Home Controversy Elon Musk v/s Vivek Ramaswamy: Snakes and Ladders in USA
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Elon Musk v/s Vivek Ramaswamy: Snakes and Ladders in USA

Elon Musk pushes out Vivek Ramaswamy as he wants DOGE to focus on Technology first rather than firing bureaucratic employees and saving spend – Ramaswamy is running for Ohio governor.

Vivek & Elon ; Friends or Foes

Political circles in Washington DC are absolutely puzzled by the sudden departure of Vivek Ramaswamy from the DOGE – Dept of Govt Efficiency – co-chair abruptly.
Ramaswamy is running for the post of Governor of Ohio, his home state, he cannot have dual posts and would need time to work on his campaigns.
Both Ramaswamy and Musk had their roles carved out for running the DOGE, the former for firing people and cutting government expenditure and the latter for promoting technology, Elon Musk wanted technology to take precedence over the firing of bureaucrats or cost cuts.
The Reason Elon Musk Forced Vivek Ramaswamy Out of DOGE
Was he wanted absolute control over DOGE and his army of workers to march into the White House into special cabins in the name of fostering technologies in all departments but actually to have unfettered access to all unclassified government documents on policy making.
Vivek Ramaswamy was pushed out of the fledgling Department of Government Efficiency because his vision didn’t align with the Sieg heil-Ing shadow president Elon Musk, according to an exclusive report from The Washington Post.
Ramaswamy has been blamed for the November’s Wall Street Journal op-ed that outlined a plan to slash trillions of dollars’ worth of essential government services and contract out the functions of the administrative state. Ramaswamy wanted DOGE to function more like a think tank, determining which government agencies could be shut down and which regulations could be repealed without congressional approval.
While Ramaswamy focused on that, as was his job, Musk was meant to focus on spending and technology. But the world’s richest man at $400 billion (whose stock value jumped enormously after he aligned himself with Trump predicted to be the winner of the 2024 elections – he was $260 billion worth, a net gain of $140 billion for spending just $250 million on trumps campaign)
Is now virtually the shadow president of the USA having access to all information that flows to the Presidents oval office. He is virtually glued to the president’s side. He was reportedly on an entirely different page about how to best eviscerate the administrative state, according to several people who spoke with the Post. And his vision seems to have won out.
The executive order officially establishing the Department of Government Efficiency was merely a rebranding of the U.S. Digital Service, an Obama-era group created to respond to manage issues with the Affordable Care Act’s website, and that now determines best practices for the government use of technology.
While it seems like a pivot from creating a brand-new agency, this change is far more aligned with Musk’s technology-forward vision for the organization. It also lands him a White House office, and all the unfettered access that entails, a Washington Post investigation revealed.
The executive order gave Musk “full and prompt access to all unclassified agency records, software systems, and IT systems,” a privilege that will likely benefit the billionaire technocrat who has already made tens of billions of dollars from government contracts.
Musk also imagined DOGE as being structured as a small team within the government, and not the non-governmental body structure Ramaswamy imagined which was entirely different. Because it’s a White House office, Musk will also be able to sidestep federal hiring rules—and Trump’s hiring freeze.

Vivek with Trump

None of the work from Ramaswamy’s team garnered mention in an executive order, according to the Post.
Earlier reports said that Ramaswamy exited the cost-cutting department over clashes with rank-and-file members. Someone close to Trump said that Ramaswamy had “worn out his welcome.”
And it seems that held true up the ranks. “They’ve been wanting Vivek to step aside so Elon could have more control,” one person briefed on the matter told the Washington Post. “There was tension, and then they had an out and kind of took the out.”
Musk’s White House power grab
Elon Musk was itching to get to work at his new US government department dedicated to slashing red tape and bureaucratic spending. As Donald Trump became president, Musk’s axe had already fallen on his first victim: Vivek Ramaswamy, his co-leader at the new Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE).
Mr Ramaswamy, 39-year-old entrepreneur who made his fortune in biotech, was meant to be one of two bosses leading DOGE. By the end of Mr Trump’s inauguration and after months of behind-the-scenes jockeying with Mr. Musk for power and influence, he was effectively fired from the drive to slash bureaucracy and reduce government spending by trillions of dollars.
Details about their falling out have conveniently been leaked to multiple US media outlets, a first sign of friction within Mr Trump’s camp.
Now, Mr Musk is training his sights on a much larger power grab as he appears to be shaping DOGE to infiltrate all parts of Donald Trump’s new administration, wielding unprecedented power for a private citizen.
Elon Musk on the way to make a mark

