For four months, the world’s richest man has played an unprecedented role in U.S. government. At the start of his 2025 term, President Donald Trump asked Elon Musk to cut government “waste and fraud.” That translated into the Musk-driven firing of 121,000 federal workers, essentially closing entire government programs and departments.
Many Americans protested Musk’s work. His unsupervised access to sensitive government materials and unchecked influence over the firing of federal employees represents an unprecedented moment in the United States. An unelected billionaire sought to overhaul the federal government, empowered and legitimized not by Congress but only by the president.
