Ahead of Trump-Musk Press Conference, Groundwork’s Owens says “Musk Got What He Came For”

Ahead of Trump-Musk Press Conference, Groundwork’s Owens says “Musk Got What He Came For”

Elon Musk’s tenure as a Special Government Employee has come to an end, leaving behind a trail of destruction that has made life harder and more expensive for millions of Americans while enriching Musk himself.

Groundwork Collaborative’s Executive Director Lindsay Owens issued the following statement:

“Elon Musk got what he came for. In just a few short months, Musk penetrated virtually every government agency, ransacked critical infrastructure, gleaned intelligence and trade secrets on his companies’ competitors, and hoovered up as much of Americans’ personal information as he could find. This wasn’t an effort to clean up government, it was a land grab.

“In the months and years to come, we will start to uncover just how much damage Musk did and just how much money he made in doing it. Until then, Americans will brace for impact and pray their Social Security numbers, banking information, tax returns, medical history, and more, are not at risk.

“If you’ve ever thought that conversations about the problems of money in politics seemed hyperbolic, I hope this dark episode in American history has changed your mind. Billionaires like Musk have no business running our government. Proponents of democratic reforms must start to take economic power seriously. Without taking on extreme concentrations of wealth, our democracy won’t survive.”

BACKGROUND

• During his 130-day tenure, Elon Musk led DOGE on a rampage of destruction across the federal government, directing mass firings of government employees and reckless cuts to basic needs programs, and ultimately increasing costs and unnecessary red tape for working families.
• Groundwork Collaborative and Data for Progress have been tracking sentiment toward Musk’s DOGE over the past three months. Since the beginning of March, independents have swung 27 points against DOGE, from (+7) to (-20), saying that they do not believe DOGE will make government work better for them.
• While the American people continue to suffer the fallout of Musk’s rampage, Musk has leveraged his position to tilt the scales in favor of himself and his cronies, making it easier for billionaires and corporations to dodge the guardrails in place to protect consumers.
• By slashing staff and jeopardizing the security of the Social Security Administration’s systems, Musk’s DOGE has made it harder for Americans to access their Social Security benefits. People face website crashes, longer phone wait times, slower claims processing, and longtime staff have warned that Musk’s disruption could bring SSA’s core operations to a standstill, threatening the 70 million Americans who rely on a Social Security check each month.
• Reports of looming mass layoffs at the Department of Veterans Affairs imperil the health care of nearly 9 million veterans, who would face major service disruptions and growing wait times and backlogs. These cuts follow earlier DOGE-driven reductions that forced some VA centers to turn away new patients and disrupted the national veterans’ crisis hotline.
• As Musk pursues a new digital payment platform collaboration with Visa, X Money, DOGE dismantled the agency specifically tasked with protecting consumers – the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) – making it easier for big banks, giant corporations, and Musk’s cronies and personal companies to cheat families out of their hard-earned money. Since its creation, the CFPB has returned $21 billion to the pockets of working Americans.
• According to outside analysis, the U.S. could lose between $395 billion and $2.4 trillion over 10 years due to DOGE’s draconian cuts to the IRS workforce. Every $1 spent on auditing the top 0.1% of earners returns more than $26 to taxpayers each year in revenue. In just five months, the Trump administration has terminated approximately 11,500 IRS employees – or 11% of the total workforce. Nearly 60% of these layoffs came from teams responsible for auditing and enforcement. With as many as 30,000 additional layoffs promised, Trump may terminate approximately 40% of the total IRS workforce.
• DOGE has also cut programs that fund child care initiatives, tribal colleges, libraries and local museums, and local nonprofits that provide everything from tutoring to support for child victims of abuse.
• DOGE and the Trump Administration took a chainsaw to the public health apparatus, cutting staff at the Center for Disease Control (CDC) and local departments of health, as well as either cancelling or freezing billions in research funding, driving US funding for science to a record low. The result is a severe limit on critical biomedical innovation, communities stranded amidst medical crises, and more families left vulnerable to preventable diseases.
• DOGE has cut 20% of the workforce at the Food and Drug Administration, leaving the agency scrambling to find volunteer workers. These actions threaten food and drug safety for communities and families by degrading or outright suspending food and milk quality testing and drug inspection.