MSG report #3

Elon gets a whole post to himself. Not because he said something racist, but because he said something so massively dumb.

Elon used to be smart enough to do simple addition, but he thinks we can cut "at least" $2 trillion from federal spending—which amounted to $6.7 trillion in FY2024, not $6.5 trillion.

The arithmetic here is simple. If you add up Social Security + Medicare¹ + defense² + veterans pensions + interest on the debt³ you get $4.4 trillion. There's only $2.3 trillion left.

So Elon is claiming we should literally zero out the entire rest of the federal budget. Everything. The FBI, national parks, food stamps, Medicaid, education, NASA, the EPA, farm support, the NIH, all federal R&D grants, embassies worldwide, the FAA, the Department of Justice, the VA, the weather service, the border patrol, etc. etc. Everything.

What is it that didn't just move Musk to the right, but turned him into into a screaming, drooling lunatic with the effective IQ of a squirrel? I won't say I've never seen anything like it, but I've never seen it quite so unhinged from a basically sane and brilliant starting point.

¹Trump has promised not to cut either one.

²Trump has promised to increase defense spending.

³Both are legally obligated.

UPDATE: I originally wrote this post using 2023 spending numbers. I've updated it to 2024. Nothing changed about the conclusion, though.