said.
“If all we’re doing is focusing on the buck and not the bang, we’re not going to be able to get that far,” said Jason Saul, executive director of the Center for Impact Sciences at the University of Chicago’s Harris School of Public Policy.
“At some point, you’re going to hit bone where you just keep cutting, to the point where you’re now reaching vital government services that your constituents depend on,” Saul added.
Such cost-cutting in government can backfire because it fails to take into account the role of government, Saul said. “The purpose of government is not to spend money and not to generate a profit—it’s to produce desirable outcomes for its citizens.”
Musk’s DOGE is so focused on cutting costs and targeting programs that are considered too “woke” by Trump—without centering its efforts on outcomes that will improve the lives of working Americans—that its destructive effect will far outweigh any savings to the budget.
“Wholesale dismissals, reductions-in-force, and probationary firings are a slash-and-burn approach,” said James K. Galbraith, who holds the Lloyd M. Bentsen Jr. chair in government and business relations at the University of Texas at Austin’s Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public Affairs, in an interview with The Daily Beast. “They will make the federal government less efficient: queues will get longer, maintenance will be deferred, more mistakes will be made, it will be harder to hire new people if they don’t think the jobs are secure.”
Even fellow Republicans have expressed alarm at Musk’s technocratic approach. Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, is upset that dozens of her constituents have been fired, telling ABC News that she agreed with reducing the size of government, but that “his approach is bringing confusion, anxiety, and now trauma to our civil servants. Indiscriminate workforce cuts aren’t efficient and won’t fix the federal budget, but they will hurt good people who have answered the call to public service to do important work for our nation.”
Musk’s approach may just be the latest and most controversial iteration of a long-standing behavior, but “the history of trying to make government more efficient has come up as a failure time and again,” Saul said. And much of that is due to the failure to focus on outcomes: examining “the cost per outcome of every government initiative and program.”
He suggested that every single federal program be tagged with a desired outcome. “We’re doing this school busing program because we want to increase student attendance. We’re doing this food security program and preventative health initiative because we want to reduce emergency room visits.”
The next step is to collect data to assess whether that program is achieving those outcomes, he added.
Between DOGE’s slash-and-burn strategy and wasteful spending is “something in the middle, which aims to create twice the impact for half the cost,” Saul said. “That’s what efficiency is. It’s not just half the cost, but about a better cost per outcome.”
Musk is squandering an opportunity to transform government for the better, said Forbes contributor Robert B. Tucker, whom the publication calls an “innovation guru.” “He needs to acknowledge that the federal government does function: Air traffic controllers keep planes flying. Polluters get punished. Medicare checks go out. Warfighters get trained and armed. FEMA workers show up at disasters, and taxes get collected.”
Rather than mock and denigrate federal workers, Musk should “figure out ways to inspire and empower them instead,” Tucker said “Find ways to lift them up while challenging them to do better. My advice: Make everyone in government a hero. Challenge them to join you in this once-in-a-lifetime endeavor to upgrade and revitalize the federal government.”
The extent of Musk’s cuts to government have shocked many of his employees at Tesla, even those who likely voted for Trump, said a person close to the workforce at the automaker who asked not to be identified because he’s concerned about retaliation against workers. “They’re like, ‘What’s our boss doing?’ This is bizarre,” the person said. And they’re worried for their own sakes and those of their loved ones, the person added: “When your boss has become not just the most powerful auto exec, but one of the most powerful, if not the most powerful person in the country, it’s intimidating. They know what he’s capable of.”
