GUEST COLUMN, J. Basil Dannebohm
Over the last few months, there have been a couple of occasions that I felt merited an email to the CEOs of two companies: Lowe’s and Tractor Supply. Without divulging the details, Tractor Supply struck out with me both in-store and online. The company’s CEO, Hal Lawton, probably won’t be hearing from me again, though I doubt he cares all that much. That wasn’t the case, however, with Lowe’s CEO, Marvin Ellison. While my initial memo was by no means chock full of glad tidings, an encounter several weeks later with an exceptional Lowe’s employee prompted me to write a more positive follow-up email. Ellison was gracious, noting that he would personally ensure the employee’s professionalism was recognized.
I don’t like to be the bearer of bad news. I’m the type of person that looks forward to an opportunity to give credit where it is due. However, I’m also a realist. While the optimist sees the cup as half full and the pessimist sees the cup as half empty, I’m the one who points out the cup is a urine sample; and whether half full or empty, it’s still urine.
As Elon Musk makes his (long overdue) departure from Washington, an acquaintance pointed out that on my personal social media page, I haven’t exactly been kind to Musk, who I frequently referred to as “Herr Plüggs.”
On one post, the individual left a comment which read:
“Yes, SpaceX, owned by Elon Musk, played a key role in bringing two NASA astronauts home from the International Space Station after they became stranded due to a malfunctioning spacecraft. The astronauts had been on a mission that was meant to last a week, but due to issues with the Boeing’s Starliner spacecraft, they ended up spending nine months in space. Some good with all this bad that has been posted.”
This acquaintance and I don’t agree about very much, though his comment regarding the SpaceX rescue was correct. Musk’s company did indeed deserve credit for stepping up where Boeing fell short. Some credit can likewise be given to Starlink, in its effort last year to ensure that victims of Hurricanes Helene and Milton (and the subsequent floods) had access to communication.
But urine is still urine.
Hence, were I to give Elon Musk a letter grade for his time here in DC, he would receive an F. The accompanying remarks would read the same way they did next to “Behavior” in my elementary school report cards: “Needs improvement.”
As for Musk’s behavior, there were those who tried to blame autism for his racism, fascism, and misogynism. But the spectrum isn’t to blame for the fact that he’s an entitled, narcissistic ass, though drugs might play a role. As The New York Times recently reported, “Mr. Musk’s drug consumption went well beyond occasional use. He told people he was taking so much ketamine, a powerful anesthetic, that it was affecting his bladder, a known effect of chronic use. He took Ecstasy and psychedelic mushrooms. And he traveled with a daily medication box that held about 20 pills, including ones with the markings of the stimulant Adderall.”
When he rolled into town along with his motley crew of late teens and early twenty-somethings, the claim was that Musk had come to save the lowly taxpayers from big “government waste.”
Frankly, you’d have to be just about as high as Musk to believe that line of crap for even a moment. The South African born oligarch slept in the Eisenhower executive offices. Alongside his mother and son, he traveled aboard Marine One. The U.S. Marshals office deputized his private security detail. All this was at the expense of those lowly taxpayers.
As for the Department of Government Efficiency?
The annual budget for the United States is roughly $6.8 Trillion. “DOGE” purportedly resulted in a $150 billion savings. DOGE’s expenses, however, were $135 billion. This equals a net savings of $15 billion, or 0.002 percent of the U.S. budget. To date there have been zero fraud indictments and more than 280,000 federal jobs eliminated. For his part, Musk continues to earn more than $8 million per day in taxpayer dollars, not counting the new government contracts he secured during the four months he was here in town.
And so, with his chainsaw and apparently Stephen Miller’s wife in tow, the richest man in the world leaves Washington even richer. The lowly taxpayers, on the other hand, have nothing to show for it. Returning our astronauts safely home was the least he could do.
J. Basil Dannebohm is a writer, speaker, consultant, former Kansas legislator and intelligencer. His website is www.dannebohm.com. Mr. Dannebohm is a member of the Virginia Press Association and the National Society of Newspaper Columnists. He writes from the Washington DC metro in the Commonwealth of Virginia.
