Laws of nature don't care what you believe: if everyone in the country thinks COVID is a myth, that won't stop COVID from killing people.
Human laws -- "What is the law?" or "Who is the king?" aren't like that. Human laws literally are, "What everyone thinks is true". The chiefs at USAID told Musk he couldn't have access. The President told the chiefs they were fired. The chiefs believed themselves to be fired, so they were fired.
What else could they have done? They could have called the police or the FBI, and reported illegal attempted access of classified systems. The police could have then arrested Musk or his people (or at least threatened to do so). But would they have done so? Wouldn't they have reasonably believed that such behavior would lead to their losing their jobs?
Maybe in 2016 they would have believed that allowing access to classified materials would eventually land them in hot water, and that standing up to the president would eventually lead to them being vindicated. But not now -- any reasonable person now would predict that standing up to the president would lead to them being fired (and possibly have other vindictive punishiments applied), with no recourse; while giving in would certainly be overlooked.
The People voted to re-elect a known authoritarian with no respect for the rule of law or democracy. I don't see how any democratic system can withstand that.
Ironic, considering the HN submission we are replying to.