The famously two-faced and litigious Elon Musk has brought his double standards on free speech and accountability to a new department in Washington created to increase "government efficiency." What could go wrong?
For billionaire Musk, whose businesses already appear to be benefiting since the announcement—not much. But for those who want to ensure actual government accountability, it could be quite grim.
Despite the words "government" and "efficiency" in its title, the new Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) will operate outside of government, with Musk and businessman Vivek Ramaswamy at the helm. So, while Donald Trump said the commission's goal will be to "make the U.S. government accountable to 'WE THE PEOPLE,'" the men in charge won't actually be accountable to anyone, as they will not be subject to standard ethics guidelines requiring disclosure of potential conflicts of interest (of which there are many here).
The creation of DOGE is an object example of Trump's intention to select people to run agencies they have publicly reviled, and are vocally eager to dismantle. "We expect certain agencies to be deleted outright," Ramaswamy recently said. If the irony wasn't already thick enough, given Musk's own history of mocking and suppressing whistleblowers in his companies and blocking people who criticize........