Elon Musk has justified his rampage, which I believe is illegal, through the U.S. government by arguing that he is efficiently cutting wasteful spending. A closer look at his efforts, though, to me reveals stunning sloppiness and incompetence.
He orchestrated more than 300 firings at the National Nuclear Security Administration — 16% of the staff — not realizing that they help oversee our nuclear weapons and are critical to national security. Now the agency is trying to call them back but are having trouble because Musk didn’t bother to collect their personal contact information.
He orchestrated the firings of U.S. Department of Agriculture workers trying to fight the bird flu and Food and Drug Administration reviewers who work to ensure the safety of the food supply and of medical devices, and now both agencies are trying to rehire them.
Meanwhile, some of Musk’s savings brags turn out to be filled with dumb mistakes. His team has double- and triple-counted contracts, inflated the value of one canceled contract from $8 million to $8 billion, used the wrong numbers to calculate savings and bragged about canceling contracts that actually ended in 2024. How can anything that they say be trusted?
This circus would be very entertaining if the consequences weren’t so serious for the country.
Michelle Lubetsky
Squirrel Hill