Surprise, surprise — it turns out you can’t really rely on a made-up government department named after an internet meme to keep its word. Experts had already dismissed Elon Musk’s goal of cutting $2 trillion from the budget as impossible, but all those who drink his Kool-Aid believe Musk can achieve anything he declares he will. Well, now Musk himself has admitted that his target is improbable to reach.
It’s hard to fathom how critical Elon Musk has become to global politics in just a few short years. What matters now is that he’s reached a position where he’s a cheerleader of distractions, like annexations of sovereign states, and threatening to cut funding for critical mandatory budget programs. It’s worth noting that the $2 trillion Musk initially suggested cutting is far more than the $1.7 trillion the government currently spends on discretionary budget items. So even if they did somehow find a way of cutting all the non-mandatory spending in government that Musk considers unnecessary, they would still need to chip away $300 million at the very minimum from the mandatory budget.
When Musk and his sidekick, Vivek Ramaswamy, first announced their onslaught against government employees they deemed unnecessary, CNN reported that Musk even went so far as to post personal details of climate-related government employees on his very active X account. Naturally, this only exposed those employees to online harassment. From Musk’s perspective — since he had already done this when he took over Twitter and made significant cuts — the goal was to eliminate what he calls “fake jobs” and move toward balancing the budget, a feat that has been elusive since the Clinton era. However, what has been less explored is Musk’s acknowledgment that his proposed cuts would also cause hardship for some.
NBC reports that Musk recently sat down for an interview with Mark Penn to elaborate further on his government cuts. When asked whether he still considered the $2 trillion goal possible, Musk admitted he now expects to cut only half that amount, and clarified that the proposed $2 trillion cut was merely a best-case scenario guesstimate. This backtracking was much needed for Elon Musk. Even Musk himself, from his mountain platformed by delusions of grandeur, would admit he is not the most popular figure in the MAGA movement at the moment. His stance favoring the admission of H1-B employees, after months of demonizing immigrants, sparked a civil war within the MAGA base. With such internal conflicts, now is perhaps not the best time to propose cuts to mandatory budget items like Medicaid.
During his discussion with Mark Penn, Musk argued that even achieving $1 trillion in cuts could significantly reduce inflation rates by freeing up the economy for additional growth. However, the vagueness didn’t end there. When Penn asked which departments and programs Musk plans to cut, Musk responded by describing the incoming Trump government as a “target-rich environment for saving money.”
Some people already knew not to take Trump’s team at their word during the campaign period, but we have to admit — nobody expected the house of cards to be this wobbly even before his final term officially began.
