As Elon Musk digs into the federal bureaucracy in his crusade to slash government spending, he has a tool that no aspiring cost-cutter has had before: his own giant social media platform to debate, shame and bludgeon anyone who stands in his way.
Since the inauguration, Mr. Musk has attacked journalists and X users for posting the names of people working with him, calling it “a crime.” He’s accused Treasury Department officials of “breaking the law every hour of every day.” And Mr. Musk has mocked Senator Chuck Schumer, Democrat of New York, as “hysterical.”
On Monday, Mr. Musk celebrated his progress, posting he had fed the U.S. Agency for International Development, the government’s lead agency for humanitarian aid, “into the wood chipper.”
And on Tuesday, Mr. Musk began a poll on X: “Would you like DOGE to audit the IRS?”
The comments show how Mr. Musk, who unlike traditional government figures rarely holds news conferences or speaks to reporters, is using his social media site as a powerful tool to promote his goals as part of the Trump administration. Since the inauguration, Mr. Musk has unleashed a barrage of posts to his more than 215 million followers, promoting conspiratorial rumors about his adversaries, pressuring senators to confirm the president’s cabinet picks, and weighing in on foreign elections.
On top of that, Mr. Musk’s account is becoming one of the few sources for information about the billionaire’s secretive stampede to slash the federal budget, an initiative he calls the Department of Government Efficiency.
X has given Mr. Musk an unusual avenue to showcase his unapologetically confrontational approach to cost cutting in a way that appeals to Mr. Trump’s base, tech policy experts said.
“The performative aspect of this is key. It’s a big part of what populism is,” said Sarah Kreps, the director of the Cornell Brooks School Tech Policy Institute. “To be able to have this very visible shake-up really is important to the constituency that rose the administration to power.”
Mr. Musk and a spokeswoman for the cost-cutting initiative did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Mr. Musk’s transformation of X into his political megaphone began when he bought the social media company in October 2022. The next year, he became the most followed person on the site. Engagement with his posts has since mushroomed, according to X’s metrics, making him the loudest voice on the platform.
Now, Mr. Musk, who is chief executive of Tesla and SpaceX, has charged into his new role to cut government spending, swiftly moving to transform at least half a dozen government agencies, challenging congressional authority and potentially breaching civil service protections.
His project has worked to shut down U.S.A.I.D. Leaders of the cost-cutting initiative have also pushed out top officials there and at the Treasury Department who objected to the actions of his representatives, and ended leases on government office spaces.
As part of those efforts, Mr. Musk has used his X account to critique federal agencies in his cross hairs. U.S.A.I.D. is “evil” and “a criminal organization,” Mr. Musk wrote in separate posts on Sunday.
Lawmakers including Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Democrat of New York, and Mr. Schumer have accused Mr. Musk of overreach.
Early Tuesday, Mr. Musk reposted a comment by Mr. Schumer, who said Congress must stop what amounted to an unauthorized hostile takeover of the government.
“Hysterical reactions like this is how you know that DOGE is doing work that really matters,” Mr. Musk said in response to Mr. Schumer. “This is the one shot American people have to defeat BUREAUcracy, rule of the bureaucrats, and restore DEMOcracy, rule of the people.”
Mr. Musk’s business portfolio, which relies in part on government contracts and subsidies, has raised conflict-of-interest concerns, although Mr. Trump has brushed off those fears.
After Ms. Ocasio-Cortez criticized Mr. Musk’s conflicts of interest, Mr. Musk replied “Do you actually write these or am I replying to your intern?”
Mr. Musk also turned to the platform in recent days to defend those working on his initiative. The billionaire has likened identifying those assisting his cost-cutting effort to doxxing, a online harassment tactic that involves posting private information like addresses and phone numbers.
After several workers’ names were published in media reports, X removed some posts on the platform that publicized the employees’ identities and suspended some accounts that had shared the information.
“Don’t mess with @DOGE,” Mr. Musk wrote in a post on Monday night in response to people attempting to name and shame the workers.
Mr. Musk also boasted on X about the removal of the account for 18F, a digital services agency that is part of the General Services Administration. After fans raised concerns about projects the agency had worked on, including one that critiqued racial bias in facial recognition systems, Mr. Musk posted that the agency was “deleted.”
While its X account is gone, the agency so far has survived.
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