February 16, 2025 • 17 mins
Last week you may have seen the press conference Elon Musk held in the White House next to the U.S. President Donald Trump, and also his son, X.If you were wondering what that was all about, you’ve come to the right place.It’s been nearly one month since Trump was inaugurated and Elon Musk commenced his official role as part of the Trump administration. We now know a little more about what Musk’s new government advisory body, the Department of Government Efficiency, will look like. So we thought it would be the perfect time to explain Elon Musk’s role in the Trump administration.
Hosts: Billi FitzSimons and Zara Seidler
Producers: Orla Maher
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Already, and this is the daily This is the Daily.
Ohs oh, now it makes sense. Good morning, and welcome
to the Daily OS. It's Monday, the seventeenth of February.
Speaker 2 (00:18):
I'm Billy, I'm Zara.
Speaker 1 (00:20):
Last week you may have seen the press conference Elon
Musk held in the White House next to US President
Donald Trump and also his son X. If you saw
that on your TikTok feeds and you were wondering what
that was all about, you have come to the right place.
It's been nearly one month since Trump was inaugurated and
Elon Musk commenced his official role as part of the
(00:41):
Trump administration. We now know a little more about what
Mask's new government advisory body, the Department of Government Efficiency,
will look like, so we thought it would be the
perfect time to explain Elon Musk's role in the Trump administration.
Speaker 2 (00:58):
Billy, there are very few people who compete with Donald
Trump for the number of headlines they can get in
a week. But I do believe that Elon Musk is
probably a very close second, and so I don't think
that he necessarily needs a full introduction. But for anyone
that might not be overly familiar, what do we need
to know about Elon Musk.
Speaker 1 (01:17):
So he is the richest person in the world. He's
number one, above Bill Gates, above Mark Zuckerberg, number one
richest person in the world, Zara. Can you guess how
much he is worth?
Speaker 2 (01:29):
He's net worth three hundred billion.
Speaker 1 (01:32):
Dollars pretty close, very close. So according to the latest
figure from Forbes, he is worth three hundred and ninety
four billion US credible amount dollars, an insane amount of money.
Can you imagine what that is in Australian dollars?
Speaker 2 (01:47):
A lot?
Speaker 1 (01:47):
Definitely what it's nearly well in US dollars at least
it is nearly half a trillion US dollars.
Speaker 2 (01:54):
Wow.
Speaker 1 (01:55):
Now, Musk was born in South Africa and he is
the co founder of SpaceX, which is a spacecraft manufacturer.
He was also a key early contributor to the electronic
payment platform PayPal, and he is also the CEO of
electric vehicle company Tesla. Now, if that didn't keep him
busy enough, I simply don't know how there are enough
(02:16):
hours in the day to do all of that. But
he also in twenty twenty two, as I'm sure many
of us remember, he bought Twitter for forty four billion dollars,
which he has since renamed to.
Speaker 2 (02:27):
X, not to be confused with his child Yes, also
named X. Yes.
Speaker 1 (02:32):
He also co founded a financial services company in like
the nineteen nineties that was called X. There you go,
big fan of the letter X.
Speaker 3 (02:41):
Yep.
Speaker 1 (02:41):
Now, fun fact, he actually also co founded open ai,
which is the maker of chatchpt but he left that
board in twenty eighteen, and I thought I would include
that because just last week he put in a bid
to buy open ai for ninety seven billion dollars but
he was rejected.
Speaker 2 (02:59):
Incredibly small circle of tech bros there, and seemingly Elon
Musk has been involved with essentially every major technology disruptor
across the board. It's quite incredible when you hear that.
Speaker 1 (03:13):
Yeah, he's a very successful businessman.
Speaker 2 (03:15):
Hence probably why he's the richest in the world. But
there you go. Okay, So putting aside the technology contribution
for a moment now, because the reason that Musk is
in the headline so often is more recently about his
foray into politics. I guess my first question is has
he always been as involved in politics as we understand
(03:36):
him to be today? Not at all?
