It might be reasonable to suspect that someone as successful as he is must just be playing dumb online, while displaying a hidden command when it comes to policy. Yet even if you are sympathetic to his goal of reducing the size and scope of government — as I am — focusing on firing federal employees is just about the worst possible way to achieve that end. Fewer people working at the Food and Drug Administration, for example, doesn’t mean regulators getting off the backs of pharmaceutical companies trying to bring drugs to market. Instead, it makes drug-approval processes longer and more arduous. Or consider: Republicans have tended to oppose student-loan forgiveness, but now cuts at the Department of Education may lead to there not being enough workers to collect debt. Put another way: Muskian methods may be enacting a de facto version of former President Joe Biden’s policies.
I too support the thinning of the federal government, of culling corruption and bloat from the system.
But the way in which DOGE is doing it… I’m just amazed at someone with the reputation of being so intelligent is doing this culling so sloppily, so ineffectively.
It’s almost as if he didn’t deserve that reputation to begin with? Like, maybe Elon is really great at a few things, but might not be good at everything?
What’s more likely? That he's great at some things? Or that he’s an infallible super-genius?