There’s a new president of America, and he’s doing a lot of things. How do you decide what to pay attention to? A story about reporters focusing on one mysterious line item during the DOGE headline storm, and where that led. Bobby Allyn Support Search Engine To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Chapter 1: What challenges arise from the second Trump administration?
So here's one of those questions that might actually be too big or at least unanswerable by another person. I am really struggling in the early days of the second Trump administration to figure out how much attention to pay to what the new federal government is doing. I keep asking myself what, if anything, I learned the first time around.
Back then, many of the stories I focused on ended up not mattering much. There were things that seemed maximally outrageous, but which later were supplanted by much more outrageous things. The first Trump presidency made everyone in American life more deranged, more crazy, including me.
And the second time around, I personally have just felt like a person who maybe once got too drunk and now has a chance on their second night out to try to adjust. Maybe. But it's difficult. One of the main facts of life in a Trump presidency is that the president is very talented at making your phone buzz.
If you own a smartphone, you have this feeling that even if you don't understand what's going on in his office or his mind, that you are umbilically attached to his nervous system. Actually, that's what things were like in Trump 1. In Trump 2, we've now been plugged into a second nervous system, Elon Musk's.
Because Elon Musk is making a lot of decisions, and Elon Musk tweets something like 25 hours a day. So now you have two of the most online people American society has ever produced. People who post more than anyone I know in my extremely two online social circles who are just constantly doing stuff. And the stuff feels consequential.
And if you're me and you move in my social circle, the stuff may not feel very thought through, but it's also unclear which of these things to try to actually lock in on and understand. The past couple weeks, I was watching a reporter I follow try to get to the bottom of just one minor mystery that had surfaced around Elon Musk and the Trump administration.
And watching him try to get to the truth, I felt like I was getting a very vivid postcard of our moment. This little microcosm of how hard it is to know what is going on and which questions to stick with. So I wanted to get him to come to Search Engine and tell me the story. Can you start by just saying your name and what you do?
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Chapter 2: Who is Bobby Allyn and what is his background?
Yeah, sure. I'm Bobby Allen. I am a tech correspondent at NPR. How long have you been covering tech? Something like five years or so. Kind of fell into it sideways. I was in D.C. covering politics and breaking news. And somebody tapped me on the shoulder one day and was like, hey, you want to go to San Francisco and cover tech?
And I was like, honestly, when I pick up newspapers, I don't even read the tech section. So I think you're asking the wrong guy. But then they were like, yeah, but this is where all the power is. These people need more accountability. You think politics are important? Really, the decision makers and the gatekeepers are. in Silicon Valley, and I said, okay, fine, I'll do it.
So I've been doing it ever since.
And do you feel like that promise has turned out to be true, that you have turned from one power center in American life into another?
Yeah, and I think the way that Silicon Valley operates has taken a lot of clues from Washington, right? Having this army of communications people who, you know, send you responses and answers to your questions by like committees of 10 operating with complete opacity, trying to front run stories before you get your own stories out. Just the kind of constantly at war with reporter kind of vibe.
It's just like brass knuckles. It's fighting these comms people. It's fighting the lieutenants around, you know, really powerful billionaires that are running these companies. It's very hostile. It's very confrontational. And I kind of like that in this sitcom.
kind of weird way.
Anyone who knows me will tell you that I invite drama and like fueling drama, and I'm like the biggest gossip anyone knows. So maybe I'm perfect for the job, but it's not for everyone, that's for sure.
And so tell me about this question you were trying to answer, this story about Elon Musk and an unusual line item in the State Department budget. Like, where does that story start for you?
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Chapter 3: What unusual item did the State Department budget reveal?
My spidey sense as a reporter is just off the wall.
The Trump administration is expected to purchase $400 million worth of Tesla vehicles.
NPR's Bobby Allen reports this comes as Tesla CEO... Bobby publishes his story the morning of February 13th. Things are moving.
After reports circulated of the lucrative federal contract, the State Department document was edited. The word Tesla was removed. It now says the $400 million purchase is for, quote, armored electric vehicles. Musk has been questioned over conflicts of interest in the White House. Can we slow down on $400 million for Tesla armored vehicles? Like... Does Tesla make armored vehicles? No. Okay.
They have a Cybertruck, which, and whether or not it's armored or even, you know, bulletproof is very, very questionable. There's this famous incident in 2019 when Elon Musk brought one of his executives on stage to demonstrate to the world how bulletproof it was and threw a metal ball at the window and it cracked.
I know many people are familiar with this clip, but let's just watch it together one more time because it represents nearly perfect unscripted comedy. It's 2019 and we're at a fairly infamous product presentation for the then new Cybertruck.
Welcome to the Cybertruck unveil. I love you guys too. I love you guys too.
