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Comment by declan_roberts | Hacker News Reader

He seems to be leaning pretty strongly antigovernment at the moment.

No, he's leaning strongly anti-regulation, particularly those that impede his businesses. He's big on government because that's a major part of his revenue (DOD, NASA, and various TLAs). He's not big on the parts of government that slow him down or would cause his taxes to be higher for things he doesn't care about.

It's quite simply about efficiency.

Yes, efficiency for his businesses and interests.

A more efficient government helps everyone.

In principle. But targeted "efficiency" improvements that aid Musk's interests selected by Musk are not necessarily going to help anyone but Musk.

The reason for a lot of government inefficiency is checks and balances. If we did away with those it would be really efficient.

Making Chinese EV cars more expensive seems less efficient as people will have to spend more money for the same commodity.

No, a more efficient government would help those easiest to help, and not help those who were expensive or difficult to help.

Unless you just mean we could do exactly the same things, but more efficiently. But that is not what is meant; it means stopping doing a lot of things.

I recall he had to retool factories for the model 3 due to automating things before they were ready

Very efficient

This is almost true.

The real story is that he's anti-anti-competition. His competitors in particular already have deep ties with the government and its various departments. Companies like Boeing, Lockheed, etc. have engaged in deep regulatory capture to prevent competition from emerging.

These already established corporations have a revolving door with the government and that's the real impediment. That's what he's against.

So while you're right about his self interests, I think it's important to clarify that the decades long entrenchment of these various incumbent corporations is why this is all happening in the first place.

That's the real reason.

Have I missed something? Last time I blinked he seemed to be looking at a pretty active role in the next US administration

The role is in killing off large parts of the federal govt

His and Ramaswamy's roles will be advisory, and specifically targeting cutting government spending. This is not a pro-government thing except that they both have significant conflicts of interests which will influence which parts of government they suggest cutting and which they suggest leaving more or less intact.

Using regulatory capture to further your own economic interests is still pro government, it's just that it's a government aimed at meeting the needs of a very small number of oligarchs rather than the majority of the population.

>>which will influence

which <could> influence

Only if one is super human would it not.

Musk said there are over four hundred federal agencies, that's more than the number of states.

> Musk said there are over four hundred federal agencies, that's more than the number of states.

That's a silly way to weigh your decisions and valuations. "There are more than four hundred federal employees, that's more than the number of states."

The number of agencies is itself mostly irrelevant, it's their individual size, effectiveness, and appropriateness that matters. Do all of them need to exist? Almost certainly not. But do we need to cut it down to one per US state? That's an arbitrary and useless target.

> But do we need to cut it down to one per US state?

I'm sure they could be reduced down to similar areas of operation. One of the first to be cut being The California High-Speed Rail Authority (CHSRA). Who has so-far spent 16 years building 119 miles of track at a cost of $14 billion. That's roughly $66,845 per yard.

That's a state agency, outside of the scope of DOGE except that it receives some (probably a lot of) federal funding. If you want this to be a serious discussion don't suggest cutting agencies because of the total count of agencies or cutting state agencies in a discussion about federal agencies.

California has more agencies than the number of states of California!

Using the number of states as some yardstick makes zero sense: merging multiple current states into one wouldn’t make our society less complex.

He's literally part of the Trump government and isn't leaving his site for the last weeks. He hasn't been seen anywhere even near his own offices which he makes his employees go to.

How can you POSSIBLY state he is "strongly antigovernment"

> He hasn't been seen anywhere even near his own offices which he makes his employees go to.

uh, what do you base this on? it sort of seems like made up bullshit, especially because it's easily disproven by tracking his jet and seeing that it's visiting the locations of his offices in both california and austin frequently. there's even a video of him in one of his offices literally yesterday as he did a zoom meeting for WSJ.

i don't understand why people just blatantly lie like this

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