One of those things floating around the intertubes since Trump's landslide victory and the many other "red team" triumphs a week ago, is "where does Elon Musk end up?" To me, it's only natural to ask that. After all, when Musk partnered up with Trump late in the campaign, it generated a lot of interest in his campaign. Many people have expressed the idea that the late additions to the campaign, specifically Musk, RFK Jr., and Tulsi Gabbard, were largely responsible for swinging a lot of votes to decide on Trump. Bobby Kennedy is already going after targets in the federal health industry, but he's the only one we really know about. I've seen nothing about Tulsi and nothing official on Musk.
One of my favorite sources for space-related stories is Eric Berger at Ars Technica. Berger is actually a meteorologist but switched to reporting on space years ago. An old-style reporter, he has developed a relationship with lots of sources in different companies. Because of this, it seemed natural to see his story, "Space policy is about to get pretty wild, y’all," published last Friday (Nov. 8).
It's a bit long and more than a little bit speculative but because of his good
sources, it's worth reading. His sources and experience are the good points.
Some of his views strike me as listening to "Trump is Hitler!! or "the
Russians control him!!" too much are the weak points. As usual in cases where I
say little besides "go read the whole thing," I'll just put up a few quotes to
hopefully build some interest.
The issue, of course, is that Musk can't remain associated with SpaceX and take a job like Bill Nelson's as NASA Administrator. Conflict of interest.
It will be a hugely weird dynamic. Musk is unquestionably in a position for self-dealing. Normally, such conflicts of interest would be frowned on within a government, but Trump has already shown a brazen disregard for norms, and there's no reason to believe that will change during his second go at the presidency. One way around this could be to give Musk a "special adviser" tag, which means he would not have to comply with federal conflict-of-interest laws.
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Let's start with NASA and firmly establish what we mean. The US space agency does some pretty great things, but it's also a bloated bureaucracy. That's by design. Members of Congress write budgets and inevitably seek to steer more federal dollars to NASA activities in the areas they represent. Two decades ago, an engineer named Mike Griffin—someone Musk sought to hire as SpaceX's first chief engineer in 2002—became NASA administrator under President George W. Bush.
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Notably, Musk despises NASA's Space Launch System rocket, a central element of Artemis. He sees the rocket as the epitome of government bloat. And it's not hard to understand why. The Space Launch System is completely expendable and costs about 10 to 100 times as much to launch as his own massive Starship rocket.
Us, too, Elon. Many of us. Very likely everyone not drawing a real paycheck from SLS think it's a horrific waste of money.
Another problem with cutting the size of NASA is cutting some of the 10 or 12 NASA centers around the country. As Berger said, that bloat is deliberate. What he didn't say specifically is that it's borne of congress critters saying "I'll vote for your center if you vote for mine" and that's common throughout the Department of Defense and other government agency spending.
As I write this, it might have just become a moot point. As of moments ago tonight, Trump has announced that Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy will be running the new Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE). That has been all but promised for a while, now.
President Donald Trump steps on the stage at Kennedy Space Center after the successful launch of the Demo-2 crew mission in May 2020. Credit: NASA/Bill Ingalls
Musk needs to stay with what he's doing, DOGE is just another thing added to it.
ReplyDeleteHE is the one who put electric cars on the road and made spaceships land like they were supposed to! Mr. Musk needs to keep on doing what he does so well.
As Beans says (or kinda says), don't overlook Gwynne Shotwell, who's running SpaceX day to day and has been for years. Musk is kind of the long term guidance guy.
DeleteTo expand on somebody's analogy to a juggler in a circus. Musk would be the one saying, "you know it would be cool if you could juggle a stack of plates while you balance a ball on your nose and stand on one foot" and she's the one that does it.
DOGE self-sunsets on July 4th, 2026, and Vivek likely will do most of the work. I suspect Elon will be the idea guy, as he is everywhere else. I doubt DOGE will take up much of his time.
DeleteMal, Musk is somewhat busy, but I'm sure he can spare a few cycles for looking at the overwhelming waste in Gubmint institutions. Same goes for Vivek, so I imagine the two of them are not going to take an official salary for their contributions but if they do it'll be a pittance on relationship to their utility and effectiveness. We shall see.
DeleteHowler monkeys (leftards) are already howling and hooting! Love it!!
On the other hand, who else has such an insight into how very inefficient and hostile the federal bureaucracy is towards innovation? For that, Musk is a fit. Gwen has SpaceX firmly in control and Elon always needs new tasks to keep him moving forward. A year or two hacking the bureaucracy and he'll be ready to move on to another project.
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ReplyDeleteWithin the linked Ars article there is a link to the interview with Julie Kramer-White for the Oral History Project. I suggest reading it.
ReplyDeleteMusk in charge of Efficiency gives him some potential leverage over the FAA and EPA - the agencies who have spent years making space travel more difficult than it needs to be.
ReplyDelete"DOGE" - as in Dogecoin? Suddenly, Trump's interest in cryptocurrency makes more sense. :-P
ReplyDeleteOh, yeah. Folks have been joking about DOGE since Elon (seemingly) came up with it on the spot a few weeks ago.
DeleteIn my wildest dreams, we end the Federal Reserve and go back to "real money" that can't just be printed in amounts that approach infinity. Crypto might be halfway there and a decent compromise.
Eric Berger absolutely hates Trump, but likes Elon Musk. This has set up an internal conflict that is very evident in his writings.
ReplyDeleteWell then, Eric needs to cry a river, build a bridge, and then get over it!! He does pretty good reporting, though.
DeleteYes he does. He's 95% of the reason I bother to read Ars Technica, which is a quite leftwing, woke publication.
DeleteI subscribed (joined?) a few years ago, but the other 90% of Ars just pissed me off too much. Their steadfast preaching about global warming, how big, corporate science is always more right than anything else, and on and on. Plus stuff about video games that I couldn't care less about.
DeleteI switched to Teslarati, but then they got rid of "the other Eric" and almost went exclusively Tesla. They might be turning back toward SpaceX now. I've got to keep an eye on them.
I'm sorry, but - as much as I like the idea of paring down the federal bureaucracies - I just can't take seriously the idea that we're going to do it by creating an entirely new federal department. The very name "Department of Government Efficiency" is screamingly oxymoronic.
ReplyDeleteHow else would you do it, Thos? Changes aren't going to come because everybody self-resigns. IT SUNSETS! This isn't your normal bureaucratic department, it's a group of people on a defined mission, and its required end will happen under the Trump administration...which means it WILL end, not wander forward across the ages.
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