Back at SpaceX, Musk Says in Interview DOGE Became D.C.’s ‘whipping Boy’

STARBASE, Tex. — Elon Musk, returning to SpaceX on Tuesday for a test flight of his Starship spacecraft, said in an interview that slashing the size of federal government proved far tougher than he expected and lamented the intense criticism leveled at the U.S. DOGE Service, which he has led.

\“The federal bureaucracy situation is much worse than I realized,” he said. “I thought there were problems, but it sure is an uphill battle trying to improve things in D.C., to say the least.”

He said repercussions over DOGE cuts had been severe. “DOGE is just becoming the whipping boy for everything,” he said. “So, like, something bad would happen anywhere, and we would get blamed for it even if we had nothing to do with it.”

Lambert here: Somebody call a wh-a-a-a-mbulance!

He also expressed dismay over the reputational hit his companies took: “People were burning Teslas. Why would you do that? That’s really uncool.”

This is Elon Musk’s true domain, a place removed from the controversy of the D.C. Beltway, where his attempts to reshape the federal bureaucracy ran into fierce institutional resistance and spawned lawsuits, backlash from voters and consumers, derision from Democrats, and the ignominious realization that politics can be just as difficult as rocket science — perhaps even more so.

Gone was the Dark MAGA cap, the black blazer, the belligerence toward his perceived foes in Congress and the Washington press corps. For now, there will be no more Cabinet meetings or unsuccessful forays into political races. The most meaningful political race in this corner of South Texas was the one held by residents who voted overwhelmingly this month to incorporate Starbase as a city with elected municipal officials, though the real leader of this factory town, everyone knows, is the richest man in the world.

Projecting the intensity of a wartime general and wearing an “Occupy Mars” T-shirt, Musk said he had a “maniacal sense of urgency. I’m just wired that way, and that’s the kind of mindset that I’ve kind of instilled in the people at SpaceX. You have got to drive hard, and not everyone is cut out for that. Like, people want to have the chill vibes, and SpaceX is sort of ultra hardcore. But if we’re not ultra hardcore, how are we going to get to Mars? You’re not going to get to Mars in 40 hours a week.”

Lambert here: Or at all.