In what may be the most bizarre political arc of our times, Elon Musk has officially rage-quit the Trump administration. After months of promising to slash trillions from federal spending through his meme-baptised Department of Government Efficiency — DOGE, yes really — Musk has turned on Donald Trump in a flurry of furious tweets. His verdict on the president’s massive, pork-laden tax bill? “A disgusting abomination.”
And just like that, the loyalty wavered. The spell broke. The spin doctor stormed off the set.
It all has an oddly familiar ring to it, an all-too-human tale of someone who once echoed the words of a leader, amplified them, stylised them, mythologised them… until the whole machine proved unworkable. Think of Joseph Goebbels turning on Adolf Hitler in the bunker — if Goebbels had first launched a Tesla and named his kid after an algebra equation.
Yes, we’re being satirical. (Let the record show: Musk is not a Nazi. But history doesn’t repeat — it rhymes, and this one has a distinctly propaganda-tinged melody.)
The Minister of Message
In the Third Reich, Goebbels was the high priest of the party line. A master of spin, he transformed Hitler’s every utterance into gospel and every policy into a moral crusade. Likewise, Musk took on the unofficial role of Trump’s digital evangelist: tweeting support, smiling through awkward photo ops, and framing his brutalist fiscal policies as the dawning of a bold new American efficiency.
DOGE was his stage. Bureaucracy was the enemy. Wasteful spending would fall like rusted satellites from the sky. “We will save $2 trillion,” he said. That number soon shrank to $1 trillion. Then to $150 billion. By the end, it was mostly just vibes and Twitter polls.
But Musk kept selling it — until suddenly, he didn’t.
Breaking the Spell
Joseph Goebbels’ break with Hitler came at the very end, when it became clear that the Führer’s war was lost and Berlin was falling apart. Despite years of cult-like loyalty, even Goebbels hesitated at the edge of total catastrophe.
Musk, meanwhile, didn’t wait for an invasion, just a spending bill. And it wasn’t even passed by Democrats. Trump’s own Republican House pushed through a sprawling, deficit-bloating piece of legislation described by Musk as “outrageous,” “massive,” and “pork-filled.”
“This is a disgusting abomination,” he posted on X (née Twitter). “Shame on those who voted for it: you know you did wrong.”
Where Goebbels wrote fiery editorials and gave breathless radio addresses, Musk tweets in all caps and appends exclamation marks like bayonets. “In November next year, we fire all politicians who betrayed the American people,” he declared, still locked in the rhetoric of revolution, but with no Führer left to please.
The Propaganda Falls Apart
Goebbels was so devoted he refused to abandon the bunker. Musk, to his credit, walked away, or perhaps was quietly nudged after the White House slashed $9.4 billion from DOGE’s already uncertain budget.
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt gave the final brush-off:
“The president already knows where Elon Musk stood on this bill.”
“And he’s sticking to it.”
It was a brief, brutal unpersoning, the kind that Goebbels himself might have delivered in a now-deleted broadcast: “Comrade Musk was never essential to the programme. His ideas, while interesting, were never compatible with the true spirit of the American People’s Revolution of Spending.”
Musk, for his part, tried to maintain face. “The federal bureaucracy situation is much worse than I realised,” he told The Washington Post. “It’s an uphill battle trying to improve things in DC.”
It reads a bit like Goebbels saying, “Turns out the Reich wasn’t very efficient either.”
Exit, Stage Meme
Now, like Goebbels in the last days, minus the tragic theatre and poisoned cyanide, Musk finds himself alone with his ideology. He built the narrative, championed the leader, attacked the critics, and signed on for the revolution.
And then, when the system did what systems always do: spend money, resist reform, and chew up outsiders—he turned. Not quietly. Not introspectively. But in full view of the platform he built, with the confidence of a man who still thinks he’s the protagonist in a story about saving civilisation.
Goebbels wrote the propaganda. Musk is still writing his — one post at a time.
But now, he’s tweeting against the very regime he once helped market. The irony is almost too thick to tweet through.
Elon Musk’s Ministry of Truth: From DOGE to X, the Propaganda Machine Rolls On
Elon Musk’s departure from the Trump administration’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) was as dramatic as his entrance. Appointed as the head of DOGE in January 2025, Musk vowed to slash $2 trillion from federal spending. However, by the end of his 130-day tenure, the department had achieved only a fraction of that goal, with savings claims of $175 billion .
Musk’s resignation came shortly after he publicly condemned President Trump’s “Big Beautiful Bill,” a government spending package, as a “disgusting abomination” . This public dissent marked a stark contrast to his earlier role as a staunch supporter and propagator of the administration’s agenda.
The parallels between Musk’s role in DOGE and his management of X are striking. Both platforms have been used to disseminate information, shape public opinion, and control narratives. Critics have likened Musk’s approach to that of a modern-day “Ministry of Truth,” where the line between fact and fiction becomes increasingly blurred.
Under Musk’s leadership, DOGE was not just about cutting costs; it was about controlling the narrative. The department’s official X account actively solicited public input on reducing waste and fraud, positioning itself as a transparent and participatory initiative. However, behind the scenes, there were reports of mismanagement, lack of transparency, and even allegations of misconduct by DOGE staffers .
Similarly, Musk’s stewardship of X has raised concerns about the platform’s role in spreading misinformation. After acquiring Twitter and rebranding it as X, Musk made significant changes to content moderation policies, leading to increased dissemination of disinformation. His endorsement of controversial posts and the platform’s algorithmic amplification of certain narratives have drawn criticism from various quarters.
Musk’s dual roles in DOGE and X highlight a broader issue: the concentration of power in the hands of individuals who control both the mechanisms of governance and the channels of communication. This convergence raises questions about accountability, transparency, and the potential for abuse of power.
In the end, Musk’s tenure at DOGE and his ongoing influence over X serve as a cautionary tale about the dangers of unchecked authority and the importance of safeguarding democratic institutions from becoming tools of propaganda.
