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Elon Musk Will Help SWAT Team Lead By Trump's Son-in-Law

By Keith Cowing
NASA Watch
March 26, 2017
Filed under , , ,
Elon Musk Will Help SWAT Team Lead By Trump's Son-in-Law

Trump taps Kushner to lead a SWAT team to fix government with business ideas, Washington Post
“President Trump plans to unveil a new White House office on Monday with sweeping authority to overhaul the federal bureaucracy … by harvesting ideas from the business world and, potentially, privatizing some government functions. The innovation office has a particular focus on technology and data, and it is working with such titans as … Tesla founder and chief executive Elon Musk.”

Elon Musk’s Billion Dollar Crusade to Stop The A.I. Apocalypse, Vanity Fair
“In a tech universe full of skinny guys in hoodies – whipping up bots that will chat with you and apps that can study a photo of a dog and tell you what breed it is – Musk is a throwback to Henry Ford and Hank Rearden. In Atlas Shrugged, Rearden gives his wife a bracelet made from the first batch of his revolutionary metal, as though it were made of diamonds. Musk has a chunk of one of his rockets mounted on the wall of his Bel Air house, like a work of art.”

NASA Watch founder, Explorers Club Fellow, ex-NASA, Away Teams, Journalist, Space & Astrobiology, Lapsed climber.

18 responses to “Elon Musk Will Help SWAT Team Lead By Trump's Son-in-Law”

  1. DP Huntsman says:
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    I’m usually not one to assume the worst every time a new initiative, panel, effort, etc. is formed. By tendency is to try to think, no matter what the odds or even intelligence against them, is there any way this new effort can be leveraged to actually accomplish its stated good objectives, even possibly inspire of itself?

    But……I’m really surprised Elon Musk, especially, agreed to be on this particular ‘team’. With statements like:

    ““All Americans, regardless of their political views, can recognize that government stagnation has hindered our ability to properly function…”

    ……when, by far, the single, biggest over-riding issue in the American government, is total political dysfunction – and even destruction – between the White House and the Congress – not within the Federal departments per se.

    And having people on this who, to a person (to a man?), have 0.0% knowledge, experience, insight….the people named…not only how government can get things done, or even how it should be reformed (which requires knowledge and experience)…. is incredibly….bad.

    The 36-year-old former real estate and media executive will continue to wear many hats, driving foreign and domestic policy as well as decisions on presidential personnel. He also is a shadow diplomat, serving as Trump’s lead adviser on relations with China, Mexico, Canada and the Middle East.

    I’ll let that statement stand by itself.

    “The government should be run like a great American company.

    To be frank….That’s a stupid statement, and disqualifies the speaker by definition. The American government should learn from everyone – including other nations’ governments- in the world in doing its duty for current, and all future, Americans. And each of its many elements – whom the speaker has zero knowledge of – needs to be run for them as well. In doing that, it is to generate good long term policies, well implemented for the long term. There is no concept of creating a ‘profit’ for each of the government agencies. The way to create a ‘profit’ for each department, after all, is to take in tax dollars and don’t do anything; hardly the reason that the government is set up by the people in the first place.

    • kcowing says:
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      On the flip side, having someone in the room who is not a Trumpster could be a good thing.

    • spacechampion says:
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      They’re installing watchdog political officers into every bureaucracy so instead of regulation by law, there will be regulation by the prejudices and biases of this cabal of ignorance.

    • getitdoneinspace says:
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      I agree with you entirely concerning the destructiveness and ineffectiveness of politics within our federal government. But, if I am understanding you correctly, I think you are incorrect to a degree on your other points. There should be some parallels between government and business. The focus should be on RESULTS. Now these results are not profit. They are to provide the essential foundation for an optimal society of FREEDOM and LIBERTY per the intent of our founding fathers. To achieve these RESULTS there must be long term strategies and incremental tactical plans to achieve the desired RESULTS. The actions in these plans must be LEAN (do the most with the least) and AGILE (be extremely responsive to change). All the above are common in very successful businesses and should be common in government at all levels. Bureaucracy is never the right answer.

      • DP Huntsman says:
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        We may be in violent agreement. Though from experience I find the final words Bureaucracy is never the right answer. essentially a red herring since it doesn’t address any specifics.

    • Mr.Anderson says:
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      Musk has said something to the fact that it’s not a bad thing to have a more moderate voice like his bending Trump’s ear. The flip-side could be another right-wing extremist that holds opposite views of the very agency they’re running, which Musk isn’t.

    • John Thomas says:
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      Maybe there should be a concept for gov agencies to create a profit. In my mind, to create a profit would be for the agency to cause more money to be generated than it takes in. Like less low value paperwork for business to have to fill out.

      The money businesses save by reduced regulation could allow more money generated in the US economy. It might be said that less regulations would cost lives or pollution. I would challenge such claims to provide real numbers backed by real data in public so others can validate the accuracy. Once validated, the added cost of a regulation would be weighed against the savings it provides to determine if it’s a real benefit.

      • DP Huntsman says:
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        The job of government is to create a ‘profit’- in the broadest possible meaning of the word- for our society as a whole, now and in the future.

        For example, in NASA’s case, the $800m spent on the COTS program jump-started a competitive low-earth orbit supply and return industry at only a fraction of the cost NASA and the legacy space companies would have done to do the very same thing. In the process, it also helped enable at least one of those companies (SpaceX) to further expand its business- to the tune of billions of dollars – by bringing back commercial launch competitive to this nation, which had all but disappeared. That’s pretty ‘profitable’ for the country; and something we should do more of. Has nothing to do with regulation, either.

