So here we are, back to the era of waking up to headlines that trigger audible “ughs” and a desire to act out being violently sick. On Wednesday morning, this was the news that Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy had been appointed by the president-elect, Donald Trump, to run something called the Department of Government Efficiency, a newly created body tasked with cutting back federal bureaucracy and given the larky acronym Doge. (Musk has been a longtime promoter of the cryptocurrency Dogecoin, so there’s a great conflict-of-interest gag straight out the gate.)

On X, Musk duly posted an image of himself in gangster pose, with digitally volumised hair alongside the lettering D.O.G.E, the message of which was clear: cutting $2tn from the federal budget, a figure touted by Musk before the election, was going to be not only satisfying, but fun!

Quite apart from the fact that Musk may now be nominally in charge of government agencies with oversight of his companies – the Environmental Protection Agency, for example, has had run-ins with Musk over threats to wildlife near the SpaceX launch pad........

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