Source: Politics<\/p>\n
Former President Donald Trump\u2019s plan to have Elon Musk lead a government efficiency commission would vault the world\u2019s richest man to an unprecedented role: American oligarch.<\/p>\n
The details of the commission and Musk\u2019s involvement are still vague, but any formal role in government would give greater influence to the billionaire owner of Tesla, Space X, satellite company Starlink and the social media platform X \u2014 signature ventures that have benefited from federal contracts, tax credits and government incentives.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is like red lights blaring, all kinds of conflicts of interest,\u201d said Danielle Brian, president of the Project on Government Oversight.<\/p>\n
Beyond the possible competing interests, Musk\u2019s potential foray into government would represent a striking development for the tech titan, who would essentially have a role at the highest levels of business, manufacturing, media and Washington.<\/p>\n
At the same time, handing Musk a position in his potential administration would fit neatly into Trump\u2019s approach to government. The former president tapped billionaires Wilbur Ross and Steven Mnuchin to serve in his Cabinet, though they had far lower public personas as Musk \u2014 and less to gain directly from their involvement.<\/p>\n
\u201cMusk is the latest example of a totally gearheaded, engineering-brained, Silicon Valley guy who looks at government and says \u2018How hard can it be? Let me at it and I can solve it for you,\u2019\u201d said Peter Leyden, founder of the strategic foresight firm Reinvent Futures and a former managing editor at Wired. \u201cThere\u2019s been many of these characters before and he\u2019s just the latest.\u201d<\/p>\n
Musk firmly planting himself into politics is not surprising to those who have watched him move from electric car innovator to space entrepreneur to owner of X (and online troll of liberals). But tech experts say Washington may be tricky terrain for a Silicon Valley businessperson unaccustomed to the complexities of federal bureaucracy.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe\u2019s always been a contrarian,\u201d said Will Rinehart, a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute. \u201cHe\u2019s worked on electric cars when no one cares about electric cars. He\u2019s worked on space when no one cared about space.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThat has pushed him into this space where being a contrarian has this value for me.\u201d<\/p>\n
Musk has described himself in the past as a moderate but shifted his allegiance to Trump, formally endorsing him after the attempted assassination in July.<\/p>\n
\u201cI look forward to serving America if the opportunity arises,\u201d Musk wrote on X<\/a>, \u201cNo pay, no title, no recognition is needed.\u201d<\/p>\n Like Trump, Musk has expressed hostility toward government oversight \u2014 particularly in California.<\/p>\n The billionaire had long-running feuds with the state\u2019s deep-blue government and has often tussled with the state\u2019s powerful labor interests. Early in the pandemic, he defied local public health orders and continued manufacturing cars at Tesla\u2019s Fremont plant in spite of the threat of Covid-19 \u2014 later suing to block what he called \u201cfascist\u201d restrictions and threatening to move the headquarters out of state.<\/p>\n He ended up moving some company\u2019s operations to Texas later that year, but continued to grow Tesla\u2019s footprint in California. He made similar threats of withdrawal earlier this year when, outraged over new protections for LGBTQ+ youth, he vowed to move X and SpaceX to the Lone Star State<\/a>. Last month, he announced the social media platform would shutter its offices in downtown San Francisco, relocating employees to nearby Palo Alto and San Jose.<\/p>\n Musk has also faced legal scrutiny for his labor practices at both Tesla and X. A California judge found that he and other Tesla executives violated labor laws in 2017 and 2018 by sabotaging attempts to organize workers. Hundreds of former Twitter employees sued him after his $44 billion acquisition of the social media platform in 2022, accusing him of failing to pay severance.<\/p>\n Lorena Gonzalez, head of the California Labor Federation, for years has traded barbs with the billionaire. She noted that state lawmakers often viewed Musk as a positive for the state \u2014 giving Tesla millions in subsidies and touting it as a marquee California company.<\/p>\n \u201cHis product was often kind of labeled as enviro,\u201d she said. \u201cBut there was nothing about him that suggested he was a progressive or liberal.\u201d<\/p>\n Musk did not respond to a request for comment. <\/p>\n Musk\u2019s push into national politics grew with his 2022 purchase of Twitter, which he later renamed X. He immediately oversaw mass layoffs and implemented a new vision promoting free speech \u2014 reforms that brought partisan criticism he was enabling misinformation and harassment on the platform. Under Musk\u2019s leadership, X\u2019s valuation has plummeted and investors lost over $24 billion<\/a>.<\/p>\n At the Reboot conference Thursday, hosted by the right-leaning tech think tank Foundation for American Innovation, attendees were largely indifferent or inattentive to Musk\u2019s audacious pledge to lead Trump\u2019s commission.<\/p>\n Patrick Blumenthal, founder of the Anomaly venture capital fund, suggested that given its apparent lack of relation to any of Musk\u2019s tech projects it reflected a certain level of dilettantism not uncommon in the tech world.<\/p>\n \u201cTech and politics, to some extent, I think are incompatible,\u201d Blumenthal said. \u201cBut you have an industry full of intelligent people, so it\u2019s inevitable that some of them will want to see if that intellect works in another arena.\u201d<\/p>\n