Speaker 1 (03:38):
And interestingly, he also hasn't always been a Donald Trump supporter.
He has through the years donated to both the Democrats
and the Republican Party, which are the two major parties
in the US, So he's kind of dabbled in both,
which is quite.
Speaker 2 (03:52):
A common thing for wealthier, more influential people to do
because it means that you've kind of got the ear
of whichever government takes office.
Speaker 1 (03:59):
Exactly, because you're often trying to kind of win their edgebots, Yes, exactly.
But it's only recently that he has gone really hard
on the Republican Party, or more specifically Donald Trump. Because
actually in twenty sixteen, when Donald Trump was running against
Hillary Clinton, Elon Musk supported Hillary Clinton. But that was
nearly nine years ago now, and clearly he has gone
(04:22):
on a journey since then.
Speaker 2 (04:24):
And one way to put it, Yeah, and in the twenty.
Speaker 1 (04:26):
Twenty four election, he was obviously very vocal in his
endorsement and support of Trump, which led him to being
announced as the leader of a new government advisory body
created by Trump called the Department of Government Efficiency also
known as DOGE. Don't be fooled by its name. Despite
it being called a department, it's not. It's just an
(04:49):
advisory body, and I mentioned the name that it's more
commonly referred to as, which is Doge, and that is
of course a reference to a cryptocurrency called doge yea. Now,
Musk was initially co leading this with biotech billionaire Vivek Ramaswami,
but then he actually quit just hours after Trump became president,
(05:11):
and there were reports that it was because of a
clash between himself and Elon Musk, but nothing was confirmed,
although you know, given the fact that he did quit,
would suggest that something went wrong. And now Musk is
the sole leader of that advisory body.
Speaker 2 (05:27):
Okay, So Elon Musk is the sole leader of this
new department otherwise known as DOGE. And it's both a
new role and a new advisory group. Per Se, what
is its purpose? What is it designed to actually do?
I guess what is Elon Musk's job here?
Speaker 1 (05:42):
So when it was first announced, Trump said that the
department's goal was to quote slash excess regulations, cut wasteful expenditures,
and restructure federal agencies. So essentially, the goal is to
significantly cut costs to the federal budget and to get
rid of wasteful spending. They deem to be wasteful spending.
So to give you contexts, the US is in more
(06:05):
than thirty trillion dollars of debt and the doge's aim
is to reduce that debt significantly by reducing the government's spending.
And Mask says that if he doesn't do that, or
if Doge doesn't do that, the country will go bankrupt.
So he's saying this isn't an option, this is absolutely
necessary and important.
Speaker 2 (06:26):
Just I guess, for context to note that a majority
of countries across the world do have debt.
Speaker 1 (06:31):
A lot large large majority, if not every country. But
that sounds like an explain it for another day about
the high countries are all in debt. But back to
this now. Mask initially said that he would be able
to save about two trillion dollars a year, which represents
about thirty percent of the US government's total spend in
a year. Since he initially said that two trillion dollar figure,
(06:54):
he has said that maybe that was a bit ambitious
and they won't actually be able to reach that, but
it remains the goal to cut two trillion dollars of
spending a strategy goal. Yeah, So, just to put it
really simply, again, Elon Musk's entire role in the White
House is to cut spending.
Speaker 2 (07:13):
Okay, and how does Elon Musk plan to do that?
