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Former President Donald Trump says Elon Musk will head a government efficiency commission if he wins the 2024 presidential election.
While speaking in New York City, Trump said Musk had agreed to lead a team that would orchestrate a “complete financial and performance audit” of the US government and propose “drastic reforms.”
Musk suggested the team, Trump said. In a post on X after Trump’s speech, Musk said he wouldn’t ask for pay, a title, or recognition. The Tesla chief had already signalled his interest when interviewing Trump on the social media platform.
Musk’s politics have swung firmly to the right since 2021. He has pushed to move offices for Tesla and X from California to Texas, and has strongly supported Trump’s 2024 presidential campaign. This includes reversing a ban instituted shortly after the January 6th, 2021 Capitol attack. Lately, he’s been accused of tolerating misinformation on X and has been known to repost false claims. Musk asserts that attempts to quash misinformation are violations of free speech rights.
An arrangement like this isn’t surprising. Trump praised Musk’s aggressive job cutting in the X interview, including layoffs of the entire Supercharger team at Tesla and thousands of people at Twitter (now X). It’s implied that Musk would bring this approach to a new administration, fulfilling conservative goals of shrinking government.
I look forward to serving America if the opportunity arises.
No pay, no title, no recognition is needed. https://t.co/5PSNtjBQn7
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) September 5, 2024
Whether or not this would work isn’t clear. Tesla is facing stiffer competition in the EV realm, and has had disappointing earnings so far this year. The job cuts at X, meanwhile, hurt both its moderation abilities and its bottom line. Revenue has dropped sharply since Musk came aboard, and a Kantar survey of marketers has suggested that 26% of them will reduce their ad spending on X in 2025.
There are also questions about a potential conflict of interest. Although Trump has generally embraced anti-EV policies, such as eliminating the federal tax credit, Musk might have outsized influence on policies both as a government task force leader and as a friend of Trump. Musk maintains that a proposal to neuter EV measures in Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act would help Tesla, but that might also hurt competing automakers.
