‘Shadow government’? Billionaire Elon Musk’s grip on U.S. government spending raises questions

Los Angeles Times ^ | Feb. 4, 2025 12:22 PM PT | Kevin Rector, Staff Writer

[E. Pluribus Unum]

• Elon Musk and his deputies in the Department of Government Efficiency have gained access to Treasury Department systems and targeted a key foreign aid agency for closure, riling Democrats who say the billionaire has no such authority.

• The debate reflects growing tensions between long-standing government norms and laws, and President Trump’s vision for a new government order of his own making.

The world’s richest man, acting as an unelected “efficiency” consultant to President Trump, has in recent days managed the rare feat of overshadowing his boss — presuming to storm into and begin closing out government agencies at will.

After two weeks of chaos caused by Trump’s own unilateral executive orders to radically alter the federal government, it was suddenly Elon Musk whose name was everywhere in Washington this week, as he and his deputies in the new Department of Government Efficiency slashed at the federal bureaucracy in a purported effort to cut costs.

Disregarding established security protocols while downplaying the budgetary authority of Congress, they accessed sensitive Treasury Department systems full of Americans’ most personal data and declared that the U.S. Agency for International Development — the agency long in charge of distributing American foreign aid to places such as Gaza, Ukraine and sub-Saharan Africa — was corrupt and being shuttered.

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They suggested anyone who stood in their way, including career civil servants with actual authority to safeguard Treasury and USAID data, were the real rogue agents. And they and their allies dismissed rising outrage among Democrats as the whining resistance of political sore losers.

In one instance, Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.), the ranking Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee, tore into Musk for overreaching, saying “we don’t have a fourth branch of government called Elon Musk.”

[Fai Mao]

When it comes to Democrats and corruption:
Burn it down.
Burn it to the ground
Burn the ground

[asinclair]

What happens when one of the branches of the government, the Congress, fails to cap the wasteful spending? Musk is turning into the Elliott Ness of fiscal accounting.

[nitzy]

We don’t want Musk and his nameless, faceless bureaucrats controlling the purse strings of Washington!

We want the previous nameless, faceless bureaucrats to do it!

[hal ogen]

Elon Musk is employed by our by president Trump who appointed him. While this may rile nitwit Democrats who themselves are most likely corrupt he is doing a great favor for American citizens in so many ways. Uncovering corruption makes these criminals feel very uneasy. Just my hope that Justice finds all of them.

[cgbg]

I have questions.

Who in the LA Times works for US intelligence agencies.

See my tagline.

[Frank Drebin]

Spot on...it’s only a Shadow government when it isn’t their shadows.

[neverevergiveup]

Shadow government? You mean like having unelected people running the government instead of Biden. You mean like having Jill Biden and/or Hunter Biden sitting in on policy meetings? You mean like Obama and Valarie Jarrett maintaining influence and pulling strings during the past administration? Etc.

[alancarp]

"We want the previous nameless, faceless bureaucrats to do it!"

Since they like throwing around this word "unelected", let's add that description, too.

[Paladin2]

The LAT is a part of KAOS.

Musk is an effective Chief of Control who has hired agents more in line with Agent 99 than Max Smart.

[usurper]

Democrats who say the billionaire has no such authority.

That is entirely true. Musk has zero authority to do anything other than advise the incoming Secretary's of what he recommends.

The incoming Secretary's will make the decision how they want their agency to proceed not Musk who is basically a consultant.

[Qwapisking]

I have absolutely NO problem with this but the progressive CONgresscritters on BOTH sides of the aisle do because once exposed ain’t nobody putting that “toothpaste” of financial disclosure back in the tube. they know it, Trump knows it and finally THE AMERICAN PEOPLE know it. the only move any of these people skimming and scamming off the trillions of dollars that are at stake is to explain themselves to the American people. and it BETTER be good because we are done accepting excuses. would prefer the guiotine as consequences but i’d be ok with rope or squad too. welcome to “consequences” USA.

[MNJohnnie]

Only in what is laughing called minds of the corrupt and incompetent political/media machine flailing around desperately to find narratative that might work for the lie machine

[joshua c]

and the question is

why the hell hasnt someone done this before

[gitmo]

Elon Musk advises the President.

[MNJohnnie]

No it another Alt Left lie

The President is elected. In keeping with a tradition going back at least as far as Wilson, President Trump asked Musk to do a job for him as and adviser

This is how a Representative Republic works. The people out of line here are the Alt Left Congressscum who assume they have some sort of authority to dictates to the Executive Branch how to exercise their authority.

if they want that Executive power, they should run for President and get elected.

[TalBlack]

Musk is acting at the behest of the executive. Their use of the word shadow government is at odds with the definition of shadow government.

[Petrosius]

Read the Constitution. The president runs the entire executive branch and give access to whomever he wants and change whatever “established norms” he wants. This is why we have elections.

[MeanWestTexan]

So they spin making unelected bureaucrats answerable to elected officials acting in the course and scope of their Constitutional authority is that the agents of the elected officials is a “shadow government”.

That’s pretty much the opposite of “shadow”.

That’s light on darkness.

This is insanely stupid spin.

[SMARTY]

Right-like that crowd of nobodies who ran things for Joe