Speaker 1 (07:16):
So there's several different ways. I'm just going to go
through a couple of them that have kind of gained
the most attention. One way is by significantly reducing the
federal workforce, also known as the public service, which is
the country's largest employer. So this would mean cutting spending
in different departments. Think of things like the Department of Education,
(07:37):
the Department of Health, those kinds of things, and they
want to cut jobs in those departments. So just last week,
Trump signed an executive order directing agency officials to plan
for quote, large scale reductions in their workforces. And it
also stated that each agency quote higher no more than
one employee for every four employees that part. So that's
(08:01):
basically a hiring freeze for the most part. And they're
saying you cannot hire anyone else in any of the
agencies unless you get rid of four people who are
already in the room. And they have also said that
no hiring decisions can be made without consultation with a
DOGE team lead. So this is incredible oversight over every
(08:22):
single hiring and firing that happens in every single government
agency in the US. And for context, it was right
after Trump signed this executive order that he and Masks
did a press conference on the decision, and he said
that they have found billions of dollars of waste happening
in the US government's budgets. And just days after that happened,
(08:44):
it was reported that termination emails had started being sent
out to government workers, mostly those who are still on probation.
Now that alone could affect hundreds of thousands of workers,
but it's expected to be only the beginning of large
scale reduction.
Speaker 2 (09:00):
It's really interesting. I lived in DC and so I've
got quite a few friends who are still there, and
on Instagram I saw a number of them talking about
the fact that they'd lost their jobs wow in recent weeks.
And you know, as you said, it was this almost
instantaneous thing that it was announced and then it happened.
It's quite remarkable to watch now, Billy. I also remember
(09:21):
reading a lot this week about USAID. In the US,
it's called USAID outside we tend to call it USAID,
So whichever one you prefer, But can you just talk
me through whether Ila Musk is involved with the reports
I've seen this week about USAID.
Speaker 1 (09:37):
Yeah, he's completely involved in leading the initiative to basically
shut down USAID. So this is just another way that
they are planning to cut spending is by shutting down
the US's aid agency, which is called USAID. So for
those not familiar, USAID was set up to administer humanitarian
aid programs on behalf of the US government. So it
(09:59):
does things like help provide aids such as food in
countries where there is famine. Also when there are disasters
in countries, it also typically helps with that. Here's what
Elon Musk said when he was asked why he was
cutting it.
Speaker 3 (10:13):
I think that there are some worthy things, but overall,
if you say, what does the bank of the buck,
I would say it was not very good and there
was far too much of what you said. My idea
was doing was influencing, influencing elections in ways that I
think were dubious and do not stand the later day.
Speaker 1 (10:32):
It hires thousands of workers, and not just in the
US but in countries all over the world, and so
now the large majority of those workers are at risk
of losing their job. I do want to note that
a judge has temporarily halted anything happening on this front
for about a week plust they make a final decision,
(10:53):
So we're going to have to wait and see what
happens there. But this stage, we know that DOJ is
basically wanting to completely shut USA. We just have to
wait and see what happens in the courts.
Speaker 2 (11:04):
Yeah, one of those interesting examples of how the judiciary
and the executive are interacting at a time like this.
Billy in the office the other day, one of our
team members said that there was an expiry date to DOGE,
that Elon Musk doesn't just have this free reign, that
actually he is on a short term contract, if you
(11:25):
were to put it that way. Is that correct.
Speaker 1 (11:27):
Yeah, So there's two things to this about there being
like a potential expiry date too DOGE. So the first
is that in Trump's executive order which I mentioned earlier
that established DOGE, it said that the temporary organization of
DOGE will end on the fourth of July twenty twenty six.
So that's still a year and a bit to complete
what it says its aim is. But even sooner than that,
(11:50):
Musk is technically serving under Trump as something that is
called a special government employee, and that is just a
specific category of temporary workers in the government, and they
can only work for the federal government for one hundred
and thirty days. So there is an expiry on Musk's
official involvement in the White House. I guess we'll have
(12:11):
to wait and see as to what that looks like,
if he will stop working.
Speaker 2 (12:15):
Yeah, I mean it's difficult to consider that happening now,
given how involved he is.
Speaker 1 (12:19):
Yeah. Also, one thing that I've heard people asking in
our comment sections is whether or not he gets paid
for this.
Speaker 2 (12:25):
Yeah, he does not.
Speaker 1 (12:26):
Oh man doesn't need a buck.
