Musk, so used to getting his way at his businesses, struggled for control. At various points in his tenure he took on Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Transport Secretary Sean Duffy, and trade tsar Peter Navarro, while clashing with several other senior officials.
Far from being laser-focused on eliminating waste, Musk’s foray into government was a “revenge tour” against a bureaucracy the billionaire had come to see as the enemy of innovation, a former senior colleague of Musk’s said, highlighting the entrepreneur’s frustration with COVID-19 regulations in California, his perceived snub by the Biden administration, and his anger over his daughter’s gender transition.
Trump’s AI and crypto tsar, David Sacks, an influential political voice in the tech world, “whipped [Musk] up into a very, very far-right kind of mindset,” the person added, to the extent that was “going to help this administration in crushing the ‘woke’ agenda.”
Neither Musk nor Sacks responded to requests for comment.
Musk, who claimed Doge only acted in an “advisory role,” this week expressed frustration at it being used as a “whipping boy” for unpopular cuts decided by the White House and cabinet secretaries.
“Trump, I think, was very savvy and allowed Doge to kind of take all those headlines for a traditional political scapegoat,” said Sahil Lavingia, head of a commerce start-up who worked for Doge until earlier this month. Musk, he added, might also have been keen to take credit for the gutting of USAID and other moves but ultimately garnered unwanted attention.
“If you were truly evil, [you] would just be more quiet,” said Lavingia, who joined the initiative in order to streamline processes within government. “You would do the evil stuff quietly.”
