'We haven't seen anything quite like Musk.' Here's what's behind his government blitz.

Elon Musk became rich and famous as an entrepreneur, but he’s quickly making a new name for himself as one of the most singular and polarizing figures of any presidential administration.

The tech titan turned government cost cutter has emerged as the central player other than President Donald Trump in his three-week-old presidency, igniting debate with a blitz of moves at federal agencies.

Musk’s style is more reminiscent of a hostile corporate takeover than typical government reform, experts say. He is acting with speed, wielding a level of power rarely, if ever, seen in presidential aides and taking a more radical approach than powerful government figures in the past, moving to dismantle whole agencies approved by Congress.

“We haven’t seen anything quite like Musk,” said presidential historian Lindsay Chervinsky.

The rapid-fire Musk approach to federal agencies has sparked protests and lawsuits. Critics say his team with the new Department of Government Efficiency is disregarding the law and the constitutional separation of powers. They also have raised alarms about DOGE’s access to vast amounts of sensitive personal information the government has on Americans.

Musk's government moves echo his business career, but there's a big difference between overhauling government agencies and a private business, experts say.

The government provides essential services that could have devastating consequences if they fail. The government also holds highly sensitive private information about everyone from taxpayers to undercover CIA agents.

"People die when the government" messes up said Elaine Kamarck, who led a government reform effort under President Bill Clinton. "People die. This is not the same as the private sector."

Government officials also are expected to avoid conflicts of interest. Musk companies have federal contracts and face federal regulations.

Trump largely seems pleased so far, though, saying this week that Musk is doing a great job while also noting that the billionaire needs approval to his DOGE work, and may not always get it.

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Musk leads some of the nation’s most recognizable companies  – X, Tesla and SpaceX – and is ranked by Forbes as the wealthiest man in the world. His management style is famously hard-driving and all-consuming. He appears to be bringing the same approach to his new role as Trump’s chief government budget hawk.

That slashing, Silicon Valley CEO, move-quickly-and-don’t-worry-about-collateral-damage approach, and the wide latitude Trump has given Musk, or is tolerating, has prompted talk of a constitutional crisis.

Many conservatives are delighted, though. The important thing is that Musk is getting results said former Trump White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer.

"I'm tired of business as usual," Spicer said.

Musk’s big moves

Musk endorsed Trump in July after the president was nearly assassinated while campaigning.

It has proven to be a hugely consequential partnership. Musk pumped at least $260 million into political committees supporting Trump and became a fixture in his orbit.

Trump announced DOGE on Nov. 12, a week after his victory, calling it “the Manhattan Project of our time.”

On Jan. 20, a few hours after being sworn into office, Trump signed an executive order making DOGE part of the federal government. Musk’s impact was immediate.

The DOGE team has been linked to dramatic upheaval at federal agencies.

Musk’s team is “infiltrating the government in ways that have never happened before,” said Max Stier, president and CEO of the Partnership for Public Service, a nonprofit group focused on effective government.

“He has taken operational control over large segments of our government without any accountability or transparency, and that has never been done or even closely been done before,” Stier added.

The White House did not respond to questions about Musk.

On Jan. 28 the U.S. Office of Personnel Management sent a memo titled “Fork in the Road” to all government employees offering them buyouts if they resign. Musk sent a memo with the same title to X employees in 2022 during a cost-cutting spree.

DOGE employees have fanned out across government agencies, taking control of OPM and the General Services Administration, agencies that handle human resources, property management and other government services. Some are young staffers in their early 20s and one is 19, according to media reports. DOGE staff have clashed with senior federal employees, according to reports.

“I’m very proud of the job that this group of young people, generally young people but very smart people, they’re doing," Trump said of DOGE Friday. "They’re doing it at my insistence."

Among the more controversial DOGE moves: Dismantling the federal government’s foreign aid office and gaining access to the U.S. Treasury Departments payment system, which includes personal information about millions of Americans.

The United States Agency for International Development – which provides roughly $40 billion in foreign aid for everything from preventing polio to famine relief – closed its Washington D.C. headquarters last week and notified roughly 10,000 employees they are on administrative leave. Trump’s team is trying to shutter the agency and move it under the State Department.

Musk – whose X bio describes him as “White House Tech Support” - said on X that he fed USAID “into the wood chipper.”

