Nation/World

Trump and Musk wage a two-front war as donor does the president’s ‘dirty work’

Tesla CEO Elon Musk takes the stage Jan. 19 with his son, X, and President-elect Donald Trump at a rally in Capital One Arena in Washington. (Tom Brenner for The Washington Post)

After being almost inseparable between Election Day and Inauguration Day, President Donald Trump and billionaire donor Elon Musk are starting to divide and conquer.

Trump, who spent the weekend at his Florida club, left Friday amid a massive potential purge of federal prosecutors and FBI agents involved in cases against him and supporters who attacked the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. On Saturday morning he ordered airstrikes on an Islamic State leader in Somalia and posted video of the explosions online. He golfed, then started a trade war with the United States’ neighbors and closest trading partners.

Musk, the richest man in the world - whose election spending to help Trump topped $288 million - dove into his stated mission of cutting $4 billion a day. His “Department of Government Efficiency” team took control of the Treasury Department’s payment system, federal personnel files, and the agency that handles government contracts, real estate and equipment. Officials who raised concerns about access to sensitive systems were put on leave or retired.

Trump is not closely monitoring Musk’s moves, according to people close to the president, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they weren’t authorized to speak publicly. But the people said Trump views Musk as doing the task he assigned him, and that the president benefits from letting someone else take the heat for drastic and controversial measures. One adviser described Musk as doing “the dirty work,” noting that his public approval ratings were dropping.

“Elon Musk and our friends at DOGE are working very hard to find a lot of waste and fraud in the use of government,” Vice President JD Vance said on “Sunday Morning Futures” with Maria Bartiromo on Fox News. “We are committed to getting America back on a sustainable fiscal pathway. Part of that, we really think the president believes, is the tariff equation. Part of that is cutting spending significantly, especially the wasteful bureaucrats.”

Musk’s role and reach are particularly extraordinary given that he is a private citizen - and the biggest donor in the 2024 election - who has been granted extensive access to information with no formal hearings or congressional confirmation and no defined oversight. The quasi-agency he runs was created outside a congressional process. And as Musk pursues his agenda he is also aggressively attacking critics - including Republicans - and bolstering his own views on his social media site, X.

[Trump is preparing order to dismantle the Education Department as Musk’s DOGE probes data]

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The double impact of Trump’s trade war and Musk’s war on the federal administrative infrastructure risk spooking investors who had interpreted promises for tariffs and spending cuts as political posturing or negotiating tactics. Canada and Mexico immediately responded with their own tariffs, while affected companies, such as Musk’s Telsa, are clamoring for exceptions. Trump acknowledged the likelihood of blowback but said it would be worthwhile.

“WILL THERE BE SOME PAIN? YES, MAYBE (AND MAYBE NOT!),” he wrote Sunday on his Truth Social website. “IT WILL ALL BE WORTH THE PRICE THAT MUST BE PAID.”

Shock at the speed and audaciousness of DOGE interventions have spread through the federal workforce in recent days, with some calling the newcomers setting up in executive suites “Muskovites.” But the coercive tactics have also stiffened the resolve of some civil servants to stay rather than take Musk’s offer to resign at the end of the fiscal year on Sept. 30.

That open invitation - branded as a “Fork in the Road,” the same as an offer from Musk after his takeover of Twitter - bypassed key White House budget officials. Trump brushed off concerns that encouraging departures could hobble key agencies such as the Federal Aviation Administration, whose staffing of air traffic control towers is under scrutiny after Wednesday’s collision over the Potomac that killed 67 people.

“Everybody’s replaceable, and we’ll get very good people to replace them,” he told reporters in the Oval Office on Friday.

Musk walks through the Capitol with his son during “Department of Government Efficiency” meetings Dec. 5 in Washington. (Maansi Srivastava for The Washington Post)

The Musk team’s interest in the Treasury Department’s payment system picked up where the White House budget office left off on Wednesday, with the reversal of a government-wide directive to freeze all financial assistance. Trump officials had suspected agencies of continuing payments that they thought should have been blocked by executive orders against foreign aid and diversity programs. White House officials acknowledged that the resulting budget memo was “poorly worded” and briefly disrupted operations from Medicaid to special education and housing subsidies.

The Treasury payment system - part of the Bureau of the Fiscal Service that acts as the government’s checkbook - potentially presented Musk and his team a way of cutting out agencies and more directly taking over the mechanism for paying or not paying bills and grants. On X, Musk has been portraying routine payments as fraudulent or illegal without specifying what or why. He did not respond to a request for comment.

“They will make it sound like we’re cutting funding to save baby pandas when we’re actually cutting funding to fraudsters, wastrels & terrorists,” he wrote. “This is only possible because of President [Trump].”

Musk’s stated goal of saving $1 trillion would mean halving total annual outlays. Almost a third goes to Social Security and Medicare, which Trump has promised not to cut, and 20 percent funds the military. In other words, Musk’s target would be equivalent to every other dollar the government spends.

Normally, a small number of Treasury officials use the system to execute payments that other agencies authorize, not to assess the propriety information themselves. Widening access could risk exposing sensitive national security and personal information. It could also introduce errors into the clunky technology.

“These payment systems simply cannot fail, and any politically-motivated meddling in them risks severe damage to our country and the economy,” Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Oregon), the ranking Democrat on the Senate Finance Committee, wrote in a letter Friday to Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent. “I can think of no good reason why political operators who have demonstrated a blatant disregard for the law would need access to these sensitive, mission-critical systems.”

Trump praised Musk after arriving at Andrews Air Force Base in Maryland on Sunday. “I think Elon is doing a good job,” he said. “Smart guy. Very smart.”

As DOGE officials fanned out across federal agencies, government websites shut down, and the National Transportation Safety Board said it would start communicating only on X, Musk’s platform.

Trump and Musk’s tag team played out in December during the standoff over funding the government. Musk publicly assailed a Republican-negotiated spending package, leaving lawmakers scrambling for a new agreement to avert a shutdown at the last minute. Trump declared victory even though the resulting package did not include his stated top priority of addressing the debt ceiling.

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Jeff Stein, Ellen Nakashima and Mariana Alfaro contributed to this report.

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