October 30, 2024 at 12:08 PM The billionaires are fed up. Ordinary politicians can’t seem to control the $34 trillion national debt, so Donald Trump’s billionaire buddies say they’ll roll up their sleeves and get it done once Trump wins the presidential election and the American people finally get the government shredding they deserve. Elon Musk will lead the charge, selflessly tearing himself away from the six companies he runs to hack the federal government down to size. Also on the case: hedge fund boss John Paulson, standing patiently at the front of the line to be Trump’s Treasury Secretary. If Musk and Paulson need help, they can call on venture capitalist Marc Andreessen, investor Peter Thiel, Wall Street titan Howard Lutnick, and other stalwarts of the American aristocracy to help them do the people’s bidding. Musk already has a model for how to prune the unruly government: Twitter, which he bought in 2022 while promising to cut 80% of the staff. Musk has been so successful at shrink-fixing Twitter that its value has fallen from $44 billion when he bought it to around $9.5 billion today. Musk renamed Twitter X, as in Xed out, to signal all the regress he’s made since buying it. He'll do for America what he's done for X? Elon Musk speaks before Republican presidential nominee former President Donald Trump at a campaign rally at Madison Square Garden, Oct. 27, in New York. (AP Photo:Evan Vucci) (ASSOCIATED PRESS) Voters can only dream of an 80% cut in the federal government and the services it offers. Anybody answering a phone at a government agency can be replaced by a bot. Instead of fighter pilots, a volunteer force of basement gamers wearing virtual-reality goggles can do the job for a fraction of the cost. The obvious place to start is the IRS, where all auditors trying to catch wealthy tax cheats should be deported. There could be a few hiccups. A poster on X said that Musk slashing government services and firing federal workers might cause an “initial severe overreaction in the economy,” while “markets will tumble.” “Sounds about right,” Musk replied, telling voters exactly what they want to hear: Pain is coming. But it’ll all work out in the end, when all the laid-off people get retrained for life on Mars and depleted 401(k)s are converted into Trump™ bonds. Plus, Musk is the world’s richest man, so don’t worry about him, he’ll be fine. Paulson, as Treasury Oligarch, will help Musk speed the denuding of government. Paulson says he’ll “eliminate” the green energy subsidies Congress passed into law in 2022, which won’t be a problem because Paulson is 68 and rich and he can easily hide from the effects of global warming for the rest of his life. Musk might want to slip Paulson a note reminding him to keep the tax breaks for people who buy an electric car from his own company, Tesla.