Here we go again. In recent years, the entrepreneur Elon Musk has become (in)famous for being so maniacally focused on overhauling entities such as Tesla and X that he has slept in offices and fired employees he considered uncommitted.
Now he wants to do the same at Donald Trump’s White House. This week, 2mn federal employees were asked to resign if they did not want to come into the office (and, by implication, embrace the reforms Musk is hatching at the new Department of Government Efficiency he leads).
The White House apparently expects 5-10 per cent of staff to take the offer, saving $100bn annually. And to reinforce the message, Musk even dispatched the same “Fork-in-the-road” meme used when he fired staff at X. He is reportedly sleeping in the Executive Office of the President, too.
Unions will undoubtedly howl. So will progressives. And Musk’s plans will probably face legal challenges. But even as many observers recoil, quite understandably, from Musk’s brutal style, there is one point that no one should ignore: if Doge can actually unleash digital reform in the US government, and in a non-corrupt manner, that would be an unambiguously good thing.
Indeed, if I had a Musk-focused magic wand, I would wish him to make digital reform, not trolling his critics, Doge’s main priority. Digitising government is not just the key to creating greater efficiency and effectiveness; it could also restore some of the public’s shattered trust in the state.
The reason for this is that America is bedevilled by a paradox. On the one hand, its private sector is extraordinarily dynamic, and driving much of the 21st-century tech revolution, with its laser-like focus on consumers. But on the other, its government bureaucracy is sclerotic and inefficient, with an antediluvian approach to technology.
So much so, in fact, that the US does not even feature in the UN’s 2024 list of the 18 most tech-savvy e-governments, ranking well behind countries such as Estonia, Singapore and Denmark, and even Saudi Arabia. That is shocking.
Previous administrations have tried to change this. In 2014, Barack Obama created the United States Digital Service, in a bid to improve government tech after the botched rollout of his HealthCare.gov initiative. This has had some success. As Deloitte notes, the Inland Revenue Service introduced an automated paper returns-scanning process during the Covid pandemic which enabled it to scan “80 times more returns in the first quarter of 2023 than the whole of 2022”. And during Trump’s first administration, his son-in-law Jared Kushner tried to overhaul electronic record-keeping at the Department of Veterans Affairs (a laudable move that, sadly, had patchy results).
But reformers have faced big obstacles. One is a government culture of risk aversion, says Brett Goldstein of Vanderbilt University, who previously oversaw the Defense Digital Service at the Pentagon. Another is that federal structures are fragmented and plagued by outdated tech.
“There are 101 civilian agencies . . . and back in 2017 we were spending $60bn a year on [those] and half was on legacy systems,” laments Chris Krebs, director of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency in the first Trump administration. “Now it is certainly more.”
Another challenge, outlined in a recent book by Jennifer Pahlka, a Democrat who has fought for tech reform, is that the government typically plans projects in a slow-moving, top-down manner — unlike the private sector, which uses an iterative, bottom-up, user-focused approach. The consequence is “concrete boat[s]”, she notes. In other words, projects so heavy they sink.
Can Musk change this? Many techies hope so. “I think Elon is the right person for the job since he has a bottom-up approach and the energy and tenacity to go into the details,” says Goldstein. Or, as Krebs, puts it: “What is happening now is much bigger and more intentional than [what we did before].”
And there is widespread consensus on what should be done: install a “software as a service” mentality into government that focuses on user needs, with a centralised “share services” model. That could create a co-ordinated procurement process that would slash costs, create a better experience for citizens and improve cyber defence.
Moreover, case studies show how to do this. Canada adopted a shared service approach more than a decade ago, notes Krebs. Estonia, Denmark and Singapore are also good models. And Ukraine offers a particularly inspirational example of how to build apps that provide government services to citizens.
So will Musk ever succeed in inculcating these non-American lessons? Does he have the tenacity, force and staff for a lengthy cultural fight? We don’t know.
But one thing, at least, is clear: if Musk does manage to import approaches from places such as Estonia or Singapore — and in the process create a functioning e-government in the US — he will deserve praise from Republicans and Democrats alike. So, please, Elon: focus on that, not political posturing. Future generations of Americans will thank you.
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