The official line on the falling out with Mr Ramaswamy was that it would be impossible for him to work for the DOGE agency and run to be governor of Ohio.
Anna Kelly, the Trump transition spokesman, said the run “requires him to remain outside of DOGE based on the structure that we announced today”.
One person briefed on the matter told The Washington Post: “They’ve been wanting Vivek to step aside so Elon could have more control. There was tension, and then they had an out and kind of took the out.”
The putsch against Mr. Ramaswamy, was on the cards. The son of Asian immigrants, himself, he had angered leading MAGA Republicans with an online rant in which he blamed US reliance on immigrants on an American acceptance of “mediocrity.”
A Republican strategist close to Trump advisers told Politico that he had “just burned through the bridges and he finally burned Elon,” adding: “Everyone wants him out of Mar-a-Lago, out of DC.”
In contrast, Mr Musk, the owner of X, has cemented his place in Mr Trump’s inner circle after donating about $280 million (about £228 million) to his election campaign.

Competing visions for DOGE
The two entrepreneurs also had competing visions for DOGE, a high-profile project that has left DC observers intrigued and mystified in equal measure. Mr Ramaswamy concentrated on how the costs of the administrative state could be stripped down through the courts and policy measures, while avoiding the need for congressional approval.
Rather than follow this more traditional, policy-based Washington approach, Mr Musk wants DOGE to be “technology first” and employ processes like data mining to get results. Mr Musk set up his own power centre at SpaceX offices in Washington, where staff drawn from his business empire would flock wearing blue DOGE baseball caps.

Meanwhile, the new project was gaining publicity. An online call-out for staff attracted substantial numbers of job applications. The Tesla boss was now convinced that DOGE should work as a small team inside the government, rather than the think tank-style outfit Mr Ramaswamy favoured.
That would mean his nimble team could access overly sensitive information, while avoiding legal action to force it to disclose meetings and minutes, informed sources said.
The clash in contrasting visions and objectives for DOGE would eventually spell the end for Mr Ramaswamy, who had endorsed Mr. Trump after a failed run to be the Republican presidential candidate. By the end, there were co-leaders in name only. Mr. Ramaswamy had no authority to direct the team.
When the news broke of his defenestration, memes were shared in Washington depicted Mr Musk as Stalin erasing Mr. Ramaswamy, depicted as a Soviet secret police chief, from history.
Phase two of the power grab
In a sign of Mr. Musk’s triumph, when Mr. Trump signed his barrage of executive orders, none of them relating to DOGE had been drafted by Mr. Ramaswamy. In November, the president had said DOGE would advise White House officials from outside government. He ordered after taking oath that it would be part of the federal government itself.

