Elon Musk’s painful departure

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What started with a chainsaw ends in a whim. The departure of Elon Musk from Washington brings the strangest chapter of Donald Trump’s presidency at first. With its own metrics, the so -called Musk government efficiency department has failed. Far from reaching your $ 2 savings, DOGE may end Costing the taxpayer. In the meantime, Musk has caused damage to Tesla, where he will soon return. Was there a hidden method in your madness?

You can see two earnings of musc in the debris. The first is the psychic value for him and Trump to harm his enemies. The cliché on an expensive divorce worth every penny. Musk’s net value has fallen into $ 130 million since Trump’s inauguration. However, he has instilled in the fear of the bureaucracy of the CIA in the Department of Education. The disadvantages of the Valley of the Tears of Doo (a demoralized workforce and the bad headlines on non -existent savings) can be presented as a victory. Musk assaulted the deep state. With a little help from the courts, the bureaucracy has fought, but it is very injured.

Musk’s second upside down could take a while to record. Trump’s “Dome Golden”, which aims to replicate Israel’s “iron dome” for all United States, could be one of the biggest taxpayer expenses since the Ronald Reagan strategic defense initiative, better known as “Star Wars”. In terms of dollar, Trump’s dome can even rival Nasa Apollo’s project, which cost $ 280 million in current money. Since the missile shield should trust satellite swarms, Musk Spacex would be the largest beneficiary. The company has formed a golden consortium with Palantir and Anduril, led by its great technological friends.

Musk’s lasting impact on Washington, therefore, can be diverted by a large part of the money from North -American taxpayers to their empire. As they left gifts, this would be very nice. If you would improve the National Safety of the United States, it is another person’s problem. Ditto on whether the golden dome contracts are described as waste, frauds or abuses. When only a company can fulfill the largest functions of the project, there is little perspective on an open tender process.

However, Musk has damaged and does not show signs of stopping now. What promoted Tesla’s boycotts in Europe and partly in the United States is not a DOGE, but the insanitary company that Musk maintains on its X. platform. The London advertising campaign, which Tesla called “Swasticar”-“from zero to 1939 in three seconds”-a reaction to his far-right boosterism, not in his war against bureaucracy. Unless it may affect its identification, the Tesla brand will remain contaminated. Get Pam Bondi, Trump’s Attorney General, to label Tesla Showroom Vandalism, as terrorism indicates that Musk remains clueless for his image problem. Not for the first time, psychology can be a better predictor of Trump administration’s behavior than ideology.

In his own way, Trump tries to pour the balm into the injured pride of Musk. A corner of his cabinet meeting last week, Musk acknowledged the gratitude of the room for his sacrifice. In a gentle starting interview for Fox with Lara Trump, the Nora of the President, seemed injured by the public’s misunderstanding over him. “You’re here here in Washington DC with President Trump to try to save our country essentially,” he said. “Have you told you thanks to you?” In fact, many had thanked Musk, he said. But others had interpreted their Nazi greetings inaccurate as Nazi greetings: “They are really trying all the angles to get me.”

With the subsequent vision, it is clear that Musk’s position with Trump fell in early April when his money failed to make the election for a Supreme Court conservative candidate in Wisconsin. Although Musk spent $ 22 million on the most expensive judicial career than there has been, the other judge won, which means that there is still a liberal majority in the highest court in this swing state. Wisconsin was a Litmus test that Trump fixed and Musk failed. But his biggest test was if Store could discover large -scale corruption. That both the judiciary and the Congress controlled by the Republicans are not enthusiastic about Musk’s “wall of receipts” is a sign that the American system can maintain better than the dreaded.

In any way, Musk has reached a fork on the road. Its platform Ai, Grok, had this To say about his time in Washington: “His experiment from Dogue gave rise to an operational crisis, legal entities and limited results, which excelled modest gains … less a triumph than a caution tale.” If there is something like a chainsaw that boomerangs, Musk invented it.

edward.luce@ft.com