Musk’s skill seems to be building and fostering a successful team, and picking up engineering-related skills quickly. Those skills arguably transfer to what DOGE’s goals are better than being a really great mechanical engineer or being a really great chemist.
Musk has a history of driving talented people away rather than fostering strong teams [1] — just look at the high turnover at Tesla and SpaceX, and the chaos he caused at Twitter/X. Many of his top engineers and executives have left due to his management style, which is often described as erratic and demanding to the point of burnout. As for engineering skills, he’s more of a charismatic salesman than an actual engineer.
Unlike a private company, where a CEO can make unilateral decisions and push employees to extreme workloads, the government requires collaboration, compromise, and stability. Federal agencies rely on institutional knowledge and long-term strategy, not impulsive shake-ups and mass firings.
[1] https://www.businessinsider.com/elon-musk-loses-4-top-execut...
He’s a controversial leader, sure. I get the impression people work under him because he gives them opportunities to work on cool stuff, not because he’s a kind, compassionate boss.
But what I’m getting at is that he’s successful. Unless you believe all his amazing successes are due to luck, you have to admit that he’s very, very effective as a leader. Even if we can’t understand why, he’s still affective.
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