Isaac Arnsdorf
Appearances
Apple News Today
Elon Musk’s takeover of Washington
the Office of Personnel Management, which is basically HR for the federal government, and the General Services Administration, which handles all the real estate and computers and equipment, you know, the physical stuff.
Apple News Today
Elon Musk’s takeover of Washington
And then there's access to the Treasury Department's payment system, which is the checkbook for the federal government. It's how the bills actually get paid. And what those all have in common is they're the guts of how the federal government runs.
Apple News Today
Elon Musk’s takeover of Washington
And so he's kind of making an end run around the officials in the various agencies and all their programs and just going directly for the mechanics that they all have to use.
Apple News Today
Elon Musk’s takeover of Washington
There's a lot of concern about some of the powers that Musk is exercising now that could affect his companies that have substantial contracts with the government, such as SpaceX, or it's a company that relies on government investments in electric vehicle infrastructure, such as Tesla.
Apple News Today
Elon Musk’s takeover of Washington
It's very similar to what he did at Tesla and Twitter, especially in the theatrics of like sleeping in the office, you know, setting up a cot or a sleeping bag and making a show of setting up camp in the executive suite. Also, the offer to federal employees is basically identical to what he did to Twitter employees when he bought Twitter.
Apple News Today
Elon Musk’s takeover of Washington
He can take credit any time that Musk achieves something he likes because Musk is doing it on his behalf. But if there ever comes a day where Musk gets over his skis or gets overzealous, Trump is in the position of hanging back to say, well, look, that's not me, that's Musk, and kind of avoid taking the heat for that himself.