If Elon Musk joins the United States government following a Donald Trump victory in the November presidential election, he will continue the trend of billionaire businesspeople holding public office.
From the late Vice President Nelson Rockefeller and former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg to Illinois Governor JB Pritzker and former President Trump himself, the wealthy have long occupied positions of power in Washington, D.C., and state capitals across the U.S.
With polls indicating that Tuesday’s election is tightly contested, Musk is a serious contender to join Trump’s cabinet after the Republican candidate suggested the tech billionaire could serve as the so-called “Secretary of Cost Cutting.”
Since transitioning into politics after decades in the real estate sector, Trump has shown a tendency to recruit high-net-worth individuals from the private sector.
During his first term, Trump nominated five individuals as Cabinet secretaries who had spent most, if not all, of their careers in business, including Exxon Mobil CEO Rex Tillerson, billionaire philanthropist Betsy DeVos, and former World Wrestling Entertainment CEO Linda McMahon.
Musk, the world’s richest man, has advocated for significant reductions in government spending, although he has offered limited details on where those cuts would be made.
During Trump’s rally at Madison Square Garden on Sunday, the CEO of Tesla and SpaceX stated that the federal budget could be reduced by “at least” $2 trillion.
“Your money is being wasted, and the Department of Government Efficiency is going to fix that,” Musk told Howard Lutnick, the chief executive of Wall Street firm Cantor Fitzgerald and a member of Trump’s transition planning team, when asked how much he could “rip out” of the latest federal budget. Musk added: “We’re going to get the government off your back and out of your pocketbook.”
Such a reduction in spending—equivalent to nearly one-third of last year’s federal budget of $6.75 trillion—would almost certainly be unattainable without significant cuts in areas that politicians from both parties have been reluctant to address, including Social Security, healthcare, veterans’ benefits, and defense.
Musk has acknowledged that such a drastic reduction in spending would result in considerable economic hardship.
On Tuesday, he responded “sounds about right” to a post on X that predicted there would be “an initial severe overreaction in the economy” and “markets will tumble.”
While politicians promising to eliminate wasteful spending is not a new phenomenon, there is no “precise parallel” to a businessman like Musk overseeing a department dedicated to enhancing government efficiency, according to Bruce Schulman, a professor of history at Boston University.
Political candidates who have emphasized their business experience, such as former President George W. Bush and presidential nominee Mitt Romney, typically had a background in public service before aiming for the highest levels of federal government.
Government commissions focused on reducing waste and inefficiency—like the Hoover Commission and the National Partnership for Reinventing Government, led by former President Herbert Hoover and Vice President Al Gore, respectively—have usually been headed by experienced government officials.
Schulman stated that while both Democrats and Republicans have endorsed initiatives to eliminate waste at various times, these efforts have largely been for “political show.”
“These efforts have had marginal effects, and mostly been for political show. But overall, both the size of the federal government in number of employees and in terms of spending have been flat for a long time even though the US population has increased dramatically. The federal government is much leaner than it was in the 1960s/70s,” Schulman told Al Jazeera.
A Cabinet position would be a tempting reward for Musk, who has become one of Trump’s most vocal and influential supporters since the failed assassination attempt on the former president in July, the outlet reported.