        Like less low value paperwork for business to have to fill out. sounds good; but since the vast majority of regulations, paperwork, et al in this country are at the state and local- not Federal- level. And additionally, this Administration, via its budget submittal, has made clear it believes any regulation which protects the health and welfare of Americans via maintenance of clean air, clean water, and climate change mitigation, is ‘low value’; when of course it’s just the opposite.

        I’ve found that any dogma that blindly argues about ‘reducing regulation’ in a complex society, without giving any specifics, is almost certainly a red flag all by itself.

        • John Thomas says:
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          Then why is SpaceX cheaper? Why was this recent statement made “NASA spends 72 cents of every SLS dollar on overhead costs”? How do you think NASA is controlled if not by regulations?

    • Michael Spencer says:
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      Thank you.

      Equating government with business is a fool’s errand. No? Here’s one story of many run by Forbe’s that bastion of left wing politics (http://bit.ly/2o3ueXk).

      It looks a awful lot like a guy with a hammer looking around for a nail.

      • ThomasLMatula says:
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        Probably the civil service will just crush it as they have all attempts to reform them. To drain the swamp you need to be meaner than the gators and sharper than the snakes that infest it.

  2. anirprof says:
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    An important point that is likely missed by the WH team, given how little govt experience they have, is what a huge fraction of “government inefficiency” is legally required — that is, drive by explicit statutory requirements imposed by Congress.

    As just one example, when it comes to the insanely slow and convoluted federal procurement process, that is driven almost entirely by Congressional requirements. That’s true whether you are talking about NASA being forced to go with SLS, down to minor office supplies — I saw the paperwork needed to buy someone a non-standard $50 keyboard due to carpal tunnel issues, and the IT dept had to document compliance with about half a dozen obscure laws. I can assure you that everyone in that process realized it’d be quick and easy and cheaper to just run to the Staples a few blocks away, but people would go to jail if we had just done the simple and expedient thing.

    The team can take a wish list to COngress, of course. But as we just saw with health care, good luck with that.

    And in some cases there are just different requiments on govt bodies. There was a McKinsey study last year that said the DoD could save many billions in administrative overhead, but that was based entirely on comparison to averages for private sector firms. Working in a Top Secret environment adds ridiculous amounts of overhead for all the security certifications, compliance personnel, the delays imposed by only being able to communicate in certain spaces (vs from your mobile phone wherever). If we don’t think we need security from foreign espionage anymore that’s one thing, but so long as such requirements are in place things will never get done as “efficiently” at Langley as at Starbucks corporate HQ.

  3. Steve Pemberton says:
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    Musk has a chunk of one of his rockets mounted on the wall of his Bel Air house, like a work of art.”

    Probably looks better than a lot of the art I have seen.

  4. ThomasLMatula says:
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    Unfortunately all this will probably result in will be some changes in management style and authority. It’s not going to drain the swamp. To do that you need to do a real business style reorganization. I know most of those in governments will see this as crazy, but it is exactly what private firms do to reboot their business.

    What is needed is to first downside government (drain the swamp), then disperse it (pave it over), so it doesn’t just rebuild itself as is the tendency of government agencies. For example clearing out the elements of the Dept. of Commerce, Transportation, Energy, Education that don’t work, combing the rest into a new Department of Commerce and Technology would be a start. Then I would move it out of Washington and locate it in Detroit. Same with other departments. I would move Interior to Boise, Treasury to Denver, Justice to Chicago, Agriculture to Omaha. This will have three impacts in terms of making government more efficient. Move the Forest Service headquarters to a small Oregon timber town effected by its actions, move BLM to Provo UT where its policies have impacted ranchers. The National Park Service could have its headquarters at Yellowstone, the crown jewel of the park system.

    Really I would only leave the State Department and Treasury in Washington, D.C.

    First, by relocating the departments to specific regions of the nation where their impact is the greatest you put them in touch with the impact of their regulations. Its one thing reading a report, its another seeing it impact your neighbors.

    Second, it would break up the group think that dominates Washington by dispersing the workers among the individuals that are impacted. It will change their reference point from serving government to serving them. Again, they will identify better with the elements of the economy they regulate.

    Third, about 40% of senior civil servants are qualified to retirement. Likely few of these officials, mostly living in Washington DC, will want to move into the “sticks”. One reason businesses that are rebooting is to clear out the old workforce and old ideas it has. This will drastically lower the age of the remaining civil servant workforce encouraging new ideas and new approaches to their jobs, trends further reinforced as a result of being in new environments and closer to their work. It would reboot every government agency.

    This would of course heavily impact the consultants, research firms, etc., that live off of these agencies, they will need to follow them to their new homes. Small loss. What would also be improved is national security, since by dispersing these agencies you also disperse the risks associated something happening to Washington DC.

    This will also benefit Washington DC in the long run. The resulting reduction in rents and housing costs as well as for commercial property will encourage tech startups, giving the region more of a free market base than a government one.

    Again, I call this paving over the swamp so it doesn’t refill. But sadly I don’t think even President Trump would have the courage to do this. So any draining of the swamp will only be temporary, it will fill up again.

    BTW one of the major reasons NASA was successful during Project Apollo was because it was a young agency with young ideas and had not yet been contaminated by the Washington group think way of doing things so it actually got things accomplished.