Musk’s Power Grab Is a Corporate Coup in Disguise

Elon Musk’s unchecked influence in the U.S. government is not about efficiency—it’s about dismantling public oversight and rebuilding government to serve corporate power.

Feb 18, 2025

Setting the Stage

Elon Musk is not an elected official. He holds no public mandate. Yet, his influence in the federal government has grown to an unprecedented level. Through the newly created Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), Musk has been granted a central role in overseeing government restructuring efforts, with a particular focus on cutting federal spending and eliminating bureaucratic oversight.

While officially framed as a cost-cutting initiative, Musk’s involvement has already raised major concerns about conflicts of interest, transparency, and democratic accountability. According to a recent report from The New York Times, Musk and his team are actively working to gain access to sensitive taxpayer data housed within the Internal Revenue Service (IRS). This is particularly alarming because IRS systems contain private financial data tied to millions of Americans, including their tax returns, Social Security numbers, addresses, banking details, and employment information.

Why is this dangerous? Because it is not simply a breach of ethics—it is an open invitation for abuse. With this level of financial and personal data, Musk or his inner circle could:

Target political enemies or critics by selectively exposing their tax histories or financial records.
Retaliate against labor organizers, regulators, or journalists by accessing and potentially leaking their personal financial information.
Shield his own businesses from scrutiny by identifying IRS enforcement priorities and ensuring that his companies are deprioritized for audits.
Exploit financial data for corporate gain, gaining unfair advantages in business dealings by knowing competitors’ financial positions, holdings, or liabilities.

There is no legitimate reason why an unelected billionaire should be in a position to access or even influence this kind of data. Yet, at the same time Musk’s team is seeking control over taxpayer information, the DOGE-led firings have disproportionately targeted regulatory and oversight agencies. This includes the IRS’s enforcement divisions, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), and the Department of Justice’s Antitrust Division—agencies responsible for corporate regulation and financial accountability.

Musk’s defenders claim his goal is efficiency—but his actions suggest a different motivation. Gutting enforcement while seeking access to sensitive information is not reform—it’s a power grab. The pattern suggests that DOGE is not just about efficiency but about reshaping the federal government to serve powerful private interests.

With Musk’s “move fast and break things” approach now embedded in federal restructuring efforts, the stakes are clear: Will government serve the public, or will it be reshaped to better serve the billionaire class?

The Power at Play

Musk’s defenders claim his mission is about making government leaner and more effective. But this is a bad-faith argument meant to obscure what is actually happening. His "move fast and break things" ideology, borrowed from Silicon Valley, may work in the tech industry, where the approach is seen as iterating for innovation’s sake. But in government, breaking institutions does not lead to innovation—it leads to lawlessness, deregulation, and unchecked elite power.

The U.S. government is not a business. Its purpose is not to maximize profits but to protect the public from corporate overreach, ensure accountability, and provide essential services. Musk’s agenda is not about eliminating waste—it’s about eliminating the institutions that prevent corporate abuse.

And, in a telling example of what I recently described in The Accusation-Reality Reversal, Musk and his allies frame these regulatory agencies as the real abusers while they dismantle the very mechanisms designed to stop corporate overreach. This tactic—accusing others of the exact behavior they are engaged in—is key to how reactionary movements justify power grabs. They insist that government is the oppressor when, in reality, they are seizing control to ensure that only the most powerful corporations and billionaires remain unregulated.

The Coordinated Attack on Oversight Agencies

The scale and scope of the targeted firings at DOGE reveal the true intent: Musk’s team is gutting the very agencies responsible for keeping billionaires, corporations, and financial predators in check. While the federal workforce includes over 3 million employees, firings have been concentrated in agencies that would check or regulate Musk and his allies:

The IRS → Slashed enforcement divisions, especially those investigating corporate tax fraud. While Musk’s team works to access taxpayer data, the same agency's ability to audit the wealthy is being dismantled.
The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) → Weakened its ability to investigate monopolistic tech companies—including Musk’s ventures—allowing unchecked industry consolidation.
The Department of Justice’s Antitrust Division → Stripped of key leadership investigating anti-competitive behavior in major industries, ensuring monopolies remain unchallenged.
The FBI → Firings disproportionately targeted divisions investigating white-collar crime, and domestic extremism (i.e. who investigated Trump) which not only protects financial elites but also weakens efforts to counteract far-right political violence.
The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) → One of the most aggressive watchdogs against predatory financial practices has been crippled, paving the way for unchecked corporate abuse against consumers.

These are not efficiency reforms; they are calculated purges. This is not about shrinking government—it’s about ensuring that the only entities powerful enough to shape policy are corporations and billionaires.

Gutting enforcement while seeking access to sensitive information is not reform—it’s a power grab.

The Counterpoint Trap

Musk’s defenders will argue that government bureaucracy is bloated and that these cuts are just “common sense.” This is a classic reactionary argument that exploits vague anti-government sentiment to obscure who actually benefits.

Here’s how they’ll spin it—and how we should respond:

“These agencies were inefficient.” → Motte-and-Bailey Fallacy. Musk and his allies claim they are simply removing inefficiencies (the motte), but in reality, they are dismantling institutions responsible for corporate oversight (the bailey). The true goal is not efficiency but the removal of regulatory checks on billionaire power.
“This is about stopping the Deep State.” → The Accusation-Reality Reversal. Musk’s camp claims that unaccountable government bureaucrats are manipulating policy behind the scenes, but in reality, they are consolidating control for unelected billionaires. They accuse the government of seizing power while orchestrating a private takeover of public institutions.
“The private sector is better at innovation.” → False Equivalence. Innovation in the private sector is about maximizing profit, while government exists to protect the public from corporate exploitation. The notion that dismantling regulations will improve government is as absurd as claiming that defunding the FDA will improve food safety.

The Last Laugh

Elon Musk presents himself as a rogue disruptor, a visionary who is challenging the establishment. But in reality, he is engineering a government that protects billionaires, corporate monopolies, and far-right reactionary politics—all under the guise of efficiency.

The real con is that he has convinced millions that his power grab is anything other than a self-serving coup.

And the irony? As Musk wages war on “big government,” his companies remain some of the biggest recipients of taxpayer dollars. If government is the problem, why are his companies always first in line for a contract?