How Does Elon Musk Have So Much Power?

Early Monday morning, employees at the US Agency for International Development (USAID), the agency in charge of conducting humanitarian efforts around the world, were told not to come to work. Over the last few days, USAID’s website and social media accounts went dark and photos were removed from the office walls. Thousands of contractors and civil servants lost access to their email addresses and the USAID systems without warning. A week earlier, nearly 400 people from the agency were laid off.

This came after a separate email was sent last week, on Jan. 28, to most of the nation’s federal employees. The email, titled “Fork in the Road,” offered almost all of the 2.3 million employees an opportunity to resign immediately and continue to be paid until September 30, or stay on at the risk that there would be no “assurance regarding the certainty of your position or agency.”

On Friday, the highest-ranking career official in the Treasury Department was ousted after refusing to turn over the keys to the payment system used by the US Treasury – a payment system that sends out trillions of dollars every year. David Lebryk had worked in the department for over 35 years, and had been named by President Donald Trump as acting secretary while Scott Bessent went through the confirmation hearing process.

These seismic shifts in the federal government have one person in common: Elon Musk, and his new “Department of Government Efficiency.”

How does Musk, who is neither an elected official, a government employee, or a Senate-confirmed appointee, have this much power over the United States government?