Summary
Elon Musk admitted that his mass email to federal employees demanding weekly accomplishment reports sent to him or risk termination was a test to gauge responsiveness.
Musk tried to frame the move as a “pulse check” on bureaucrats.
The email caused confusion, with some agency leaders advising staff to ignore it, while others initially instructed compliance before reversing course.
A rift emerged as top officials at the FBI, Pentagon, State Department, Department of Homeland Security, and Department of Energy openly defied Musk’s directive, highlighting tensions within the administration.
Government discretionary budget is like $2T. Wasting say a quarter of a day (2 hours) of the 250 or so working days in a year is about 1/1000th the total year wasted. So figure $2B wasted, approximately.
That’s about 1000× as much as he’s actually “saved” in line items