Speaker 2 (12:28):
True, money doesn't really matter to him a whole lot.
Before we end, I do want to turn to some
of the criticisms of DOGE because there are a lot
of criticisms. They're quite varied there from different parts of society.
Can you just walk us through what that opposition looks like.
Speaker 1 (12:44):
Yeah, Like you said, there is quite a lot of
criticism about DOGE. One is that there is concern that
Musk is acting without transparency. He disputes that. He says
he is being very transparent. But you know, there is
a lot of criticism around that. There's also concern about
how much information Musk now has access to despite the
fact that he is an unelected official.
Speaker 2 (13:06):
I think that's the big thing that is coming out,
that he wasn't elected by the people, but yet he
has so much power.
Speaker 1 (13:12):
Yeah, I mean it fit like the fact that he's
holding these press conferences with the president. It feels like
kind of at times like they're co president.
Speaker 2 (13:19):
Yeah, like he's the vice president or something.
Speaker 1 (13:21):
There's also concern that there's a conflict of interest given
that Musk runs companies that have contracts with the government
that are worth billions of dollars, and also that he
could potentially be gaining access to federal contracts that the
government has with his competitors. Beyond that, there is also
a lot of criticism about what's something like shutting down
(13:41):
USAID could mean for the populations of countries who really
rely on that funding to live and oftentimes to survive.
The New York Times last week reported that already the
collapse of USAID is causing really big holes and things
like healthcare for locals in Africa, and there are quotes
from locals there saying that they are just in disbelief
(14:04):
about what this will mean for them and for their
future and for the region more broadly.
Speaker 2 (14:09):
Clearly that quote goes to the fact that America here
isn't acting in isolation, and that the decisions that are
happening internally are then affecting other countries around the world.
Just bringing it back to Australia to end with, we
have seen Opposition leader Peter Dudden announce his own version
of doge here in Australia. It was in a shadow
(14:31):
cabinet reshuffle a few weeks ago, but I don't think
we covered it on this podcast. What happened?
Speaker 1 (14:37):
Okay, So for context, we have an election coming up
in Australia and that means that Opposition leader Peter Dudden
is kind of prepping, prepping and starting to tell Australia
what he would do if he was the Prime minister
and elected. And as part of that he has created
this new role that's called the Shadow Minister for Government Efficiency.
Now that sounds quite similar to the departm of Government
(15:00):
Efficiency that Donald Trump created for Elon Musk. Now, Dudden
has denied that he was inspired by Trump, so he
says that they're not similar, but in terms of what
they are designed to do. What Dudden has said that
his shadow portfolio is designed to do it is similar.
It is dedicated to achieving a more efficient use of
taxpayers money. Those are his words. And in terms of
(15:24):
who would be leading that, it would be just Enterprise.
So that means that at the moment she is the
shadow Minister for Government Efficiency and presumably if the coalition
is elected, she would then become the Minister for Government Efficiency. Now,
in terms of why he says that this is needed,
it is because he says that the labor government spending
(15:44):
is wasteful and out of control, and Price also said
that the current government spending had contributed to high inflation
and also the broader cost of living crisis. So there's
a lot there. I think despite the fact that Dudden
is denying that he was inspired by Trump, there are
some parallels that we can potentially draw and as always,
(16:04):
it's one to keep an eye on and one that
the Daily Ods will keep you informed about.
Speaker 2 (16:09):
Billy, thank you so much and thank you for joining
us for another episode of the Daily Ods.
Speaker 1 (16:14):
If you like listening to the Daily Os and you
want to help us grow, if you could hit follow
on Spotify or Apple. It really helps us grow, it
helps us climb up the charts, and if you're feeling
extra generous, if you could leave us a review on Apple.
It helps more than you know. Thank you so much
and we'll be back again this afternoon with your afternoon headlines.
