Why the DOGE cometh.

Super Heavy Booster being caught by the "chopsticks"

Elon Musk had the vision for a Mars colony, he started with the obvious building rockets.

He started with SpaceX and then Tesla and the Boring company. All these companies are in service to the vision of putting humanity on Mars.

When you have a large vision outside of the norm, often other people will see that vision as a threat.

This is true whether you are changing an organization at the individual level or attempting to expand humanity into the solar system. Someone in the status quo will have a problem with the change you are proposing.

The correlation between vision and finances or resources is very close. It can Be summed up with the following axiom.

When you have hundreds of dollars you are concerned about your next day.

When you have thousands of dollars you are concerned about taking care of your family

When you have millions of dollars you are concerned about impacting your community

When you have billions of dollars you are concerned about impacting your country or the world

When you have trillions of dollars you are concerned about impacting the Solar System or all of humanity.

Elon is probably the only person on the planet operating at the trillion dollar level. He may not have a trillion dollars in cash, but he has the resources through his companies and contacts of trillions of dollars. This leads him to have a vision of humanity beyond the earth. What is interesting about this vision is that he had it before he had the resources.

When Elon started SpaceX, Tesla and his other companies in service to his vision he began to impact The United States economy and then the world economy. Once you impact the economy you start to impact the political system. This is where things get interesting.

First a little history, when Elon Musk started in 2002 SpaceX it was not a sure thing. The beginning of SpaceX was marked with multiple vehicle failures, and it wasn't until September 2008 that SpaceX achieved its first successful launch. During the six years between the start of SpaceX and that first successful launch SpaceX Tesla and Musk himself were on the verge of bankruptcy.

The Falcon one which was the first successful rocket launched by SpaceX was only used five times before the company transitioned to the Falcon 9 heavy lift vehicle. Since that time Falcon 9 has become the workhorse four SpaceX commercial space industry and NASA. In December of 2015 the first successful landing and recovery of a Falcon 9 rocket was achieved. In March of 2017 was the first time that Falcon 9 rocket was reused to put a payload in space. This was only the beginning of what is 445 successful launches to current date.

This initial success led to SpaceX becoming the global leader in launch vehicles over the next decade.

In order to create additional funding for SpaceX, in 2021 the Starlink Internet satellite constellation was fielded.

It was in 2021 that Elon began to act based on the political conditions surrounding his businesses. Elon Musk has moved several of his companies from California to Texas, citing various reasons, primarily related to business climate, political environment, and specific legislative actions. He announced the relocation of Tesla's headquarters from Palo Alto, California, to Austin, Texas, in 2021. This move was largely in response to what Musk described as "fascist" coronavirus restrictions in California, and crime as this quote illustrates "Have had enough of dodging gangs of violent drug addicts just to get in and out of the building."

On July 16, 2024, Musk declared on X (formerly Twitter) that he would also move the headquarters of SpaceX and X to Texas. This decision was spurred by a new California law signed by Governor Gavin Newsom on July 15, 2024, which prohibits schools from mandating that teachers notify parents of a child's gender identity change. Musk labeled this law as "the final straw," stating it, along with other previous legislation, "attacked both families and companies." He explicitly mentioned his intent to move SpaceX from Hawthorne, California, to Starbase, Texas, and X from San Francisco to Austin. Public statements from Musk highlighted his frustration with what he perceived as California's overregulation and an unfavorable business environment, including high taxes and crime rates near his companies' offices. Additionally, Musk has personal reasons for favoring Texas, having moved his own residence there in 2021, partly due to the state's lack of personal income tax. These moves reflect Musk's broader strategy to align his businesses with regions he believes offer more business-friendly policies and personal freedoms.

As Elon spoke out against the actions of the California and US governments The Biden administration had engaged in several legal actions against his companies, including SpaceX, Tesla, and X (formerly known as Twitter). SpaceX has faced scrutiny from various federal agencies. The Department of Justice (DOJ) filed a lawsuit against SpaceX in August 2023, alleging discrimination against asylees and refugees in hiring practices, claiming that from 2018 to 2022, SpaceX discouraged these groups from applying and refused to hire them due to their citizenship status, in violation of the Immigration and Nationality Act. This lawsuit conflicts directly with the requirement, based on national security reasons for all employees of SpaceX to be citizens of the US.  Additionally, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) proposed civil penalties against SpaceX for failing to adhere to license requirements during rocket launches in 2023. The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has also been involved, with the Biden administration urging the Supreme Court to reject Musk's appeal in a dispute over a consent decree with the SEC stemming from his 2018 "funding secured" tweet about Tesla.