On a stage filled with fog, laser lights, and jets of flame, the aesthetic halfway between Tron and American Gladiator, Elon, in a black leather jacket, here to give the world its first glimpse of the future.
So I present to you the Cybertruck.
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Chapter 4: How did Elon Musk respond to media scrutiny?
Room for improvement.
On stage in 2019, Musk quickly rebounds.
We'd actually throw everything. We threw wrenches. We threw everything. We even literally threw the kitchen sink at the glass, and it didn't break. For some weird reason, it broke now. I don't know why. We'll fix it in post.
I feel like this was a moment where Elon had not yet completed his arc as like, he was a person more liked in more quarters, but people were starting to sort of tire of his braggadocio. And just, it was a moment where I was like, oh, Elon Musk has become a popular target for schadenfreude.
Like people really, really enjoyed it. Yeah, and it was just like proof of concept. What Elon says is often exaggerated and sometimes just like straight up a lie, right? I mean, it's like what better illustration of that than a quote unquote bulletproof window breaking when you throw a ball at it. Just amazing.
But yeah, $400 million for armored Teslas, as you mentioned, something that doesn't even exist. And that's like half a billion dollars of taxpayer money. What? What?
It just didn't make any sense. At this point, the story was still in its first 24 hours. Bobby didn't yet even know what the State Department was planning to use $400 million worth of Teslas for. Sometimes it's hard to tell when you're talking about money the government spends, what constitutes a lot of money. This here, a lot.
To give you some perspective of how much money this is, multiple people I talked to as part of this reporting were like, that might be enough money to replace the entire fleet of vehicles that State Department personnel use around the world. There's like 3,000 armored vehicles.
And if you do the back of the envelope math, this potentially could swap every, say, Mercedes-Benz or BMW that's armored with a Cybertruck.
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Chapter 5: What is Doge and how does it relate to government efficiency?
But Yarvin went on to say he'd still imagine Musk being useful in the kind of revolution he was hoping for, getting rid of the people he couldn't stand.
These kind of old boomers like Bolton and Barr. The people who slowed down Donald Trump. You know, if you put Elon Musk in the White House, you shouldn't even deal with these people. He should just blow up all the agencies that go around him.
I should say, as far as I know, Elon Musk has never mentioned Yarvin's name publicly, and maybe he's arrived at similar ideas on his own. But when Elon talks about how the government should work, I hear echoes of Yarvin. Back in August 2024, in the weeks after the attempted assassination on Trump, Elon sat for an interview with Lex Friedman. This is the longest podcast I've ever done.
It's a fascinating, super technical, and wide-ranging conversation. This podcast episode is eight and a half hours long, meaning the rare podcast you could both fall asleep and wake up to. Among other things, many other things, Elon talks about his admiration for Trump, especially in the wake of this attempt on his life.
And I thought Trump displayed courage under fire, objectively. You know, he's just got shot. He's got blood streaming down his face and he's like fist pumping, saying fight. You know, like that's impressive. Like you can't feign bravery in a situation like that.
Later in the interview, you hear the seeds of Doge. Elon starts musing about how the government is totally broken and how someone needs to go in there and start throwing out all the excessive rules.
There has to be a sort of a garbage collection for laws and regulations so that you don't keep accumulating laws and regulations to the point where you can't do anything. This is why we can't build high-speed rail in America. It's illegal. That's the issue. It's illegal six days a Sunday to build high-speed rail in America.
I wish you could just for a week go into Washington and be the head of the committee for making... what is it, for the garbage collection, making government smaller, like removing stuff.
I have discussed with Trump the idea of a government efficiency commission. Nice. Yeah. And I would be willing to be part of that commission.
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Chapter 6: What controversies surround the $400 million Tesla contract?
I think it would be great to just have a government efficiency commission that takes a look at these things and just ensures that the taxpayer money, the taxpayer's hard-earned money is spent in a good way. And I'd be happy to help out on such a commission if it were formed.
Well, you, you're the greatest cutter. I mean, I look at what you do. You walk in and you just say, you want to quit?
They go on strike.
I won't mention the name of the company, but they go on strike and you say, that's okay. You're all gone. You're all gone, so every one of you is gone, and you are the greatest. You would be very good. Oh, you would love it. But, you know, if you look at our... Well, I'd be happy to help out. By the way, congratulations. I just looked at the number of people that are listening to you and I chat.
We'll call it a chat. But congratulations. This is very good. I mean, it's great. And you're an interesting character.
You know, the... The way they're talking to each other is striking. Two powerful people just admiring each other's power. Musk, who has said America needs a better CEO. Trump, who not long after this will describe himself as a king. A month after that conversation, in September, Trump announces the creation of a new government task force.