(16:38):
My name is Lily Maddon and I'm a proud Arunda
Bunje Lung Chalcuton woman from Gadigl Country. The Daily os
acknowledges that this podcast is recorded on the lands of
the Gatighl people and pays respect to all Aboriginal and
Torres Strait Island and nations. We pay our respects to
the first peoples of these countries, both past and present,
(17:00):
and
Already, and this is the daily This is the Daily.
Ohs oh, now it makes sense. Good morning, and welcome
to the Daily OS. It's Monday, the seventeenth of February.
Speaker 2 (00:18):
I'm Billy, I'm Zara.
Speaker 1 (00:20):
Last week you may have seen the press conference Elon
Musk held in the White House next to US President
Donald Trump and also his son X. If you saw
that on your TikTok feeds and you were wondering what
that was all about, you have come to the right place.
It's been nearly one month since Trump was inaugurated and
Elon Musk commenced his official role as part of the
(00:41):
Trump administration. We now know a little more about what
Mask's new government advisory body, the Department of Government Efficiency,
will look like, so we thought it would be the
perfect time to explain Elon Musk's role in the Trump administration.
Speaker 2 (00:58):
Billy, there are very few people who compete with Donald
Trump for the number of headlines they can get in
a week. But I do believe that Elon Musk is
probably a very close second, and so I don't think
that he necessarily needs a full introduction. But for anyone
that might not be overly familiar, what do we need
to know about Elon Musk.
Speaker 1 (01:17):
So he is the richest person in the world. He's
number one, above Bill Gates, above Mark Zuckerberg, number one
richest person in the world, Zara. Can you guess how
much he is worth?
Speaker 2 (01:29):
He's net worth three hundred billion.
Speaker 1 (01:32):
Dollars pretty close, very close. So according to the latest
figure from Forbes, he is worth three hundred and ninety
four billion US credible amount dollars, an insane amount of money.
Can you imagine what that is in Australian dollars?
Speaker 2 (01:47):
A lot?
Speaker 1 (01:47):
Definitely what it's nearly well in US dollars at least
it is nearly half a trillion US dollars.
Speaker 2 (01:54):
Wow.
Speaker 1 (01:55):
Now, Musk was born in South Africa and he is
the co founder of SpaceX, which is a spacecraft manufacturer.
He was also a key early contributor to the electronic
payment platform PayPal, and he is also the CEO of
electric vehicle company Tesla. Now, if that didn't keep him
busy enough, I simply don't know how there are enough
(02:16):
hours in the day to do all of that. But
he also in twenty twenty two, as I'm sure many
of us remember, he bought Twitter for forty four billion dollars,
which he has since renamed to.
Speaker 2 (02:27):
X, not to be confused with his child Yes, also
named X. Yes.
Speaker 1 (02:32):
He also co founded a financial services company in like
the nineteen nineties that was called X. There you go,
big fan of the letter X.
Speaker 3 (02:41):
Yep.
Speaker 1 (02:41):
Now, fun fact, he actually also co founded open ai,
which is the maker of chatchpt but he left that
board in twenty eighteen, and I thought I would include
that because just last week he put in a bid
to buy open ai for ninety seven billion dollars but
he was rejected.
Speaker 2 (02:59):
Incredibly small circle of tech bros there, and seemingly Elon
Musk has been involved with essentially every major technology disruptor
across the board. It's quite incredible when you hear that.
Speaker 1 (03:13):
Yeah, he's a very successful businessman.
Speaker 2 (03:15):
Hence probably why he's the richest in the world. But
there you go. Okay, So putting aside the technology contribution
for a moment now, because the reason that Musk is
in the headline so often is more recently about his
foray into politics. I guess my first question is has
he always been as involved in politics as we understand
(03:36):
him to be today? Not at all?
Speaker 1 (03:38):
And interestingly, he also hasn't always been a Donald Trump supporter.
He has through the years donated to both the Democrats
and the Republican Party, which are the two major parties
in the US, So he's kind of dabbled in both,
which is quite.
