Musk steamrolls Washington as he remakes the federal government

Elon Musk worked at breakneck speed over the weekend to wipe out the U.S. Agency for International Development. His allies got access to the Treasury’s payments system. His aides reportedly locked out government employees from their computer systems that hold sensitive data.

And President Donald Trump is OK with it — for now.

“He's a very talented guy from the standpoint of management and costs,” Trump told reporters Monday. “We're trying to shrink government, and he can probably shrink it as well as anybody else, if not better. Where we think there's a conflict or there's a problem, we won't let him go near it.”

Musk’s dizzying takeover of Washington, which has frightened Democrats and some Republicans, has renewed speculation within GOP circles about whether the mutually beneficial relationship between the world’s richest man and the president will eventually implode. Musk’s recent moves also underscore how serious he is about executing his far-reaching plans to reshape the government, flying in the face of critics who argued his so-called Department of Government Efficiency would be a do-nothing blue-ribbon commission.

Trump is broadly aware of and supportive of Musk's moves to blow up USAID, according to a person close to the president who was granted anonymity to speak candidly. And although he likes the idea of Musk handling "the dirty work" of slashing through the federal bureaucracy, Trump could always change his mind about the situation if there is a political price to pay down the road, the person added.

"He's fine with Elon being the bad guy," the person said, noting that Trump typically pays close attention to news coverage but may care little himself about the details of whether USAID would be folded into the State Department or shuttered altogether. "But things can always change."

Trump has maintained close ties to Musk, even though the tech billionaire has angered influential voices in the MAGA movement who believe he isn’t aligned with them on immigration and other key issues, including former top Trump adviser Steve Bannon. One reason, some people close to Trump said, is that the president believes Musk, the single biggest donor in the 2024 presidential election, played a major role in helping him win the election and is extremely smart.

Republicans on the Hill are also largely giving Musk and Trump the benefit of the doubt, dismissing criticism from Democrats that they are infringing on their congressional powers. Instead, they are leaning on comments from one of their former colleagues — Secretary of State Marco Rubio — instead of directly grappling with Musk’s actions.

Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.), asked if Trump has the ability to close USAID unilaterally, said the administration’s goal is to ferret out waste.

"I think it's a lot more about finding out how the dollars are being spent, where they are going and whether or not they're consistent with this administration's and our country's priorities,” he said.

Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), chair of the Judiciary Committee, said that it is a “constitutional question” when asked if Trump can end USAID without congressional approval.

“It's how you define the executive powers of the president of the United States,” he said, “and I can't define that for you.”

Career government officials, Democratic lawmakers and nongovernmental organizations have scrambled to shine a light on Musk’s efforts, many of which they’ve argued he doesn’t have the legal authority to carry out absent approval from Congress. Even some conservatives have raised concerns over Musk’s actions. So far, though, they have been vastly outpaced by Musk, who has taken to his social media platform X to build public support for shock-and-awe efforts.

Though Musk posted on X throughout the weekend that it was time for USAID to “die” and bragged that he was “feeding USAID into the wood chipper,” it wasn’t until Monday afternoon that Democratic lawmakers held a press conference in hopes of saving the agency.

Likewise, days after Musk's allies gained access to the Treasury Department's payments system, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) announced that he and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) would work on legislation stopping the "unlawful peddling." Schumer said, “It’s like letting a tiger into a petting zoo and hoping for the best.”

A spokesperson for DOGE did not respond to a request for comment. On X, Musk reposted accounts arguing Americans voted for Musk to play a major role in the Trump administration.

At the event outside the USAID headquarters Monday, Democrats accused Musk and Trump of acting like autocrats. Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) said, "This is a constitutional crisis that we are in today. Let's call it what it is." Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.) said, “Elon Musk may get to be dictator of Tesla. And he may try to play dictator here in Washington, D.C., but he doesn’t get to shut down the Agency for International Development.”

But Musk may have boxed Democrats into defending an institution that voters aren’t terribly fond of. Democratic and Republican strategists said that voters in polls and focus groups either know little about foreign aid or believe it is a poor use of resources.

“You’ll hear a lot of people say, ‘Well, sure, it’s nice to help people in Ukraine’ or ‘Sure, it would be great to do charity work across the globe, but we have people who are homeless here. We have a drug problem here,’” said Democratic pollster Jason McGrath. “That’s obviously not the way the federal government works, but it’s a sentiment that the Trump campaign and Musk have cynically taken advantage of.”

As for Republicans, conservative consultant Ryan Girdusky said that many are willing to give Musk the benefit of the doubt because they support him rooting out government waste. But he said there should be protections in place to ensure that personal data is not compromised by Musk’s efforts — a concern others on the right have expressed privately about the tech tycoon.

“I agree that the federal government is bloated and that some employees need to go, and there's a lot of waste and fraud and abuse in the system. And I’m happy Musk is doing that,” he said.

But, he added, “It is deeply concerning that a man who has built his fortune on federal contracts, federal subsidies, he’s in the process of building an AI company and he is building the eight ball. There are a number of companies who are much further on AI than Musk is. So how do you jump past all of them? You get a hold of the data that no one else can access.”

Katherine Tully-McManus contributed to this report.

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