US correspondent Logan Church spoke with Elon Musk's father Errol after the tech billionaire started his whirlwind crackdown on "corruption" and "fraud" in Washington DC.
The second Donald Trump presidency may be young, but in his administration there is one man who seems to have more power than anyone beside the man himself – Elon Musk.
Trump promised to cut government spending, root out “corruption” and “fraud” and drastically shrink the size of the federal apparatus on the campaign trail. And then he got Musk on side to lead the operation.
The owner of Tesla, X (formerly Twitter) and Space X has become one of the biggest and richest MAGA supporters. That was a big jump, because he once described Trump as evil.
So, I called one of the people who knows Musk the best – his dad Errol, who lives in South Africa.
We spoke over Zoom, and began by discussing his son’s move to America, and eventually team MAGA.
Watch more of Logan Church's chat with Errol Musk on TVNZ+
“Elon still supported Biden,” he told me. “But Biden, on one particular occasion in December 2021, he invited all the so-called electric car makers in America to the White House to talk for about four or five days on converting America into an electric car country by 2030. But they didn't invite Tesla. And Tesla, of course, had built a million cars that year and sold them.”
That snub sent Musk to Trump’s side, he said.
“Elon couldn't understand because, up to that point, he always got favourable press and he felt that he was doing a good job and that people thought so too. He once told me years ago that Trump is evil. He then changed and, as you know, he’s joined with Trump and today he’s firmly behind Trump.”
Musk’s admirers and detractors have been amazed at how fast he’s moved as head of the new Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, as it’s called here.
In less than a month, Musk has all but shut down a multibillion dollar government agency – the United States Agency for International Development, one of the biggest aid agencies in the world (although this has been halted by a federal judge) and accessed information in the US Treasury (however also halted by a federal Judge).
And Trump said Musk was just getting started. “I'm going to tell [Elon] very soon, like maybe in 24 hours to go Department of Education,” Trump told Fox News yesterday.
“Then I'm going to go to the military. Let's check the military. We're going to find billions, hundreds of billions of dollars of fraud and abuse. And, you know, the people elected me on that."
Alarm bells
Musk’s approach to government cost cutting – comparable to his aggressive laying off and policy changes at social media network Twitter after he bought it - has set off alarm bells amongst Democrats. They worry about an unelected billionaire having that much power in Washington DC.
“DOGE is not a real government agency,” said Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer at a recent press conference.
“It has no authority to make spending decisions. It has no authority to shut programmes down or ignore federal law. To give DOGE a chokehold on Treasury payments is outlandishly dangerous. It is like putting a tiger into a petting zoo and hoping for the best.”
Senator Elizabeth Warren added: "When unelected billionaires start ransacking our government offices, this is not business as usual. Nope. Nothing is normal.
“We are living a nightmare created by Donald Trump and Elon Musk and we need to wake up.”
The past week has seen several protests in major cities across the country, with many shouting chants of “Deport Elon Musk”.
His father told me President Trump and his son’s mission is clear - and necessary.
“As Elon pointed out, there are [government workers] who have offices, they are fully air-conditioned, and they haven’t been into them for a full year. They don’t even go into work, and they’re paid. These ‘anti-Trump 2.0s’ are trying to get their act together but they’re not going to succeed. They’re done,” he said.
“Even with what Trump has done [since being elected] is unbelievable. So, they will go on in that direction and try to put the country back together again, make it a proper country again.”
The Musks, like Trump, are convinced there's only one way America will become great again.
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