Speaker 2 (03:52):
A common thing for wealthier, more influential people to do
because it means that you've kind of got the ear
of whichever government takes office.
Speaker 1 (03:59):
Exactly, because you're often trying to kind of win their edgebots, Yes, exactly.
But it's only recently that he has gone really hard
on the Republican Party, or more specifically Donald Trump. Because
actually in twenty sixteen, when Donald Trump was running against
Hillary Clinton, Elon Musk supported Hillary Clinton. But that was
nearly nine years ago now, and clearly he has gone
(04:22):
on a journey since then.
Speaker 2 (04:24):
And one way to put it, Yeah, and in the twenty.
Speaker 1 (04:26):
Twenty four election, he was obviously very vocal in his
endorsement and support of Trump, which led him to being
announced as the leader of a new government advisory body
created by Trump called the Department of Government Efficiency also
known as DOGE. Don't be fooled by its name. Despite
it being called a department, it's not. It's just an
(04:49):
advisory body, and I mentioned the name that it's more
commonly referred to as, which is Doge, and that is
of course a reference to a cryptocurrency called doge yea. Now,
Musk was initially co leading this with biotech billionaire Vivek Ramaswami,
but then he actually quit just hours after Trump became president,
(05:11):
and there were reports that it was because of a
clash between himself and Elon Musk, but nothing was confirmed,
although you know, given the fact that he did quit,
would suggest that something went wrong. And now Musk is
the sole leader of that advisory body.
Speaker 2 (05:27):
Okay, So Elon Musk is the sole leader of this
new department otherwise known as DOGE. And it's both a
new role and a new advisory group. Per Se, what
is its purpose? What is it designed to actually do?
I guess what is Elon Musk's job here?
Speaker 1 (05:42):
So when it was first announced, Trump said that the
department's goal was to quote slash excess regulations, cut wasteful expenditures,
and restructure federal agencies. So essentially, the goal is to
significantly cut costs to the federal budget and to get
rid of wasteful spending. They deem to be wasteful spending.
So to give you contexts, the US is in more
(06:05):
than thirty trillion dollars of debt and the doge's aim
is to reduce that debt significantly by reducing the government's spending.
And Mask says that if he doesn't do that, or
if Doge doesn't do that, the country will go bankrupt.
So he's saying this isn't an option, this is absolutely
necessary and important.
Speaker 2 (06:26):
Just I guess, for context to note that a majority
of countries across the world do have debt.
Speaker 1 (06:31):
A lot large large majority, if not every country. But
that sounds like an explain it for another day about
the high countries are all in debt. But back to
this now. Mask initially said that he would be able
to save about two trillion dollars a year, which represents
about thirty percent of the US government's total spend in
a year. Since he initially said that two trillion dollar figure,
(06:54):
he has said that maybe that was a bit ambitious
and they won't actually be able to reach that, but
it remains the goal to cut two trillion dollars of
spending a strategy goal. Yeah, So, just to put it
really simply, again, Elon Musk's entire role in the White
House is to cut spending.
Speaker 2 (07:13):
Okay, and how does Elon Musk plan to do that?
Speaker 1 (07:16):
So there's several different ways. I'm just going to go
through a couple of them that have kind of gained
the most attention. One way is by significantly reducing the
federal workforce, also known as the public service, which is
the country's largest employer. So this would mean cutting spending
in different departments. Think of things like the Department of Education,
(07:37):
the Department of Health, those kinds of things, and they
want to cut jobs in those departments. So just last week,
Trump signed an executive order directing agency officials to plan
for quote, large scale reductions in their workforces. And it
also stated that each agency quote higher no more than
one employee for every four employees that part. So that's
(08:01):
basically a hiring freeze for the most part. And they're
saying you cannot hire anyone else in any of the
agencies unless you get rid of four people who are
already in the room. And they have also said that
no hiring decisions can be made without consultation with a
DOGE team lead. So this is incredible oversight over every
(08:22):
single hiring and firing that happens in every single government
agency in the US. And for context, it was right
after Trump signed this executive order that he and Masks
did a press conference on the decision, and he said
that they have found billions of dollars of waste happening
in the US government's budgets. And just days after that happened,
(08:44):
it was reported that termination emails had started being sent
out to government workers, mostly those who are still on probation.
