How William Howard Taft’s approach to government efficiency differed from Elon Musk’s slash-and-burn tactics

How William Howard Taft’s approach to government efficiency differed from Elon Musk’s slash-and-burn tactics

Elon Musk and his son board Air Force One in West Palm Beach, Fla., on April 13, 2025. Mandel Ngan/AFP via Getty ImagesFor four months, the world’s richest man has played an unprecedented role in U.S. government. At the start of his 2025 term, President Donald Trump asked Elon Musk to cut government “waste and fraud.” That translated into the Musk-driven firing of 121,000 federal workers, essentially closing entire government programs and depart…

How Elon Musk built a button to shut off the government

He may not be a familiar face, but over the past decade, independent writer and researcher Nathan Tankus has become one of the most perceptive critics and analysts of America’s financial systems. As an alternative high school student, Tankus was inspired by a teacher who taught a deep-dive course on the 2009 financial crisis as it was happening, and then got involved in the economics working groups that sprang from the Occupy movement, where fin…