- Musk wants to recruit people with extremely high IQs to work for no pay
- The new US Department's mission is to reduce the cost of government spending
- Application process for the US Department of Government Efficiency
Musk wants to recruit people with extremely high IQs to work for no pay
Elon Musk is inviting volunteers to send in their CVs in preparation for being recruited by the US Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), which is responsible for waste and inefficiency in the federal government. It is reportedly looking to recruit individuals with extremely high IQs willing to work more than 80 hours weekly. The icing on the cake? The reward for the intelligent will be zero.
Some lay people stumble because the job is "not a real job". Musk is not actually going to pay these people a salary as part of his cost-cutting efforts. The man also mentioned this on his X platform account[1].
"In reality, it will be a boring job; you will make a lot of enemies, and the reward will be zero," Musk posted, accompanied by a laughing emoji.
In any case, the long hours and low pay are very reminiscent of the working conditions Musk created at X and SpaceX. The billionaire entrepreneur still has a reputation for making his employees work until they drop. When he first bought Twitter (now X) in 2022, employees were ordered to work 24 hours a day, 7 days a week to supposedly meet deadlines, resulting in many working an 84-hour week and sleeping in their cubicles, with some who could not take on the load simply walking off the job. SpaceX has also been sued repeatedly over its overtime and break policies. In 2017, it settled one class action lawsuit with more than 4 000 disgruntled employees.
Musk himself says he works 120 hours each week - at least, that was his schedule before he started spending so much time with Donald Trump... But now Trump has tasked the Department of Government Efficiency with finding ways to cut federal government spending by as much as USD 2 trillion. However, economists have warned that severe budget cuts could jeopardize basic services and cause more economic damage if attempted in the short term. Musk has also mentioned this[2].
The new US Department's mission is to reduce the cost of government spending
The mission of the new department is to reduce the cost of government spending by capturing all fraud and waste as part of a larger effort to break down the status quo in Washington. It is not yet clear how this department will differ from the existing government auditing agency, the Government Accountability Office.
In 1982, former US President Ronald Reagan represented a similarly structured commission that was active from 1982 to 1984 and aimed to identify and eliminate waste and inefficiency in the federal government.
E. Musk, together with biotechnology entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy, was nominated to this department by the current US President Trump. Although Musk's department is not directly linked to the Reagan Commission, the business leadership aims to apply private sector practices to the public sector. The White House Office of Management and Budget will also work closely with the Office of Management and Budget to improve performance. The Department also plans to hold weekly live webcasts to present its activities and results.
Application process for the US Department of Government Efficiency
In order to apply for this position, prospective candidates must first subscribe to Musk's social media platform "X". However, as only Premium subscribers can send direct messages to the DOGE account, this has led to an avalanche of controversy. Despite the circumstances and the conditions, the announcement has attracted much interest, with many applications already submitted. The same can be said of the drive to restructure the US government: DOGE has been greatly interested in how it will work. Trump quickly retorts that the Musk-Ramaswamy institution will publish regular performance reports assessing the goals already achieved[3].
Mr Ramaswamy has quite often referred to the parts of the US government where he believes major changes are needed. He believes there is too much bureaucracy in the Food and Drug Administration, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission and many other agencies, which reduces innovation and increases costs. However, whether this newly created group will be an official government body or an external advisory group with less responsibility for key decisions is still unclear.