Now that alone could affect hundreds of thousands of workers,
but it's expected to be only the beginning of large
scale reduction.
Speaker 2 (09:00):
It's really interesting. I lived in DC and so I've
got quite a few friends who are still there, and
on Instagram I saw a number of them talking about
the fact that they'd lost their jobs wow in recent weeks.
And you know, as you said, it was this almost
instantaneous thing that it was announced and then it happened.
It's quite remarkable to watch now, Billy. I also remember
(09:21):
reading a lot this week about USAID. In the US,
it's called USAID outside we tend to call it USAID,
So whichever one you prefer, But can you just talk
me through whether Ila Musk is involved with the reports
I've seen this week about USAID.
Speaker 1 (09:37):
Yeah, he's completely involved in leading the initiative to basically
shut down USAID. So this is just another way that
they are planning to cut spending is by shutting down
the US's aid agency, which is called USAID. So for
those not familiar, USAID was set up to administer humanitarian
aid programs on behalf of the US government. So it
(09:59):
does things like help provide aids such as food in
countries where there is famine. Also when there are disasters
in countries, it also typically helps with that. Here's what
Elon Musk said when he was asked why he was
cutting it.
Speaker 3 (10:13):
I think that there are some worthy things, but overall,
if you say, what does the bank of the buck,
I would say it was not very good and there
was far too much of what you said. My idea
was doing was influencing, influencing elections in ways that I
think were dubious and do not stand the later day.
Speaker 1 (10:32):
It hires thousands of workers, and not just in the
US but in countries all over the world, and so
now the large majority of those workers are at risk
of losing their job. I do want to note that
a judge has temporarily halted anything happening on this front
for about a week plust they make a final decision,
(10:53):
So we're going to have to wait and see what
happens there. But this stage, we know that DOJ is
basically wanting to completely shut USA. We just have to
wait and see what happens in the courts.
Speaker 2 (11:04):
Yeah, one of those interesting examples of how the judiciary
and the executive are interacting at a time like this.
Billy in the office the other day, one of our
team members said that there was an expiry date to DOGE,
that Elon Musk doesn't just have this free reign, that
actually he is on a short term contract, if you
(11:25):
were to put it that way. Is that correct.
Speaker 1 (11:27):
Yeah, So there's two things to this about there being
like a potential expiry date too DOGE. So the first
is that in Trump's executive order which I mentioned earlier
that established DOGE, it said that the temporary organization of
DOGE will end on the fourth of July twenty twenty six.
So that's still a year and a bit to complete
what it says its aim is. But even sooner than that,
(11:50):
Musk is technically serving under Trump as something that is
called a special government employee, and that is just a
specific category of temporary workers in the government, and they
can only work for the federal government for one hundred
and thirty days. So there is an expiry on Musk's
official involvement in the White House. I guess we'll have
(12:11):
to wait and see as to what that looks like,
if he will stop working.
Speaker 2 (12:15):
Yeah, I mean it's difficult to consider that happening now,
given how involved he is.
Speaker 1 (12:19):
Yeah. Also, one thing that I've heard people asking in
our comment sections is whether or not he gets paid
for this.
Speaker 2 (12:25):
Yeah, he does not.
Speaker 1 (12:26):
Oh man doesn't need a buck.
Speaker 2 (12:28):
True, money doesn't really matter to him a whole lot.
Before we end, I do want to turn to some
of the criticisms of DOGE because there are a lot
of criticisms. They're quite varied there from different parts of society.
Can you just walk us through what that opposition looks like.
