How Billionaire Elon Musk Brings 'SpaceX Philosophy' to DOGE?

Elon Musk's rapid and massive moves in the US government partly bear the billionaire's mark when running his business.

"Do it first, fix it where it goes wrong"

Billionaire Elon Musk’s policy of cutting federal employees is creating a wave of debate. Although he claims that it will target low-performing positions that waste federal funds, the decision by the Office of Government Efficiency (DOGE) sometimes “accidentally” eliminates key positions or those that are solving urgent problems.

Specifically, DOGE once ordered the firing of officials at the nuclear weapons agency, then hastily rehired them. The administration also mistakenly fired officials from the US Department of Agriculture who were in charge of responding to bird flu, but then "attempted to rectify" by rehiring them.

DOGE also cut the Ebola prevention budget while quickly handling related expenses of the United States Agency for International Development (USAID).

"We're not perfect, but when we make mistakes, we fix them very quickly. One of the things we accidentally canceled for a short period of time was Ebola prevention. Everyone wanted to prevent this disease, so we restored Ebola prevention immediately," The Washington Post quoted Mr. Musk as saying during a cabinet meeting with President Donald Trump on February 26.

Mr. Elon Musk (standing left) speaks at the US cabinet meeting on February 26.

In some ways, Musk’s approach is similar to what has made SpaceX, the leading private aerospace company he owns, so successful. Over the years, SpaceX has prioritized launching spacecraft. There have been failures, with rockets exploding minutes after launch, but this is how the company learns lessons and improves.

When the first generation of rockets was developed with the Falcon 1, it failed in its first three attempts and succeeded only twice. However, with the Falcon 9 operating for more than 10 years, the success rate has been almost absolute. In January, the Starship rocket failed to launch, SpaceX said in a statement: “With a test like this, success comes from what we learn, and today's flight will help us improve the reliability of Starship.”

Mr. Trump praised billionaire Musk, 'those who are not happy will be kicked out'

Meanwhile, boss Elon Musk wrote on social network X: "Success is not certain, but entertainment is certain." In each failure, Mr. Musk also affirmed that it is a valuable lesson to improve the system, and the event of the robotic arm recovering the Starship rocket booster last year was not only a turning point for SpaceX but also for the space industry in general.

Two different objects

Billionaire Elon Musk once said: "Failure is an option. If things aren't failing, you're not innovating enough." While Musk's "dare to fail" philosophy in SpaceX is highly regarded, applying lean planning to a US federal system is clearly very different in scale and nature.

The affected party is no longer the malfunctioning rocket, but the jobs and incomes of hundreds of thousands of people, in addition to the disrupted services that have a significant impact.

Elon Musk wears a shirt with the words "Support Technology" printed on it on February 26.

“Things are moving so fast and so furiously. We need to take a step back and make sure we’re doing things that make programs effective but don’t have unintended consequences,” Republican Rep. Nicole Malliotakis said, CNN reported.

However, observers believe that if billionaire Elon Musk continues to apply the management style of the businesses he owns to the US government, the wave of personnel cuts may continue without any signs of slowing down. In addition to moving quickly and correcting mistakes like with SpaceX, Mr. Musk's "streamlining" mark is also highlighted by cutting 80% of the staff of the social networking application Twitter (renamed X) since taking over the company in 2022.

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As the head of these companies, Musk has the authority to implement his desired philosophy. Meanwhile, the current dynamics in the federal government have shown disagreements between the legislative and executive branches. In addition, the public is currently receiving ambiguous signals about Musk's true role and influence in the plan to streamline. On the one hand, the White House has affirmed that he is not a DOGE employee, and has announced that the agency's acting director is Amy Gleason. On the other hand, statements on social media and appearances in the media have more or less shown that Musk's image is closely tied to DOGE's decisions.

Source: https://thanhnien.vn/ti-phu-elon-musk-mang-triet-ly-spacex-vao-doge-ra-sao-185250303124728843.htm