Elon Musk & The Great Government Layoff

A Masterclass in Blame-Passing, Losing Billions, Dealing With Exploding Rockets

It’s been a fantastic week for Elon Musk—if you define “fantastic” as losing billions, dealing with exploding rockets, and juggling personal drama like an overworked reality TV star. Not content with overseeing Tesla’s struggles, Musk has now turned his attention to the US government, where his role in the Department of Government Efficiency (yes, it's actually called DOGE, because nothing says “serious governance” like a meme reference) has turned into a bureaucratic circus.

Unfortunately, his brilliant plan to streamline the federal workforce appears to be going about as smoothly as a Cybertruck on black ice, with agencies re-hiring fired workers and Republican lawmakers suddenly realising that mass layoffs are less fun when their own voters are the ones losing jobs.

Meanwhile, Donald Trump—who just weeks ago was cheering Musk on—has suddenly decided that workforce reductions should be done with a scalpel, not a chainsaw. A stunning bit of revisionist history.

The biggest question in Washington now is who’s to blame for this flaming disaster. Musk says it’s not him, Trump says it’s not him, and Republicans are now acting like someone just told them tax cuts don’t pay for themselves.

This, dear reader, is what happens when you let a billionaire famous for mass layoffs take control of government payroll.

Elon Musk: The “I Didn’t Do It” Defense, Sponsored by Cowardice

Musk has spent the past week in damage-control mode, his responses to the fallout as consistent as a Tesla’s self-driving system in rush-hour traffic. His main argument has been that he didn’t fire anyone—and even if he had, those people weren’t useful anyway.

It’s a fascinating legal defence. By the same logic, Musk could walk into a hospital, convince all the surgeons to quit, and then shrug when patients start dying.

Musk insists that the layoffs were entirely the decision of federal agencies, despite reports that his DOGE task force compiled lists of suggested cuts and handed them to department heads. If that sounds suspiciously like recommending mass firings, congratulations, your reading comprehension is higher than the average Tesla investor’s.

Unfortunately for Musk, a federal judge in San Francisco has noticed that mass firings of federal workers might actually be illegal, and now the government is scrambling to undo at least some of the damage. Workers have already received frantic emails telling them to come back, because it turns out that maybe you shouldn’t lay off nuclear safety inspectors based on a billionaire’s gut instinct.

Musk now finds himself juggling multiple fires—including a collapsing car company, a space program experiencing more explosions than successes, and a personal life that could inspire an entire season of "Maury".

Donald Trump: The Scalpel, Not a Hatchet (Until It’s Inconvenient)

Trump, who has spent his entire career firing people with the glee of a child setting off fireworks indoors, is now suddenly pretending to be a measured and responsible leader.

His new claim? He only wanted targeted cuts, not the government-wide massacre that Musk totally didn’t orchestrate. This is a fascinating revision, considering Trump has spent years calling the federal workforce a deep state conspiracy and urging drastic cuts to entire agencies.

For the first few weeks of Musk’s mass firing spree, Trump and his allies were cheering him on like hedge fund managers watching a hostile takeover. But now that actual voters are complaining, House Republicans are panicking, and courts are intervening, Trump has decided it’s all Musk’s fault.

If history is anything to go by, this is only the beginning of Trump’s strategic memory loss. If things get worse, he may eventually deny he even knows Musk, just like he did with half his former staff, three of his former wives, and anyone convicted in the January 6th trials.

Give it a few weeks, and Trump will be on stage at a rally, waving his hands and saying, “Elon? Heard of him. Big car guy. Maybe a little overrated.”

Congress: America’s Least Effective Call Center

While Musk and Trump compete for gold in the Olympic sport of blame-dodging, Republicans in Congress have been left holding the bag—and they are not happy about it.

For months, they worshipped Musk, celebrating his Twitter takeover, public feuds with liberals, and anti-regulation rants. But now that tens of thousands of people have lost their jobs, some of whom are Republican voters, GOP lawmakers are getting flooded with angry calls.

Musk’s Personal Life: When Even His Exes Can’t Get Through

Musk has been so busy dismantling the federal workforce that at least two of his ex-partners have resorted to tweeting at him because he won’t answer his phone.

Grimes, who shares multiple children with Musk, publicly begged him to respond because one of their kids was sick. Another former partner also tried to reach him online. Meanwhile, Musk is still in a legal battle with another former partner.

If you’re keeping count, this means that a man who thinks he can efficiently reorganise the U.S. government literally cannot organise his personal life enough to return a phone call about his own children.

The Final Takeaway: Musk & Trump’s Reality Show is Just Getting Started

This entire fiasco was inevitable.

Elon Musk is not managing his companies well and Donald Trump cannot accept responsibility for anything that goes wrong. Now, they are locked in a spiral of recklessness, denial, and catastrophic mismanagement, while the American public pays the price.

Musk is still running from the consequences, Trump is still rewriting history, and Republicans in Congress are learning—too late—that blindly following a billionaire man-child wasn’t the genius move they thought it was.

But hey, at least we’re all getting a front-row seat to the most expensive slapstick comedy of all time.

If you enjoyed this rollercoaster of chaos, incompetence, and billionaire tantrums, make sure to subscribe for more sharp-witted takedowns, brutal sarcasm, and the latest episodes of “Elon Musk vs. Reality.”

Because in a world where tech bros run the government and Presidents rewrite history in real-time, you’re going to need someone to cut through the nonsense and keep you entertained while the world burns.

Hit that subscribe button—or don’t, but then you’ll miss out on the fun. Your choice. No pressure. (Except there is. Subscribe.)