The inauguration ceremonies of the new president ended, tens of thousands of Trump supporters returned to their states of origin, the rickshaws Tourists arriving from New York to spend their summer in the freezing January returned to Central Park, and the first dissensions began within the new Administration. The couple most feared by federal officials in Washington – formed by the richest man in the world, Elon Musk, and Vivek Ramaswamy, a young billionaire who made his fortune in the biotechnology business – has broken up before taking on the task at hand. The new president of the United States, Donald Trump, had been tasked with directing a newly created Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE).
Ramaswamy gets off the train of cuts in the Administration, and Musk sees his power and influence in the White House grow even more with this resignation, a few weeks after a fight on social networks over the H-1B visas of which technology companies are used to recruit highly qualified foreign employees, leading to something like a civil war under Trumpism in which Ramaswamy played a leading role, which, according to reports The New York Times, It angered Musk and, much worse, irritated Trump. The discussion led to an open confrontation of racist overtones between Musk and Steve Bannon, the ideologue of national populism who established himself as a defender of the interests of American workers and the man who not so long ago whispered in Trump’s ear.
Ramaswamy’s plans include pursuing his nomination as a candidate and then securing election as governor of Ohio, the Midwestern state in which he was born, in the city of Cincinnati, 35 years ago. It is expected to formalize its announcement next week. The end of that path is November 2026, when the second term of Republican Mike DeWine ends, who is prevented by law from running again.
Musk and Ramaswamy have been seen, despite everything, in good personal harmony at the various celebrations and galas that have taken place these days in Washington to celebrate Trump’s return to the White House. In one of them, on Monday they took a photo holding hands that Ramaswamy uploaded to his X account with the phrase “a new dawn” and the American flag emoji, perhaps to mitigate the stubbornness of his defeat. In another post he wrote the next day: “It has been my honor to help create DOGE. I am confident that Elon and his team will be successful in their task of slimming down the Government.”
It is nevertheless ironic that the first materialization of a DOGE measure is the cut of its management team by half. As published Washington Post This Tuesday night, the reasons for this change of plans must be sought in “the profound philosophical differences [entre ambos] about how the organization should work”, in charge of putting scissors in the US Administration and called to propose a war against what the Republicans call the Deep State, to refer to the hypertrophied body of officials that has not stopped growing, they denounce, since the times of Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal.
Ramaswamy and Musk published in November on The Wall Street Journal an opinion article signed by both of them, but written, according to the postfor the first. The text promised “three fundamental types of reform: regulatory rescissions, administrative reductions and cost savings.” This Monday, among the barrage of executive orders signed by Trump on his first day back in the Oval Office, there was one referring to DOGE, in which the new president opted for Musk’s vision for the department, delivering a severe blow to Ramaswamy’s political future in Washington.
DOGE’s powers will thus focus, as Musk wanted, on scissoring the technology used by the Administration, compared to a more institutional idea of Ramaswamy, who advocated identifying which federal agencies could pass away without the approval of Congress. and enacting laws that encouraged savings.
The order changes the name of the United States Digital Service, created in 2014 by Barack Obama, “to the United States DOGE Service.” The new unit will have an administrator who will report to the White House chief of staff, Susie Wiles. The text, in which there is no trace of the maximum program exposed by Ramaswamy in the Journalpromises to “modernize federal technology and software to maximize government efficiency and productivity.” It also confirms something that had already been talked about: the expectation that its work will conclude on July 4, 2026, when the 250th anniversary of the independence of the United States will be celebrated.
In this design, Musk – who is the richest man in the world thanks to a fortune calculated this Wednesday at around 434,000 million dollars (416,000 million euros) that his entry into politics has doubled – still does not have a salary from the Administration. , although all analyzes assume that his closeness to Trump will be extraordinarily beneficial for his companies, especially for the astronautics SpaceX, which obtains billions of contracts with the US Administration every year. From now on, according to Trump’s order, he will have “full and prompt access to all records, software and agency unclassified information technology systems.” That confidential data will put you in an unprecedented position of privilege to do new and lucrative business.
End of teleworking
In his task of reducing the Administration’s costs, the owner of X and Tesla, among other companies, received indirect help on Monday with the signing by the new president of an executive order that requires federal employees to go to their offices five business days a week. After the pandemic, teleworking became the norm in Washington, contributing to the desertification of its center. Trump and his people trust that these new conditions will push many to look for work in private sector companies. Meanwhile, layoffs have begun in sensitive departments, such as Justice, and this Wednesday those responsible for the agencies’ diversity programs received notification of their suspension from employment given that inclusive policies are now anathema in the sector. public and in some parts of the private sector in the United States.
Since the destinies of Trump and Musk came together during the election campaign, a cycle in which the second became the largest Republican donor, with a contribution of more than 260 million dollars, the bets were also opened on how long The love affair between two such volcanic personalities and two such enormous egos will last. For now, the romance endures, and the president has shown his support for Musk even when he turned against the old nationalist guard of Trumpism, who rushed to defend American workers, on account of technological visas. In an interview with Il Corriere della Sera, Bannon called the president’s new best friend “a truly evil guy.”
“I will have them thrown out of here [Washington, desde donde Bannon emite War Room su podcast] to Elon Musk on inauguration day. He won’t have a blue pass to the White House, he won’t have full access to the White House, he’ll be just like anyone else. (…) I have personally decided to put an end to that guy,” Bannon told the Italian newspaper. The big day of Trump’s inauguration came and went, the rickshaws Tourists left the way they had come and Musk, who already has an email from the White House, is still there, with free and apparently unlimited access to the Oval Office. Very close to the most powerful politician in the world.
