As Elon Musk digs into the federal bureaucracy in his crusade to slash government spending, he has a tool that no aspiring cost-cutter has had before: his own giant social media platform to debate, shame and bludgeon anyone who stands in his way.
Since the inauguration, Mr. Musk has attacked journalists and X users for posting the names of people working with him, calling it “a crime.” He’s accused Treasury Department officials of “breaking the law every hour of every day.” And Mr. Musk has mocked Senator Chuck Schumer, Democrat of New York, as “hysterical.”
On Monday, Mr. Musk celebrated his progress, posting he had fed the U.S. Agency for International Development into the wood chipper.
And on Tuesday, Mr. Musk began a poll on X: “Would you like DOGE to audit the IRS?”
The comments show how Mr. Musk, who unlike traditional government figures rarely holds news conferences or speaks to reporters, is using his social media site as a powerful tool to promote his goals as part of the Trump administration.
Since the inauguration, Mr. Musk has unleashed a barrage of posts to his more than 215 million followers, promoting conspiratorial rumors about his adversaries, pressuring senators to confirm the president’s cabinet picks and weighing in on foreign elections.
On top of that, Mr. Musk’s account is becoming one of the few sources for information about the billionaire’s secretive stampede to slash the federal budget, an initiative he calls the Department of Government Efficiency.
X has given Mr. Musk an unusual avenue to showcase his unapologetically confrontational approach to cost cutting in a way that appeals to President Trump’s base, tech policy experts said.
Now, Mr. Musk, who is chief executive of Tesla and SpaceX, has charged into his new role to cut government spending, swiftly moving to transform at least half a dozen government agencies, challenging congressional authority and potentially breaching civil service protections.
His project has worked to shut down U.S.A.I.D. Leaders of the cost-cutting initiative have also pushed out top officials there and at the Treasury Department who objected to the actions of his representatives, and ended leases on government office spaces.
As part of those efforts, Mr. Musk has used his X account to critique federal agencies in his cross hairs. U.S.A.I.D. is “evil” and “a criminal organization,” Mr. Musk wrote in separate posts on Sunday.
Lawmakers including Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Democrat of New York, and Mr. Schumer have accused Mr. Musk of overreach.
“Hysterical reactions like this is how you know that DOGE is doing work that really matters,” Mr. Musk said in response to Mr. Schumer. “This is the one shot American people have to defeat BUREAUcracy, rule of the bureaucrats, and restore DEMOcracy, rule of the people.”
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