Tesla has encountered legal challenges as well. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) has opened multiple investigations into Tesla, especially concerning the safety of its Autopilot and Full Self-Driving systems. In 2021, Tesla agreed to a recall following NHTSA's urging regarding touchscreen failures in some models. Furthermore, the DOJ launched an investigation into possible financial misconduct at Tesla in 2023, focusing on the potential misuse of funds for personal projects like Musk's "glass house." The FTC has also investigated Tesla's business practices, particularly in solar panel operations and advertising claims.

Federal investigations against Elon Musk

Regarding X, while direct legal actions from the Biden administration are less documented, there have been broader investigations into Musk's business practices that might indirectly affect X, especially concerning data privacy and content moderation, given Musk's significant influence over the platform since acquiring it in 2022.

Public statements from both sides have been confrontational. Musk has publicly criticized these actions as political harassment, suggesting that the weaponization of government agencies against him needs to stop. Following Musk’s public statements, the Biden administration canceled contracts with Starlink and made Tesla the one EV company ineligible for the EV subsidy program in an obvious attempt to damage his businesses.

SpaceX has also had a difficult relationship under Biden with the FAA and NASA expressing frustration with the process in 2021: “Unlike its aircraft division, which is fine, the FAA space division has a fundamentally broken regulatory structure. Their rules are meant for a handful of expendable launches per year from a few government facilities. Under those rules, humanity will never get to Mars.”

Posting fines for SpaceX and slow approvals for launches Elon spoke about this in September 2024 "Amazingly, no Starliner fines for Boeing! The FAA space division is harassing SpaceX about nonsense that doesn’t affect safety while giving a free pass to Boeing even after NASA concluded that their spacecraft was not safe enough to bring back the astronauts."

On July 13, 2024, in Butler Pennsylvania, the world watched as an assassin attempted to kill Donald J Trump. This event galvanized Elon Musk’s support for his Presidential run. Elon endorsed President Trump in the following statements:

"You can't fake bravery under such circumstances — the courage is instinctual or it is not."

"Your actions after that assassination attempt were INSPIRING. Instead of shying away from things, instead of ducking down, you were pumping your fist in the air and saying, 'Fight, fight, fight.'"

"After the shooting, he said Ok I’m endorsing this man… Elon appreciates physical courage and leadership and what Trump did in that moment you can’t fake."

This moment and the subsequent endorsement by Elon changed the Presidential race.

After the second assassination attempt, President Trump asked Elon to head the Dept of Government Efficiency (DOGE).

This joining of the world’s most well-known man and the world’s richest man redefined meaning of power couple. They were soon joined by RFK Jr and others that recognized the threat that a government weaponized against them could be weaponized against anyone. No matter how rich or connected.

These events, the assassination attempt, the federal government excesses regarding Elon’s businesses and the concurrent lawfare against Donald Trump, DOGE would not have been created.

Although DOGE is designed to address problems in government in a general sense, the impetus for stems from Elon’s vision for humanity to become multiplanetary.

The initial frustration with the pace of government operation and regulations as exemplified by these quotes from Elon “I'm glad that the U.S. government has recognized the importance of space through initiatives like the Artemis program, but we need to move faster." and this one  "The goal should be to lower costs and increase frequency of launches to make space accessible, and the government can help by streamlining regulations."

Often SpaceX was waiting on NASA or FAA approval of some kind. These delays in Elon’s view were wholly unnecessary. This began the tension between him and the government. The response from the federal government was to increase the conflict and did not seek to reduce the delays or regulations.

I suspect that sometime in late 2022 Elon concluded that the largest threat to his vision of multiplanetary humanity was the US Federal government. In many ways DOGE was created to remove that obstacle.

In the war between the Federal government and the DOGE team, my money is on DOGE.