That the suggestion of Elon Musk, who has given me his complete and total endorsement, that's nice. Smart guy. He knows what he's doing. He knows what he's doing. That's great. Very much appreciated. I will create a government efficiency commission tasked with conducting a complete financial and performance audit of the entire federal government and making recommendations for drastic reforms.
We need to do it. Can't go on the way we are now.
When Trump took office, which, believe it or not, was just seven weeks ago, suddenly there was something called Doge. And suddenly lots of federal workers were getting emails from Elon Musk telling them they were no longer employed. Bobby says the speed of it all surprised a lot of people.
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Chapter 7: How does Curtis Yarvin influence Silicon Valley thinking?
So, I mean, everyone thought it was going to be a little bit more incremental, a little bit more gradual. and that they would maybe go before Congress and say, hey, here's a bunch of spending that USAID does abroad. We want to cut like 20% of it. That would be like a front page story on the New York Times, right?
But instead, instead of being like a blue ribbon commission, I mean, he has just moved the office of Doge into the White House and just dismantling entire agencies, just knocking things down to the studs. Completely.
So nobody envisioned, and I talked to colleagues of mine who covered the Trump campaign, nobody envisioned exactly this kind of incredibly influential, totally unchecked role that Elon would be playing. It's why people jokingly say, you know, it used to be Elon was a shadow VP. Now people are saying, you know, President Musk, because he just has an incredible amount of power here.
Musk does have a lot of power. How you feel about that probably has more to do with how you feel about Elon Musk than anything else. If you think, like many Americans do, that the government is bloated and inefficient, and if you believe, as many others do, that Elon Musk is a genius, then he's not destroying democracy. He's destroying bureaucracy. For others, though, this feels unsettling.
And one way Musk has tried to win some public confidence is by making the case for why Americans should trust him. Most memorably, for me, in this unusual Oval Office press conference.
X, are you okay? This is X. And he's a great guy. High IQ.
There was this very... I can't help but laugh because the image is just so funny. But this very funny press conference in the Oval Office in which Trump was seated at his desk and then Musk was there with his kid on his shoulders and sometimes on the ground. And they were talking about Doge.
And we're going to be signing a very important document deal today. It's Doge. And I'm going to ask Elon to tell you a little bit about it and some of the things that we found, which are shocking.
Trump hands off to Elon, who's in a black overcoat, black MAGA hat, and who tells the reporters the aim of his new government project.
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Chapter 8: What did Elon Musk say about government efficiency?
Okay. So one savings that Musk has boasted about is canceling a $9 million payment to Reuters, so the news agency, for large-scale social deception, right? And Musk has presented this as some sort of smoking gun that the government was paying Reuters to deceive people, right?
But when reporters actually looked into this, first of all, it wasn't Reuters, the news agency, but was Thomas Reuters Special Service, which is like a data and research arm of Reuters, totally separate company. And the Defense Department had a contract with them to fight against social deception. And the kicker is the contract was actually signed in Trump's first term. Oh, wow.
Okay. Okay. But so if you're like someone who is predisposed to Musk's worldview and you're somebody who feels like the media is liberal, which I don't disagree with, but you feel like the media is literally working with Democrats to lie to people, which is something I do disagree with.
Like, this looks like at some point Joe Biden was like, we need to pay Reuters, the news agency, money to deceive people. Give them the money and we'll write them in the budget. And Musk went through and was like, this is wrong. And like, if you take him at his word, this is what you think happened.
Exactly right. And look, by the time the fact checkers come out and say, hey, guys, this actually is a terrible example of wasteful spending for all of these reasons. The news cycle has already moved on and Musk is already promoting some other savings. Mm-hmm. The media's out here truth-squatting all these contracts. No, we're going to scold you. No, it is not a $5 billion contract.
It is a $5 million contract. I don't know. Some fans of Elon Musk might be like, well, at least we're saving $5 million. Sometimes there's a journalistic win, but to their supporters, I don't know that that's changing any minds.
Honestly, all these fact checks, they probably weren't. Polling published just this week shows that a majority of Americans support Doge. 54% say it should influence government spending. 51% approve of Trump's cuts to federal agencies. And more people say Musk is cutting waste than disagree. Which means if you're a Doge skeptic, you're actually in the minority.
But that's also why the story about the State Department Teslas seems to Bobby like such an obviously big deal. If Trump's State Department was planning to send $400 million to Tesla, that sure looked like, at best, waste, at worst, corruption. The problems Elon's Doge commission had promised to eradicate. That's how it looked. But there wasn't yet any proof.
After a short break, an anonymous source reaches out to Bobby Allen. Welcome back to the show. So that press conference with Musk in the Oval Office explaining that the glare of public attention would keep him honest, that happened in early February, the day before Ryan Grim's story about the mysterious $400 million Tesla line item was published. Once that story's out, you know what happens.
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