Just past midnight on February 3, Elon Musk took to X to justify his sweeping overhaul of the federal government. Speaking over the chatter of his four-year-old son—also named X—Musk declared that the U.S. bureaucracy had become a rogue “fourth branch of government,” one he described as “arguably the most powerful.”
Turning his attention to the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), Musk branded it a tool for funneling taxpayer money to “Marxists and criminals.” Despite its existence being mandated by Congress, he boasted of his plans to shut it down, claiming full support from President Donald Trump. Hours later, he doubled down, posting that he had spent the weekend “feeding USAID into the woodchipper.”
Musk’s takeover has been marked by the presence of operatives barely out of their teens, raising concerns over both the experience and the motives behind his sweeping changes. His aggressive dismantling of federal structures has drawn comparisons to his chaotic overhaul of Twitter—except this time, the stakes involve the machinery of the U.S. government itself. – The Economist
