How Elon Musk could gut the government under Trump

Contributing sentiments towards policy:

54% : The US spent more than $6.7 trillion in its 2024 fiscal year on a range of domestic programs and national defense, from Social Security and healthcare to education, support for military veterans and transportation projects.
52% : "Earlier this year, Trump said Musk would lead "a complete financial and performance audit of the entire federal government" with "recommendations for drastic reforms.
49% : If Trump wins, "we do have an opportunity to do kind of a once-in-a-lifetime deregulation and reduction in the size of government," Musk said in September.
44% : And if Trump is elected, he might steer how the American government spends its money.
41% : Musk -- a man with a net worth of more than $200 billion who wants to accelerate the human population of other planets -- has predicted and welcomed economic "hardship" and a market crash if Trump wins.
32% : Musk agreed that deep cuts -- coupled with what Trump has called the largest deportation operation in American history with plans to expel millions of immigrants, evaporating billions in tax dollars -- will likely cause global markets to "tumble.
25% : Trump now wants to make those cuts permanent.
22% : Last year, House Republicans fought off severe austerity budget proposals from their far-right flank, and Trump failed to make deep cuts to domestic programs during his administration after his signature sweeping tax cuts that largely benefited corporations and high earners.

*Our bias meter rating uses data science including sentiment analysis, machine learning and our proprietary algorithm for determining biases in news articles. Bias scores are on a scale of -100% to 100% with higher negative scores being more liberal and higher positive scores being more conservative, and 0% being neutral. The rating is an independent analysis and is not affiliated nor sponsored by the news source or any other organization.