“Good businessmen can run anything efficiently,” my grandfather exclaimed as we spoke at a cousin’s wedding over Christmas break. Bear in mind, if he had to list three men he idolizes I would bet money on: 1. Donald Trump, 2. Narendra Modi, and 3. Elon Musk. Take that as you will; I love my grandfather to death. While I’ve grown accustomed to his concerning statements, like “Rome was named after the Hindu God Ram” (yes, the capital of Italy), his most recent take got me thinking. As you can imagine, in light of Elon Musk’s vaunted Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), I now find myself reflecting on his comments with concern for our government’s future. The billionaire who rampaged through Twitter, now X, and slashed its staff by close to 80 percent is now taking a similarly hostile stance against bureaucratic inefficiency. In the last few weeks, Musk’s goal has become abundantly clear: to reduce the US government and install his own tech-fueled vision for the future.
So who’s running the show? Musk hired a collection of inexperienced tech-managers and previous SpaceX interns. The crew of twenty-something-year-olds has begun interrogating government employees about their jobs. See the slight irony? More importantly, the team started questioning the Treasury Department and interfering with the system that controls payments, while Musk strategically employed X to call out specific agencies. In perfect Musk fashion, DOGE has utilized the aid of artificial intelligence in his war against inefficiency. Thomas Shedd, a former Tesla software engineer and current deputy commissioner at the Federal Acquisition Service, told employees at the General Services Administration that the agency will be driven by an “A.I.-first strategy.” DOGE will use a chatbot to analyze contracts and identify potential budget reductions at the Department of Education. Stories have even surfaced claiming A.I. filters will scan Department of Treasury grant proposals for forbidden terms–including “climate change” and “gender identity” – and block these proposals. “Everything that can be machine-automated will be,” a government official told the Washington Post. “And the technocrats will replace the bureaucrats.”
The federal government is suddenly being operated like an A.I. startup. Musk, an unelected billionaire and an expert in flying cars and reaching Mars, is making the United States the test stage for an unproven and unregulated technology. Governments are run by people and are thus by nature slow and cautious. Musk’s automated version is evidently fast and unscrupulous. DOGE has already stopped operations entirely at the U.S Agency for International Development, which allocated over $40 billion in foreign aid in 2023. Even more glaring is Musk’s attack on the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, which previously sued tech companies for using loosely regulated software and technology. But why the unrelenting, scorched-earth approach? Both Musk and Trump have found an affinity for blaming the country’s issues on the so-called deep state. These are the federal employees who handle daily operations. As these people get fired, a new inherently undemocratic deep state fills the void: a system of machines and the rich elite. Musk has even sidelined Congress and threatened to defy the Supreme Court, which would bring the country to the point of constitutional crisis.
By no means am I claiming that A.I. is morally abhorrent and should play no role in our lives whatsoever. That would be foolish considering ChatGPT serves a daily role in my life, and if used right, A.I. poses immense potential innovations for humanity. I’m simply critiquing the Muskian technocracy, which aims for a more expansive artificial intelligence as an alternative to the occasionally cumbersome mechanisms of democracy. Musk’s ideal world is one without human judgment, reasonable debate, or oversight, and unfortunately A.I. is simply not effective enough to replace human function. Earlier this month, Musk went on X and accused treasury officials of illegal activity by paying vouchers that were not approved by Congress. His evidence was a blurb on the law generated by Grok, X’s A.I. model. Musk used A.I. as his lawyer, and his claims were swiftly disputed by actual human legal experts.
Musk will eventually make the strategic decision to back his government A.I. vision by a narrative of America first and exceptionalism —a notion approachable for the MAGA voters. Recently, the Chinese A.I. company known as DeepSeek released a model that yielded results rivaling OpenAI’s, using far fewer resources and funding. The apparent foreign competition has provided cover for American big tech to push for large-scale A.I. development, creating an environment similar to the space race. Some may understand Musk’s efforts to fuse A.I. and government as a marketing method for Silicon Valley, but even OpenAI CEO Sam Altman admitted that “the balance of power between capital and labor could easily get messed up.” Unfortunately, what tech entrepreneurs deem growth does not always align with the everyday American’s understanding of the collective good.
Edited by Amir Mason
