The recent decision by Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth to bring billionaire Elon Musk into the Pentagon to strategize about the future of warfare is akin to inviting Godzilla back to your home after he wrecked it once before when stomping through your city.
Musk not only comes to the job after having wreaked havoc and destruction at the Pentagon and throughout the federal government under the auspices of the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), but he is also saddled with enormous conflicts of interest given that his company, SpaceX, is a military contractor holding billions of dollars in active contracts while its subsidiaries have a military focus.
Musk’s businesses ultimately could be the beneficiary of an enormous financial windfall based on decisions made by the task force — despite protestations to the contrary. The Pentagon advisory panel, dubbed Project Meridian, also includes Palmer Luckey, the founder of Anduril, a major defense contractor that makes semiautonomous fighter jets.
The brazen move by Hegseth to bring Musk back into the fold is part of a familiar and disturbing Trump administration practice of allowing private interests and the prospects of personal financial gain to take precedence over the needs and best interests of the United States.
Time and again, President Donald Trump, his family, and his allies have used government influence and power to enrich and benefit themselves.
This has included the president accepting a Boeing 747 jet from the Qatari government to serve as Air Force One and presumably to remain in his possession after he leaves office; his sons investing in defense technology companies involving drones and autonomous weapons that subsequently received government business; and his son-in law Jared Kusnher serving as a Middle East envoy while his private-equity firm, Affinity Partners, received a $2 billion investment from Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund.
Most recently, Trump bought between $1 million and $5 million in bonds issued by Musk’s SpaceX just days before the White House announced a new space-travel policy.
The Musk resurrection comes at a tumultuous time, a moment when our national security has been placed in jeopardy by administration decisions and as some members of Congress have accused Hegseth of failed leadership and called for his impeachment.
With the war with Iran now in its eighth month and the country facing numerous national security challenges, the military is experiencing depleted weapons stockpiles including air defense and long-range missiles, and plans are underway to remove 20 percent of the nation’s generals and admirals in a purge that will strip the military of decades of knowledge and experience.
On the civilian side, Hegseth and Musk, through his work with DOGE, are responsible for the loss of some 78,000 civilian Pentagon employees or about 10% of the workforce, a move that arbitrarily eliminated engineers, weapons-acquisition specialists, intelligence analysts, cyber experts, scientists, and others who provide essential support to the military enterprise. The independent Government Accountability Office reported that the job reductions occurred without any analysis of how they would affect issues such as “readiness, lethality, and workload.”
Musk is also responsible for bringing a chainsaw to the entire federal government with the senseless loss of more than 450,000 employees in a little over a year, canceling thousands of contracts and grants, and the arbitrary and likely unlawful dismantling of many valuable public institutions.
Musk and DOGE promised to make the government efficient and to conduct a war on waste, but the opposite occurred, with my organization, the Partnership for Public Service estimating that the DOGE-Trump so-called efficiency drive cost every taxpayer at least $1,028 while the government lost valuable expertise, credibility, and the ability to effectively serve the public.
In September, the GAO reported that the federal government spent an estimated $9.5 billion paying employees to not work last year, with most of the cost tied to the DOGE imitative to shrink the federal workforce.
Even more damning, Musk and the administration do not appear to understand the profound damage they caused or to have learned anything to ensure they do not make the same devastating mistakes again.
There is no doubt that the Pentagon needs significant reforms stemming from long-standing challenges and a fast-changing world. It is the only major federal agency unable to pass a comprehensive independent financial audit, is encumbered with complicated and often dysfunctional processes, and relies on legacy systems that are frequently no longer aligned with the needs of modern warfare.
The need for intensive congressional oversight of this administration is long, and focusing on the degradation of our national security readiness and what should come next deserves to be top of the list.
In the Godzilla films, the same scene plays out time and again: the ground shakes, the crowds scatter, and the command center wonders how something so large could have gotten so close. This makes for great entertainment, but it is a dangerous script to follow when what is at stake is the safety of our country.
Max Stier is the founding president and CEO of the nonpartisan, nonprofit Partnership for Public Service, an organization focused on building a better government and a stronger democracy.
Unfortunately, the current regime under Musk will do a lot more damage to the defense of this country before the voters have a chance to put a stop to it.
Hegseth needs impeachment Now. Musk needs to be banned from DC.