Elon may be a bit misguided by how easy it was to take down USAID — a valuable but heretofore obscure program without a large domestic constituency to rally to the defense of cultural support of democracy and helping the poor and displaced across the globe via a series of relatively small local interventions.
He may find much more organized and powerful resistance if he goes after the Pentagon and the military industrial complex. Will Hegseth be willing to give Musk access to the national security mainframe and spending apparatus? Will the GOP still defer then?
Probably not. Defense spending is one of the major ways senators pay off their donors. That's the reason we have such out of control defense spending now. It's not about what we need but about who's profiting. Maybe if they can show the senators a better grift, they might get somewhere.