Elon Musk Rapidly Achieves Total Disgust With DC

Musk Learns DC

I was born and raised in Alexandria, Virginia. Right across the Potomac River from Washington, DC.

From my very beginning I witnessed up-close-and-personal the profound poison that is the US federal government. You could feel the corruption radiating outward from DC. It was like a leaking nuclear reactor - with no half-life to which to look forward.

You knew instead it would one day implode - and then explode. A government supernova succumbing to the ever-increasing pressure of its taxes, regulations and debt.

As a from-birth observer of DC, I have long known what is coming. And I did NOT want to be there when it does. So I started looking to leave the US in 2013. I (FINALLY) departed for Belize in 2022.

Ernest Hemingway inadvertently, brilliantly codified the US’s future in his 1926 novel “The Sun Also Rises”:

“‘How did you go bankrupt?’ Bill asked.

“‘Two ways,’ Mike said. ‘Gradually and then suddenly.’”

Records going back a century are a little sketchy, but the approximate US debt in 1926 was $20 million ($358 million in today’s gold-free money). That was the “gradual” part of our bankruptcy.

Today we owe just under $37 trillion. (It will likely have passed that mile-marker by the time you read this). We are now WAY into the “sudden" part of our bankruptcy.

And here’s the best part: DC continues to do ABSOLUTELY NOTHING to course correct.

All of the above is with what Elon Musk has very recently, very rapidly come to terms. I have found watching his evolution fascinating. And depressing, of course. Because we cynics-realists ultimately find everything of this world depressing.

Until VERY recently, Elon Musk had spent every second of his life working on his very many projects. Pretty much totally devoid of any involvement in the DC politics that makes DC policy.

Musk is an industrialist. A real-life version of Ayn Rand’s “Atlas Shrugged” hero Hank Rearden.

I can’t find the exact written exchange (I mean, the book is 1,200+ pages). So I am paraphrasing. But early in Rand’s novel a human parasite asks Rearden why he “doesn’t have a man in DC.”

Rearden is blindsided by the concept of needing one. “I want to make my metal - and make money” I think he responded. “Why would I need a man in DC?”

I think that was largely how Musk viewed DC. (Aside from his phalanx of DC men ensuring his copious fake energy subsidies and government contracts kept a-rolling. Musk is the beneficiary of crony policy - but didn’t seem to personally care to know about the politics that delivered it.)

For whatever reason, Musk in 2023 or 2024 decided to start paying attention to the front-end of DC policymaking. And being a bright guy, his learning curve was steep and rapidly attained.

He quickly saw just how far gone DC is. But being a guy who solves problems - even ones people say can’t be solved? Musk dove head-first into the Swamp - and all its very many headwaters.

Musk endorsed Donald Trump. And then spent $290+ million in the 2024 election cycle. Post-election, he got to do what he does best: Roll up his sleeves and get to work addressing DC’s MANY problems.

Born was the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE). Musk and his hand-picked team of experts came together to identify, track and quantify DC’s waste, fraud and abuse (WFA).

What DOGE has uncovered in just a few short months has been exceedingly nauseating. They’ve only just begun peeling through the 456+ federal agencies, and have already identified tens (hundreds) of billions of dollars in annual WFA.

Which DC, Musk naively assumed, would happily eliminate. Except: DC isn’t interested in course correction. At all.

Musk (and all the rest of US) watched Congress 2025 futz around for months. Dragging its feet on the legislation necessary to codify all of DOGE’s eminently reasonable cuts.

And then Congress FINALLY extrudes a Big Bogus Bill? That codifies NONE of DOGE’s eminently reasonable cuts.

And then Musk has to watch the Trump Administration - into which he has thrown his mind, heart and wallet? DEFEND Congress not codifying any of DOGE’s eminently reasonable cuts.

So it isn’t a galloping shock that this recently happened….

Elon Musk Says He’s Stepping Back from White House, DOGE Duties:

“Tech billionaire Elon Musk is preparing to scale back his role in the Trump administration’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) to focus on his electric car company, Tesla.”

“Musk defended DOGE as he prepares to reduce his role, but gave vague answers about the work he’s done thus far and the future of the pseudo-governmental agency before addressing the widespread backlash he has received during his short tenure as department chief.”

Musk subjected himself to DC. DC in mere months drove him back to the fictional Rearden’s perspective: “Screw DC, I just want to make metal and make money.”

Musk, God bless him, still retains some optimism for the future. On his X, he said:

“I have come to the perhaps obvious conclusion that accelerating GDP growth is essential.

“@DOGE has and will do great work to postpone the day of bankruptcy of America, but the profligacy of government means that only radical improvements in productivity can save our country.”

Musk has fully given up on DC ever doing ANYTHING to rein in itself. At all. So he is diving into MASSIVELY increasing productivity and economic growth.

Because Musk sees the only way to overcome government? Is to outgrow government.

Except there is no way to Gross Domestic Product (GDP) our way out of this mess.

Aside from the $37+ trillion debt? Social Security (SSI) and Medicare are $175+ trillion short in the next thirty years. And there are a bunch of other US liabilities - for which the US also has no money.

Let’s look at just SSI, Medicare and the debt. We’ll soon be paying $1.5 trillion per annum in interest on the debt. And an average $585 billion per annum to cover the SSI and Medicare shortfalls.

That’s $2.1+ trillion per year. And that’s before Congress has spent a penny on anything else.

The 2024 federal outlay was $6.8 trillion. And that’s with SSI and Medicare still technically in the black.

And Musk just watched Congress in 2025 do NOTHING to incorporate his DOGE cuts. I can’t imagine why he’s done with DC.

Meanwhile, the US GDP in 2024 was $29.2 trillion. DC spent 23+% of that - with SSI and Medicare still technically in the black. And DC just steadfastly refused to codify ANY DOGE cuts.

So…I’m not at all confident we can GDP our way out of this.

I moved to Belize. Rand’s Rearden moved to off-the-grid John Galt’s Gulch.

Perhaps we now better understand Musk’s fascination with colonizing Mars. Perhaps he does too.

So the next time you wonder why DC - three decades into the Internet - hasn’t yet produced a privacy bill.

Or why DC doesn’t do anything but help Communist China - at our expense.

Or why DC does anything it does? Or doesn’t do?

Don’t wonder. You know why.

Elon Musk wondered. And look what that got him.