With surprising speed and the support of President Trump, the billionaire Elon Musk and the employees of his newly created cost-cutting outfit have laid off thousands of federal workers, gutted the U.S. Agency for International Development, and put on hold dozens of health research efforts.
Many of those swift changes to the federal bureaucracy are being challenged in court. And over the weekend some Republican members of Congress faced angry constituents during visits to their districts.
Reporters from The Times asked dozens of people of both parties and around the country about Mr. Musk’s role in the government so far. Here are some of the responses, from those who welcomed the swift actions, others who expressed concern and questioned Mr. Musk’s authority, and some who seemed baffled by what the unelected businessman was doing.
“If he’s doing what he says he’s doing — looking for government cuts and waste — I’m all for it, because our deficit can’t keep going the way it’s going again,” Mr. Conley said of Mr. Musk.
“If he’s, I don’t know, skirting the system and trying to cut stuff that doesn’t need to be cut, then I’m going to have problems with it.” Mr. Conley, who voted for Barack Obama before sitting out 2016 and 2020, said he was still waiting and watching. “It’s too early in the presidency to know what’s going to happen.
He’s just an employee,” said Mr. Shockley of Mr. Musk: If he does a bad job, they’ll fire him. “Pay attention to what he’s doing, not what he’s saying and some stupid chain saw he’s running around with.”
“I don’t understand why there aren’t more people questioning it and just letting it happen,” she said. “He was just dropped in there and everybody said, ‘Sure.’”
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