The Treasury payment system sends out trillions of dollars in tax refunds, Social Security checks and other federal funds.

White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said last week that Musk’s team had “read only” access to the Treasury system, meaning they can’t manipulate it. But emails indicate they sought to stop payments from USAID, according to media reports. Their access has raised concerns about privacy, data security and whether some payments could be cut off.

On Friday a federal judge blocked DOGE from accessing the Treasury payment system while a court challenge proceeds and ordered any material downloaded from the system to be destroyed. The emergency order in the case brought by 19 state attorneys general said the states "face irreparable harm" because of the risks of disclosing sensitive information and concerns about increased vulnerability to hacking.

Federal workers also sued last week to stop the dismantling of USAID, claiming only Congress has that authority. A judge blocked the Trump administration from putting some USAID workers on leave.

Trump said Friday that the Pentagon and Department of Education are DOGE's next targets.

Backlash builds

The lawsuits are part of the intense backlash to Musk’s actions. Protests erupted in cities across the country last week, including Washington D.C., to oppose the Trump administration’s early moves, with many demonstrators focused on Musk.

Democrats have seized on Musk as the centerpiece of Trump resistance efforts, portraying him as an unaccountable billionaire bogeyman inflicting untold damage.

“The American people will not stand for an unelected secret group to run rampant through the executive branch,” Senate minority leader Chuck Schumer said in a speech on the Senate floor this week.

Musk shared a video of the speech on X and said Schumer is mad that DOGE is “dismantling the radical-left shadow government.”

Some conservatives also are questioning Musk’s approach, though.

DOGE seems to be operating “outside the law” by trying to eliminate an agency – USAID - authorized by Congress said Jessica Riedl, a senior fellow at the Manhattan institute who worked for Republicans in the Senate on Mitt Romney and Marco Rubio’s presidential campaigns.

Riedl is an expert on federal budget policy and an avowed fiscal conservative.

“I’ve spent a quarter century building blueprints to significantly reduce government spending but it has to be done legally, constitutionally and through the democratic process,” Riedl said.

The growing opposition adds to a super charged atmosphere around Musk and DOGE, which has historical precedent but is taking government cost-cutting into uncharted territory.

Cost cutting ‘blunderbuss’

DOGE is part of a long line of presidential efforts to take an ax to the administrative state.

Chervinsky, the historian, said such initiatives are part of an extended backlash to the New Deal programs put in place by President Franklin Delano Roosevelt in the 1930s that greatly expanded government.

President Ronald Reagan campaigned on the notion that government is the problem, and subsequent efforts to shrink government have flowed from that, Chervinsky said.

Republicans embraced the idea, but so have some Democrats. President Bill Clinton launched the Reinventing Government initiative.

Kamarck ran the Clinton effort, which cut spending and regulations and sought to make agencies run more effectively. She said the Clinton initiative was much more collaborative and surgical than Musk’s approach of mass buyouts and shuttering agencies.

“This is a blunderbuss,” Kamarck said, comparing DOGE to the antique musket that sprayed shot widely instead of precisely.

Kamarck warned it could backfire if important government functions suffer, and believes much of what Musk is doing will be unwound by the courts. She also challenged the idea that government spending can’t be controlled through more traditional processes, noting Clinton balanced the federal budget.

Power and independence

Musk’s controversial approach to cost cutting has set him apart. So has his level of power and apparent independence.

Past presidents had people under them who operated with wide latitude and authority, from Vice President Dick Cheney in George W. Bush’s administration to Reagan Chief of Staff James Baker.

There also have been business leaders with huge influence on presidents, Chervinsky noted. But there isn’t a clear historical parallel to what Musk is doing, she said, all under the banner of “special government employee."

Musk’s aggressive moves and the huge amount of attention he is receiving have raised questions about whether the president is fully supportive, and could turn on him. Spicer said “that’s always a danger” in a Trump White House, pointing to former senior White House adviser Steve Bannon, who eventually was forced out.

“As long as he stays in his lane he'll be fine,” Spicer said.

Journalists repeatedly peppered Trump with questions about Musk’s actions in recent days.

“Elon can’t do — and won’t do — anything without our approval, and we’ll give him the approval where appropriate. Where not appropriate, we won’t,” Trump said.

Reuters contributed to this report.

(This story has been updated throughout.)

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Trump ally Elon Musk wields unusual power for a presidential aide