I’m sure many of you, in your jobs, would notice if someone was faking the ability to learn or perform at a new position. There are places where I interned where I felt I was not a good fit in terms of skillset. Thus, I do not try to reapply for a job there – not for any fault of the company or my coworkers, but rather because I feel there are other individuals with skillsets better suited to succeed there.
I used to expect the same standards to apply to larger companies and organizations, like the government. However, Trump’s picks to lead the “Department of Government Efficiency,” or DOGE, has shattered that perception.
Let me make it clear – there are things I think Elon Musk is very good at, like leading companies performing research at the bleeding edge of specific fields. However, let that not be conflated with being good at those fields. Just because Musk owns SpaceX does not mean he understands orbital mechanics at a graduate level. He has a bachelor’s degree in economics and physics, but much of the technical work SpaceX does requires more specific education or experience.
Not being good at something one does not claim to be good at does not bother me. What bothers me, however, is when one claims to be good at that field and then tries to influence that field in ways that will damage or hurt others.
Musk claimed to be a free-speech proponent before suing the Center for Countering Digital Hate, all because they exposed his lies relating to immigration, the election and other issues. The judge in the case criticized Musk for using the baseless suit to punish the CCDH for exercising their free speech to publish the truth.
Musk claimed to be pro-climate, then understated the impact that sectors like agriculture have on climate change. Even his comments on random topics, like the use of tanks in the modern day, reflect a level of intelligence that seems ostensibly high but crumbles when someone Googles the topic. That does not bother me much because no general uses Musk’s X account to inform their armored warfare doctrine.
What bothers me more is how Musk treats other people, whether it be responding to explicitly anti-Semitic posts by stating, “This is the actual truth,” or harassing his transgender daughter for being transgender. I would have expected such an experience to cause him to be more sympathetic to LGBTQ causes. Instead, I suppose his chronic absenteeism induced the Liz Cheney effect, and he doubled down on his intolerance. At least Liz Cheney realized the error of her ways eight years later.
This utter lack of sympathy or relevant knowledge helps explain why he names and shames specific people and positions in the government on social media (a reckless thing to do when it comes to personal safety). He assumes because he does not understand a person’s position or role, that person must not be helpful, which is a childish level of understanding. That is not to say that inefficiencies do not exist in government – it is the government, after all – but the haphazard way in which DOGE seems set to go about cuts is too grotesque in scale or manner to ignore.
There used to be a time when I liked Elon Musk, which probably peaked when he helped narrate that National Geographic part docu-series, part drama on settling Mars. However, his impulsive behavior that started during the COVID era has caused me to sour on him.
However, the reality is that no matter what we do, Elon Musk will play a role in the country’s and planet’s future. Thus, I hope he proves me wrong and is far more diligent and cautious in seeking cuts than he initially planned, but I have little confidence.
Janagan Ramanathan is a Sartell High School alum, former U.S. Naval Academy midshipman and current aerospace engineering major at the University of Minnesota-Twin Cities.
