Doing Trump’s Dirty Work Is the world’s richest man staging a “coup”? Dan Rather and Team Steady Feb 4 Credit: Getty Images The mission of this newsletter is to be a steadying presence amid the chaos and danger of these times. But that means often we have to confront unpleasant truths. Elon Musk is a one-man wrecking ball trying to take over the U.S. government by dismantling centuries of political norms and practices. It was James Madison who in 1787 first introduced the idea of three branches of government in our new country’s Constitution: the executive, legislative, and judicial. But now, 238 years later, Musk has apparently decided all that is superfluous. All the American people really need is Donald Trump and the world’s richest man. Case in point: Musk’s weekend antics. They started on Friday night at the Treasury Department, where he and his so-called DOGE kids, a small squadron of 20-something tech bros loyal to Musk, took control of the federal payment system, which includes personal information of the almost 2 million federal employees. The Treasury employees who tried to stop him were put on leave or quickly retired. If that isn’t troubling enough, he also gained access to the federal “checkbook” that handles the $6 trillion of annual transactions. With this power, he says he has the legal authority to cancel payments for any government program he believes is acting illegally. No proof necessary. He then moved on to USAID, the U.S. Agency for International Development. USAID has an annual budget of $40 billion appropriated by Congress; that, by the way, is less than 1% of the annual U.S. budget. The agency employs 10,000 people around the world and is the largest provider of international food assistance. It also supports global health initiatives and humanitarian relief in 100 countries. On Saturday, Musk and his band of mercenaries entered the USAID office demanding access to, well, everything. When the agency’s two top officials resisted, they were threatened with removal by U.S. marshals. After gaining access to, well, everything, Musk dismantled the agency. The office was closed, the website taken down, the social media presence terminated. To finish off the complete eradication of an agency whose sole mission is to help the world’s most vulnerable populations, he denigrated it on X, accusing USAID of being “a criminal organization” and “viper’s nest of radical-left marxists who hate America.” So, that’s the move. An agency created by President Kennedy in 1961 to engender American goodwill around the world is shuttered without so much as a peep. No hearing, no investigation — just gone. Allegedly, USAID, in whatever diminished state, will be housed at the State Department. “Musk is a private citizen taking control of established government offices. That is not efficiency; that is a coup,” wrote University of Denver political scientist Seth Masket in his Substack newsletter. Not lost in all this is the sad irony of the world’s richest person making life more difficult for the world’s poorest people. A reminder: Musk was the biggest donor to Trump’s presidential campaign, giving at least $288 million, which is no more than a rounding error for someone worth more than $400 billion. He is unelected and unvetted and was not subjected to Senate confirmation. He supports ultra right-wing German politics, even using a Nazi salute twice recently. He oversees a department created out of thin air with no oversight. He answers only to the president, who has thus far done nothing but praise his efforts. Let’s do some Musk math. Initially, he promised to cut $2 trillion from the federal budget. Presumably, when he realized that the discretionary portion of the federal budget is $1.7 trillion, according to the Congressional Budget Office, he trimmed his goal to a mere $1 trillion in cuts. But even that will be nearly impossible. Forty-seven percent of it is earmarked for the U.S. military, which Trump said he will not cut. So Musk would have to eliminate every other dollar spent to get close to $1 trillion. And let’s talk about that trillion dollars. Why that amount? It’s a huge number that accounts for just about everything the government does, from paving roads to funding special education, housing subsidies, and scientific research. The other side of Trump’s economic plan is tax cuts. He has promised huge cuts for corporations and the wealthiest Americans. It appears that that is actually Musk’s mandate: Make deep cuts to offset the money lost by the tax cuts. This way Trump doesn’t have to rely on Congress to make cuts, though that is its job. The Constitution gave power of the purse to Congress, not the president. And who gets hurt by any and all of this? The average American, who suddenly faces a government in chaos compounded by the prospect of higher prices on many goods because of Trump’s tariff threats. The president acknowledged we could soon feel “some pain.” Please define “some.” So far, Trump has Musk’s back. Speaking from Palm Beach on Sunday after a round of golf and starting a trade war with our closest trading partners, the president told reporters, “I think Elon is doing a good job … Smart guy. Very smart.” Where is Congress in all this? Remember, they have the power of the purse, supposedly. So far, the Republican majority is nervously whistling past the graveyard. In the newest incarnation of Trumpworld, it appears that the second branch of government is unneeded and unwanted. Here’s what really matters to Trump: his approval ratings. Those ratings are usually highest at the beginning of a term. Trump started his second term with the lowest approval ratings of any president since, you guessed it, Donald Trump 1.0. Musk’s approval ratings are even worse than Trump’s and dropping. In a December Quinnipiac poll, 53% were not in favor of the prominent role Musk is playing in the administration. Only 36% approved. The American people’s distaste for Musk and his unchecked antics will eventually start dragging down Trump’s approval ratings. When that happens, Trump will likely assert more power over him. When the stock market starts to react to the chaos Trump is causing, he will get pressure from the broligarchy to cool it. Let’s hope any combination of these things happens quickly. To support my team’s efforts to protect our democracy through the power of independent journalism, please consider joining as a paid subscriber. It keeps Steady sustainable and accessible for all. Thank you. No matter how you subscribe, I thank you for reading. Stay Steady, Dan