DOGE will now be part of the Executive Office of the President, which is a group of federal agencies, offices and staff responsible for national security, economic, foreign and domestic policy.
DOGE has swallowed the US Digital Service (USDS), which was a White House office set up by Barack Obama, the former president, to be as nimble as possible to respond to tech crises. It is now called the US DOGE Service. The office does not have the usually burdensome federal government rules for hiring staff and Mr. Trump has exempted it from a federal hiring freeze he announced in another executive order.
Jennifer Pahlka, who founded USDS in 2014, told The Washington Post: “It’s a very convenient vehicle for them. If you were trying to do something ambitious across the government, USDS is a good place to do it from.”
DOGE teams of special government employees – a category of temporary worker – will fan out and embed themselves in federal agencies to identify spending and red tape for the axe. The executive order tasks DOGE with “modernising federal technology and software to maximise governmental efficiency and productivity.”
Each DOGE team, expected to include at least a team lead, engineer, human resources specialist and lawyer, must be given “full and prompt access to all unclassified agency records, software systems and IT systems” to the “maximum extent consistent with law.”
The ability to dispatch hand-picked software engineers to every government agency, who report back to Mr Musk, hands huge power to a man already armed with a White House email address and access badge.
“We’ll try for $2 trillion — I think that’s like the best-case outcome,” Mr. Musk said earlier this month of the savings. “You kind of have to have some overage. I think if we try for $2 trillion, we’ve got a good shot at getting one.”
Mr Musk is liable to attract accusations of conflict of interest because of the SpaceX boss’s extensive space, military and government contracts. Fortunately for him, Mr. Trump also signed an order so members of his Executive Office team can skip the usual security clearance protocol and start work immediately.
That means Mr. Musk benefits from fast-tracked clearance and will avoid FBI background checks for criminal histories and other liabilities such as conflicts of interest for at least the next six months.
Any FBI background checks would also be likely to flag a Wall Street Journal report that alleged the billionaire had allegedly used illegal drugs including cocaine, ecstasy, psychedelic mushrooms and ketamine, which Mr Musk has denied.

Musk : Space X , New mission New strategy

The X owner has reportedly been assigned space in the Eisenhower Executive Office Building, which is next to the White House in the Washington DC government complex. Mr. Musk even spoke at the president’s inauguration.
There are reports that Mr. Musk wants more and more access. Amid growing concerns over his burgeoning influence, Mr. Trump denied he would get an office in the West Wing, which would give him even closer proximity to the president.
Much of Mr. Musk’s manoeuvrings are still shrouded in secrecy. It is unclear if he will be made a “special government employee” for the radical cuts program. Depending on what legal category he gets for his status in a government capacity, Musk will face different transparency rules. It has been reported that his allies are keen for him to have the minimum ethics restrictions possible.
Meanwhile, the Space X owner, who has offered to bring back the marooned astronauts from the space stations Ms Sunita Williams and her partner by February this year as NASA and Boeing had failed their missions, rocket company owner has been flexing his muscles and seems to be aiming to take personal control of US space policy.
Mr. Trump is planning to scrap the White House’s National Space Council following pressure from a Musk lobbyist, according to reports.

The world’s richest man’s ambitions stretch to the outer limits. He says that the DOGE push to shrink big government is vital if man is to take the next step in space exploration. “We’re going to take DOGE to Mars,” Mr Musk said in his inauguration day speech. “I mean, can you imagine how awesome it will be to have American astronauts plant the flag on another planet for the first time?”

Vivek Ramaswamy turned into a problem for Elon Musk, who has precious little time to tackle government spending before voters feel the effects.
Work has begun at the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), a newly established body under President Trump’s administration, with an early focus on eliminating redundancies.
“It was my honour to help support the creation of DOGE,” the 38-year-old biotech entrepreneur wrote on Monday. “I’m confident that Elon & team will succeed in streamlining the government.”
Musk did not reply to his post and has not engaged with Ramaswamy since mid-December. Ramaswamy “just burned through the bridges and he finally burned Elon,” a Republican strategist close to the Trump team told Politico.
Musk faces multiple DOGE challenges.
DOGE is already under legal scrutiny amid concerns that the unofficial body could serve the interests of private business leaders (like Musk) while operating without taxpayer accountability or Congressional oversight.
Critics have raised questions about whether DOGE’s efforts might unfairly target regulatory agencies seen as obstacles to business interests of those intricately connected to Trump (again, like Musk).
Musk, co-head of DOGE, recently acknowledged that the department’s initial goal of cutting $2 trillion in federal spending is overly ambitious, with estimates now closer to $1 trillion.
The initiative is likely to face significant pushback, particularly in regions where federal employment plays a key role in local economies. For instance, Alabama is home to 40,000 non-military federal employees—nearly as many as New York, despite its smaller population and lack of a major border presence like Texas., US media reports said.
In October, Musk predicted “temporary [economic] hardship” for Americans in October should he be placed in charge of DOGE.
Political pundits have said Musk’s DOGE cost cuts could poison the re-election chances of certain congressional representatives, senators, and state governors when the November 2026 midterm elections roll around.
That’s why the unofficial body is due to expire by July of that year, cleverly timed as a 250th-birthday present to the American people.
Ramaswamy becomes a liability.
Vivek with VP USA

