How would they know?

I've worked on billion dollar defense projects, and have supervised plenty of smart junior consultants from top consulting firms (McKinsey, etc.) - guiding them through processes, while they're digging through data.

Believe it or not, but you don't know what you don't know, and domain expertise is absolutely crucial. Slashing things you think are inefficiencies can lead to some serious footguns.

And I fully expect Musk to value speed over precision.

I think part of the concern is that Elon Musk is still the CEO of or has strong financial interest in a lot of companies, some of which get government contracts (e.g. SpaceX).

Finding out corruption and inefficiency is fine, but I think a lot of people are skeptical that that's the actual goal of this "advisory board". How likely is it that Elon is going to find anything inefficient about SpaceX? Tesla? What's to stop him from using this data to haggle better deals from the government paying for his projects?

It's entirely possible that SpaceX is efficient enough, but it's still a conflict of interest. I don't think a guy who owns and runs a company that competes on government contracts should be in charge of determining which parts of the government is efficient.

Ok, but what does that have to do with the nature of the young guys charged with the analysis?

I read through your past comments. It's obvious to me what you believe. And I don't agree with your worldview but not sure that matters. If you don't like Musk and don't like Trump, fine, I get it. I'm pretty sure I wouldn't like either of them in person either, and, they both have vested interests on that we can agree. You know who else has vested interests? The people benefiting from waste, fraud and abuse. The people who have been directing public funds into propaganda and a black hole. I'd like to see western civilization persist. If you feel differently that's a value judgement and it's fine. But hearing kveltching and ridiculous statements from liberal midwits on every single policy article is getting really really old and it's shitting up this site. This is what is going to happen. And it's long overdue.

> Ok, but what does that have to do with the nature of the young guys charged with the analysis?

Because the only reason they are doing it is because they don't know enough about their legal exposure to know they should not. They aren't qualified to handle this data. I thought the whole thing was we were going to have a meritocracy.

And we do! Also, I don't think the court scam will work this time. Even Marc Elias realizes the implications at this point.

Ok, so you acknowledge that there's a conflict of interest, and you still think that Elon Musk is the only human who can possibly find government inefficiency?

I have some less polite ways of saying this so I'll keep to myself, but that seems like a profoundly ignorant viewpoint. There are 330 million Americans, and the only person that could possibly find government inefficiency is a guy with extremely clear and obvious conflicts of interest? Ridiculous, I do not believe that you actually believe that.

I personally think that it is extraordinarily stupid to get someone who routinely gets government contracts to be in charge of determining what is "efficient". I personally wouldn't choose any active CEO, but even if you believe that somehow a businessman is going to be better, couldn't you choose a CEO that doesn't have federal contracts? Even if it was a conservative, even if it were someone who I absolutely despised, it would still be a better choice than Elon Musk. I genuinely cannot think of a worse choice for this project than Elon, honestly.

My distaste for Trump and Musk has nothing to do with whether I'd "like them in person". I already dislike most people and I am quite confident I would not like any politician if I met them in person. I do not make my political decisions based on "how much I would like hanging out with them".

I think Trump and Elon are profoundly stupid people, and they're kind of a match made in heaven, which I find very dangerous.

"Western Civilization persisting" shouldn't start with an dubiously-legal "department" with clear conflicts of interest. This shouldn't be controversial.

I think it would be great for the federal government to be more efficient and less corrupt. For example, let's talk about USAID. It would be great if DOGE could make USAID more efficient, to accomplish the most possible good with the money allocated by Congress.

So far, that's not what DOGE appears to be doing. Rather than "rooting out corruption and inefficiency", DOGE appears to be cutting government spending that Musk disagrees with.

And that's unconstitutional! The executive branch doesn't have the constitutional authority to unilaterally cut a program established by Congress. If Congress allocated $X billion for foreign aid to country Y, the executive branch must disburse that aid.

Furthermore, speaking of corruption: Both Trump and Musk have major conflicts of interest. Prior to Trump, presidents were expected to divest business interests and put their assets in a blind trust; but Trump refused to do so. And SpaceX is a major federal contractor; if the head of a major federal contractor is _also_ the biggest supporter of the incoming president, the conflict of interest is obvious.

As you said, anyone who has an issue with rooting out corruption isn't in the right. So surely you're alarmed by these conflicts of interest, right? Don't you agree that Musk should either fully divest from SpaceX, or step away from politics?