Jim VandeHei: ‘Bureaucracy Is Undefeated’ by DOGE But Elon Musk Will Profit in the End

Axios founder Jim VandeHei warned that exiting DOGE head Elon Musk will ultimately profit from his association with the Trump administration taking the “long view” that while “bureaucracy is undefeated,” the tech mogul’s companies will be generously rewarded.

Musk’s tenure ends Friday after leading President Donald Trump’s cost-cutting initiative. Despite his bold ambition to slash $2 trillion in federal spending, DOGE managed to carve out $160 billion and laid off about 1% of the federal workforce.

As Morning Joe hosts and guests reflected Musk as having failed in his mission in the end, host Joe Scarborough mockingly jibed: “Fool’s rush in.”

VandeHei, however, while agreeing, offered a different take:

I mean, the bureaucracy is undefeated, for sure, and it defeated Musk in this task. That said, you got to understand Elon in that he takes the long view. And certainly in the short term, he didn’t accomplish what he wanted to but remember what his companies do and remember his relationship with the president and remember how much data they’re able to suck up when they went into all these different agencies to better understand how the federal government works.

And now watch, does he start to sell rockets, satellites, autonomous technology, all of the products that his 5 or 6 companies are producing? Does the government end up being a massive purchaser of it because of the expertise that he has, the inside knowledge that he now possesses, and the relationship with Trump that I think will endure.

VandeHei continued to warn that too few people were paying attention to the “fuzing” of Silicon Valley and Washington.

“When you take the long view, you’ve got to keep your eye on that prize,” he added.

Watch above via MSNBC.