Ramaswamy’s departure follows a series of controversies. Ramaswamy’s dedicated support for H-1B visas alienated portions of the MAGA base. Adding to the backlash, Ramaswamy recently authored a commentary criticizing what he called a “culture of mediocrity” in the U.S., arguing that natural-born citizens often fail to uphold the values of hard work and meritocracy.
“Our American culture has venerated mediocrity over excellence for way too long,” he wrote, calling for a return to “hard work over laziness.”
Ramaswamy’s road to Ohio gubernatorial race
In a contest deciding which of the two co-chiefs was irreplaceable at DOGE, the winner was never in question. Elon Musk the shadow president.
Musk, the world’s richest individual, wields considerable influence within the Republican Party, aided by his ownership of X, a platform with strong ties to the MAGA movement. His loyalty to President Trump and substantial financial resources—estimated at over $400 billion—make him a formidable figure in GOP politics.
By contrast, Ramaswamy, a political newcomer, faced challenges within a party where most members adhere to Judeo-Christian traditions. While his youthful charisma set him apart from more traditional rivals, his ambitions may have outpaced his support.
Ramaswamy announced plans to focus on building a base in his home state of Ohio, potentially preparing for a gubernatorial run. “I’ll have more to say very soon about my future plans in Ohio,” he posted.
With Ramaswamy gone, Musk does lose a fall guy—someone who can investigate government loans to his competitors without it directly falling back on the Tesla CEO. But his vast wealth ensures that he can keep political opponents at bay.
The Trump administration offered little detail on Ramaswamy’s future, stating only that he would play a “vital role in making America great again.”
Vivek Ramaswamy will launch a campaign for governor in Ohio early next week and is parting ways with President-elect Donald Trump’s incoming Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, two sources familiar with his plans told NBC News.
We’ve seen plenty of officials in the Republican president’s orbit head for the exit after brief tenures. Anthony Scaramucci, for example, famously exited the White House after 11 days. Matt Gaetz’s tenure as Trump’s choice for attorney general collapsed after eight days. Chad Chronister only lasted three days as Trump’s choice to lead the Drug Enforcement Administration.
But Ramaswamy broke new ground, exiting the made-up “department” before Trump could even sign the paperwork to forge its existence.
Nevertheless, his looming exit leaves the DOGE endeavour solely in the hands of Musk, whose advisory panel will reportedly soon have its own office at the White House complex, not far from the West Wing.
The initiative, however, continues to face real challenges. For one thing, Musk has no background in auditing, the federal budget, or the appropriations process. For another, this “department” will have no statutory power: If “DOGE” comes up with ideas for cuts, the panel might write sternly worded memos filled with suggestions, but that’s about it.
Making matters considerably worse, the Republican mega donor overseeing the gambit has already admitted that it won’t be able to meet Trump’s goals.
Source: Multiple US publications including the Washington Post, Politico and others.

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Contributor, IANS - Washington DC/New York
Executive Editor, Corporate Tycoons - Pune, India
Executive Editor, The Flag Post - Bengaluru, India
Contributor, The Statesman, Hindu Business Line, Sarkaritel.com, Diplomacyindia.com

Former Economics Editor, PTI - New Delhi, India
Former Communications Advisor,
Alstom Group of Companies, SA - France/Belgium

Written by
TN ASHOK

Contributor, IANS - Washington DC/New York Executive Editor, Corporate Tycoons - Pune, India Executive Editor, The Flag Post - Bengaluru, India Contributor, The Statesman, Hindu Business Line, Sarkaritel.com, Diplomacyindia.com Former Economics Editor, PTI - New Delhi, India Former Communications Advisor, Alstom Group of Companies, SA - France/Belgium

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