Speaker 1 (12:44):
Yeah, Like you said, there is quite a lot of
criticism about DOGE. One is that there is concern that
Musk is acting without transparency. He disputes that. He says
he is being very transparent. But you know, there is
a lot of criticism around that. There's also concern about
how much information Musk now has access to despite the
fact that he is an unelected official.
Speaker 2 (13:06):
I think that's the big thing that is coming out,
that he wasn't elected by the people, but yet he
has so much power.
Speaker 1 (13:12):
Yeah, I mean it fit like the fact that he's
holding these press conferences with the president. It feels like
kind of at times like they're co president.
Speaker 2 (13:19):
Yeah, like he's the vice president or something.
Speaker 1 (13:21):
There's also concern that there's a conflict of interest given
that Musk runs companies that have contracts with the government
that are worth billions of dollars, and also that he
could potentially be gaining access to federal contracts that the
government has with his competitors. Beyond that, there is also
a lot of criticism about what's something like shutting down
(13:41):
USAID could mean for the populations of countries who really
rely on that funding to live and oftentimes to survive.
The New York Times last week reported that already the
collapse of USAID is causing really big holes and things
like healthcare for locals in Africa, and there are quotes
from locals there saying that they are just in disbelief
(14:04):
about what this will mean for them and for their
future and for the region more broadly.
Speaker 2 (14:09):
Clearly that quote goes to the fact that America here
isn't acting in isolation, and that the decisions that are
happening internally are then affecting other countries around the world.
Just bringing it back to Australia to end with, we
have seen Opposition leader Peter Dudden announce his own version
of doge here in Australia. It was in a shadow
(14:31):
cabinet reshuffle a few weeks ago, but I don't think
we covered it on this podcast. What happened?
Speaker 1 (14:37):
Okay, So for context, we have an election coming up
in Australia and that means that Opposition leader Peter Dudden
is kind of prepping, prepping and starting to tell Australia
what he would do if he was the Prime minister
and elected. And as part of that he has created
this new role that's called the Shadow Minister for Government Efficiency.
Now that sounds quite similar to the departm of Government
(15:00):
Efficiency that Donald Trump created for Elon Musk. Now, Dudden
has denied that he was inspired by Trump, so he
says that they're not similar, but in terms of what
they are designed to do. What Dudden has said that
his shadow portfolio is designed to do it is similar.
It is dedicated to achieving a more efficient use of
taxpayers money. Those are his words. And in terms of
(15:24):
who would be leading that, it would be just Enterprise.
So that means that at the moment she is the
shadow Minister for Government Efficiency and presumably if the coalition
is elected, she would then become the Minister for Government Efficiency. Now,
in terms of why he says that this is needed,
it is because he says that the labor government spending
(15:44):
is wasteful and out of control, and Price also said
that the current government spending had contributed to high inflation
and also the broader cost of living crisis. So there's
a lot there. I think despite the fact that Dudden
is denying that he was inspired by Trump, there are
some parallels that we can potentially draw and as always,
(16:04):
it's one to keep an eye on and one that
the Daily Ods will keep you informed about.
Speaker 2 (16:09):
Billy, thank you so much and thank you for joining
us for another episode of the Daily Ods.
Speaker 1 (16:14):
If you like listening to the Daily Os and you
want to help us grow, if you could hit follow
on Spotify or Apple. It really helps us grow, it
helps us climb up the charts, and if you're feeling
extra generous, if you could leave us a review on Apple.
It helps more than you know. Thank you so much
and we'll be back again this afternoon with your afternoon headlines.
(16:38):
My name is Lily Maddon and I'm a proud Arunda
Bunje Lung Chalcuton woman from Gadigl Country. The Daily os
acknowledges that this podcast is recorded on the lands of
the Gatighl people and pays respect to all Aboriginal and
Torres Strait Island and nations. We pay our respects to
the first peoples of these countries, both past and present,
(17:00):
and
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