> In this case Musk reckons he can save $2tn which some (better informed) analysts are saying is bollocks.

A lot of this depends on how you measure. For example, there are a lot of social assistance programs that provide in-kind benefits (e.g. you get subsidized housing) and those programs both require a bureaucracy to administer them and are less efficient than cash transfer payments, so they could be converted into refundable tax credits. Then the program costs somewhat less (you eliminate the administrative bureaucracy) and is more efficient and with better outcomes, but you can count the entire cost of the program as a reduction because it's now a tax credit (i.e. a tax cut) instead of a government budget item.

Do that with the entire social assistance system and you could get a sizable budget reduction before you even get into overpriced government contracts etc.

Even the theory that the executive can just not spend money it finds wasteful doesn't extend to the executive being able to unilaterally reconfigure an in-kind assistance program into a refundable tax credit. Admittedly, an even bigger grab of dictatorial power is not out of character for this administration, though.

Oh, they couldn't reconfigure those programs by executive order. But they could reasonably be doing this to find ways to reduce the budget and then pass new legislation through Congress.

>One positive though: if there is any alien tech, Musky will find it. You can bet that's high on his list, as improbable as it may be.

That tech has been handed over to the private sector as a precaution and also as a method of keeping the politicians' hands off it. Gives them cover to honestly say "I know nothing, I was briefed on nothing, we have nothing". Plausible deniability.

Elon Musk is also quite possibly the last person I'd ever want to touch world-changing technology. let alone be the sole arbiter of who gets to get near it.