On August 12, 2024, former President and now President-Elect Donald J. Trump and Tesla (TSLA) CEO and social media personality Elon Musk co-hosted what they called "a conversation" on the social media platform X (formerly known as Twitter).
Throughout the nearly two-hour, audio-only event, Trump used Musk's platform and attention to speak candidly about important campaign topics such as immigration, the border, the economy and foreign policy in a comfortable virtual space where the two were more than welcome to ramble.
Although Musk initially treated this event as a way to boost the profile of X as an alternative media source amongst the "biased" mainstream media, he made a decision that benefited him in the long run.
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In an often rambling conversation that included discussion about inflation, the economy, and government spending under the Biden/Harris administration, Musk made one consequential suggestion that listeners took very lightly on the first listen.
"Inflation is caused by government overspending," Musk said. "Would you agree that we need to take a look at government spending and have, perhaps, a government efficiency commission that just tries to make the spending sensible and so that the country lives within its means, just like a person does?"
"[...]I think it would be great to just have a government efficiency commission that takes a look at these things and just ensures that the taxpayer money, to the taxpayers' hard-earned money is spent in a good way. And I'd be happy to help out on such a commission."
"I'd love it," Trump replied.
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Elon Musk's latest idea will soon be reality
In a statement sent out on the evening of November 12, President-elect Trump announced that he is formally nominating Musk and former Republican Presidential nominee Vivek Ramaswamy as the leaders of a newly created Department of Government Efficiency.
As part of this new team "outside of government," Musk and Ramaswamy are tasked with paving the way for the future Trump Administration to clean house by "[dismantling] Government Bureaucracy, slash excess regulations, cut wasteful expenditures, and restructure Federal Agencies."
"Importantly, we will drive out the massive waste and fraud which exists throughout our annual $6.5 Trillion Dollars of Government Spending," Trump said. "They will work together to liberate our Economy, and make the U.S. Government accountable to 'WE THE PEOPLE.'"
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 13, 2024
In a post on X made soon after Trump's formal announcement, Musk assured that "for maximum transparency," all activities of the new department will be posted online, and that it will take public suggestions on "wasteful" initiatives to cut.
"We will also have a leaderboard for most insanely dumb spending of your tax dollars," Musk said. "This will be both extremely tragic and extremely entertaining."
In his announcement, Trump gave the duo a deadline of July 4, 2026, noting that a "smaller Government, with more efficiency and less bureaucracy, will be the perfect gift to America on the 250th Anniversary of The Declaration of Independence."
It will be done much faster https://t.co/06TdkNZ1Ko
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) November 13, 2024
Already, Musk is hyper-confident that he will not only achieve the goals that Trump has laid out for him and Vivek but also achieve them much, much more ahead of schedule.
In an X post by @ajtourville, an "all-in" Tesla investor and physics engineer, he noted this deadline, saying, "The math wonders what Elon will do with the remaining 502 days."
Musk boasted in a reply post that "It will be done much faster."
Musk's tryst with politics further separates him from his other jobs
According to reports by the New York Times and the Daily Beast, Musk's influence on the Trump family and the President-elect's transition team is relatively outsized, as "Uncle" Musk's hands-on relationship goes beyond echoing Trumpian virtues and messaging on social media.
As per the Times, he has been spending a lot of time alongside Trump at the President-Elect's residence at Mar-a-Lago, even sitting in on calls with key foreign leaders like Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. He also attended a national security meeting alongside newly appointed key policy aide Stephen Miller.
However, Musk is not a politician by trade; he is someone with other titles, such as the owner of the social media platform X, the founder of artificial intelligence startup xAI, the founder and CEO of space technology company SpaceX, and most important, the CEO of trillion-dollar EV automaker Tesla.
Related: A wild Elon Musk in the White House could kill Trump's legacy
Elon has a rep of failed deadlines — and promises
If there is one key characteristic of Elon Musk's reputation for running his businesses, it is the product launch 'cycle' that Tesla seems to be running off of, where products come much later than scheduled and come in a less appealing form to the public.
Take Tesla's latest hyped product, for example: Musk's much- anticipated Cybercab robotaxi; the butterfly-doored, sleek, sports-car-looking vehicle with no pedals or steering wheel.
Before it was shown to the public during Tesla's We, Robot event on October 10, Musk began hinting at the idea of a robotaxi years ago.
Tesla
During Tesla's Autonomy Day on April 2019, Musk made a litany of different promises, such as level 5 autonomy in Teslas by 2020, as well as a "fleet of a million" autonomous taxis on the roads.
“From our standpoint, if you fast forward a year, maybe a year and three months, but next year for sure, we’ll have over a million robotaxis on the road,” Musk said in April 2019. “The fleet wakes up with an over the air update; that’s all it takes.”
Obviously, that didn't happen, but Musk provided an update during Tesla's Q1 earnings call two years later in 2022.
"I think we'll aim to maybe do a product event for Robotaxi next year and get into more detail," Elon said in response to an investor question during the Q1 2022 earnings call. "But we are aiming for volume production in 2024."
By 2024, no update about the Robotaxi came until April, when Musk posted on X that the vehicle would be revealed on August 8.
Tesla Robotaxi unveil on 8/8
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) April 5, 2024
However, in July, a report from Bloomberg indicated that the product reveal would be delayed once more, moving from August to October.
Musk would confirm the pushback from August 8 to October 10 during Tesla's Q3 2024 earnings call on July 23, noting that the extra time would allow Tesla to make "some important changes" to its design and to give the company an opportunity to "show off a couple of other things," which Musk did not expand on.
Though Musk said during the October 10 reveal that manufacturing for the Cybercab may begin "Before 2027," many regulatory hurdles lay before him.
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However, thanks to the seemingly good news brought in through Trump, Wedbush analyst Dan Ives believes that Musk's appointment to the newly found agency is a net positive for the future of the soon-to-be released product.
"[The D.O.G.E. appointment] is another indicator that Musk will have a major seat at the table in the White House and ultimately this is a positive for Tesla as Trump will fast track the autonomous and AI initiatives in our view over the next 12 to 18 months that will be a game changer to the Tesla story," Ives wrote in an analyst's note on the evening of November 12.
The long wait is not always worth it
Sometimes, the delays and promises do churn out actual products.
In 2019, Tesla teased a new vehicle called the Cybertruck, which was initially promised to be released in late 2021 and priced at $39,900.
Although the vehicle was formally released during a delivery event in November 2023, its pricing changed to $60,990, along with the expected range falling short of customer expectations.
At the time of writing, the Cybertruck's base price has increased to a whopping $79,990, as Tesla quietly discontinued the standard rear-wheel-drive version, but for the money, owners get a car plagued with problems that include an inability to go through a commercial automatic car wash.
On November 13, Tesla announced its sixth recall affecting Cybertrucks this year. According to a report filed with the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, 2,431 Cybertrucks could be affected by an electric inverter issue that can cause "a loss of propulsion" without warning.
Tesla, Inc. or TSLA on the NASDAQ, was up 0.36% at last check, trading at $329.68 per share at the time of writing.
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