Who Is Elon Musk?

My VIP for this week is the richest man in the world and industrialist Elon Musk who has been helping to cut expenses in the federal government and working with the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE).

Musk signed up as a special government employee – unpaid – for a definite period of time of 130 days. According to George Caldwell at The Daily Signal, Musk came to the end of his “contract,” and President Donald Trump bade him farewell in an Oval Office ceremony on Friday. 

Caldwell quoted Trump as saying, “Elon has worked tirelessly, helping lead the most sweeping and consequential government reform program in generations.” Trump added, “The numbers that we’re talking about are substantial, but they’re going to be very much more substantial with time…. The numbers could double and triple.”

Even though Musk is leaving, DOGE will continue. Trump said that Congress and the White House will work together to update the computer systems of the federal government. He added that Congress will formally codify DOGE’s spending cuts into law. Caldwell wrote:

The White House has not yet formally sent Congress a rescissions package to do so, which would allow for the cancellation of discretionary spending through a simple majority vote in both houses.

“We’re totally committed to making the DOGE cuts permanent. … Most of it’s going to come later. We’re going to have it [codified] by Congress,” Trump said.

Codifying all the DOGE work will stop future President’s from changing the goals of DOGE. According to Caldwell, Musk thanked Trump for supporting the DOGE effort throughout the time that Musk worked in government. He also stated that the work of DOGE would continue.

“This is not the end of DOGE,” he said. “The DOGE influence will only grow stronger … I’m confident that over time, we’ll see … $1 trillion of waste and fraud reduction.” Asked what he expected his future relationship with Trump would be, Musk told reporters that he expected to remain in communication with the president.

“I expect to continue to provide advice, whatever the president would like,” Musk said. Trump quipped in response, “I hope so!”

Musk concluded, “I expect to remain a friend and an adviser, and certainly if there’s anything the president wants me to do, I’m at the president’s service.”

What Is Happening with the IRS?

The Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) is slowly moving through all the government agencies. According to Fred Lucas at The Daily Signal, the cuts being made in the Internal Revenue Service “is consistent with the federal government’s earlier findings about excessive expenses within the tax collecting agency.”

Lucas reported that the Trump administration is on track to “close more than 110 IRS offices across the country.” This follows closely the report from Treasury Department’s Inspector General for Tax Administration (TIGTA) that “a majority of IRS offices are less than half full.”

Lucas quoted Grover Norquist, president of Americans for Tax Reform as saying that DOGE is looking at “long-standing problems.” 

“They like to say this is a political thing and that Elon Musk doesn’t know what he’s talking about. But the waste at the IRS and empty buildings is all documented by inspector general reports,” Norquist told The Daily Signal. “For the people who say it’s not real unless the government says it’s real, well the government has already spoken about these empty buildings.”

Office space accounted for one of the biggest IRS expenses, the report noted.

“According to the Internal Revenue Service (IRS), it will spend approximately $600 million on real estate costs in fiscal year (FY) 2024,” the inspector general’s report says. “This includes 516 office buildings totaling approximately 22.3 million square feet. After personnel, rent is one of the IRS’s largest operating expenses.”

The General Services Administration announced in coordination with DOGE the list for terminating leases of government office space. The list includes a 135,000-square-foot IRS facility in Franklin, Tennessee; a 26,000-square-foot facility in Bloomington, Minnesota; a 25,000-square-foot office in Mesa, Arizona; and several other large facilities in San Marcos, California; Glendale, Arizona; and Chattanooga, Tennessee. Excess office space at the IRS cost taxpayers almost $11 million a year, according to the inspector general….

The IRS reduced its overall space footprint by about 2 million square feet since 2018, yet 51% of all IRS buildings “had a workstation occupancy rate of 50% or less,” the 2024 report said.

“The low occupancy rate is due in part to the increased use of telework and remote work, which requires less space per employee,” the report said. “Additionally, the IRS lacks a long-term space reduction plan that clearly specifies the space reductions it expects to achieve annually beyond FY 2026 and how it will sufficiently decrease its unneeded office space.”

President Donald Trump recently ordering employees who are working remotely to return to the office could be a mitigating factor. But the 2024 inspector general’s report noted the Office of Management and Budget flagged excess building use in 2015, predating the COVID-19 pandemic that led to mass federal telework….

Spokespersons for the IRS and the Treasury’s Inspector General for Tax Administration did not respond to inquiries for this story.

 

Why Are Democrats So Angry About Cutting Government Costs?

Democrats are making fools of themselves as they throw their temper tantrums about the cuts in spending that Elon Musk and his Musk-eteers are suggesting. They claim that Musk is unelected as though he is the only “unelected” federal employee. Anyone who knows much at all about the federal government knows that there are many “appointed” employees.

The fact is that President Donald Trump appointed Elon Musk to lead the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE). Trump supervises Musk, meaning that Musk reports to Trump, and Trump tells Musk which agency to audit. Victor Davis Hanson explained Musk’s role in the Trump administration: 

There’s a lot of controversy about Elon Musk, and let’s just dispel some of it right at the start. He is not a freelancer. He was appointed a government official. Donald Trump, by an executive order, created the Department of Government Efficiency, and he made Elon Musk the head of it…..

Elon Musk has statutory authority. This Department of Government Efficiency is not a Cabinet agency. He does not have to be approved by Congress. And it only is going to last until July 4, 2026. It’s not a permanent agency, but he has the same power, or lack of such, as the national security adviser, who does not have to be confirmed by the U.S. Senate….

As far as the executive orders that created the DOGE program and eliminated the U.S. Agency for International Development [USAID] – that was perfectly legal in itself. USAID was created by John F. Kennedy in 1961 by an executive order. There was a statutory direction for the president to disperse foreign aid into a comprehensive body, but it didn’t say USAID – he could do whatever he wanted.

And so, Donald Trump has decided to end autonomous USAID [by an executive order] and fold it into the State Department for disaster relief or poverty relief or famine relief.

But let’s get straight what Elon Musk is trying to do. He’s going through all of these agencies and finding waste and fraud. And he has executive authority to do so. The Democrats are suing on the principle that they have approved funds for some of these agencies and Donald Trump is not spending them. And they are also arguing that Elon must exist by an executive order and not a congressional statute….

As far as impounding funds, Joe Biden set the precedent. You all saw him on tape when he said, “SOB – the son of a ___ I went in, over there, to Ukraine and I said, ‘You’re not getting this billion dollars until you do this.’” Well, that money had been approved by Congress.

And when he became president, there was a statute that said, “Here’s the money to build the wall.”

And Joe Biden canceled the wall. That was illegal. But he came up with all these – “Oh, we have to do environmental studies, or on endangered species.” But he didn’t spend the money….

And so, again, there is a statutory authority for Elon Musk to do what he does. He has the executive order justifying his agency, his 20-some employees. And more importantly – there’s another thing no one talks about – Elon Musk is a controversial figure and everybody is attacking him. And whom are they not attacking? Donald Trump….