Washington, Apr 28: Elon Musk spent years building cachet as a business titan and tech visionary, brushing aside critics and sceptics to become the richest person on the planet.But as Musk gained power in Washington in recent months, his popularity has waned, according to a poll from The Associated Press-NORC Centre for Public Affairs Research.
Just 33 per cent of US adults have a favourable view of Musk, the chain-saw-wielding, late-night-posting, campaign-hat-wearing public face of President Donald Trump’s efforts to downsize and overhaul the federal government. That share is down from 41 per cent in December.
“It was a shame that he crashed and burned his reputation,” said Ernest Pereira, 27, a Democrat who works as a lab technician in North Carolina. “He bought into his own hype.”
The poll found that about two-thirds of adults believe Musk has held too much influence over the federal government during the past few months — although that influence may be coming to an end. The billionaire entrepreneur is expected to leave his administration job in the coming weeks.
Musk is noticeably less popular than the overall effort to pare back the government workforce, which Trump has described as bloated and corrupt. About half of US adults believe the Republican president has gone too far on reducing the size of the federal workforce, while roughly 3 in 10 think he is on target and 14 per cent want him to go even further.
Retiree Susan Wolf, 75, of Pennsylvania, believes the federal government is too big but Musk has “made a mess of everything”
“I don’t trust him,” she said. “I don’t think he knows what he’s doing.”
Wolf, who is not registered with a political party, said Musk’s private sector success does not translate to Washington.
“He thinks you run a government like you run a business. And you don’t do that,” she said. “One is for the benefit of the people, and the other is for the benefit of the corporation.”
Much of the downsizing has been done through so-called the Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, which was Musk’s brainchild during last year’s campaign. Thousands of federal employees have been fired or pushed to quit, contracts have been cancelled and entire agencies have been brought to a standstill.
Musk has succeeded in providing a dose of shock therapy to the federal government, but he has fallen short of other goals. After talking about cutting spending by USD 1 trillion, he has set a much lower target of USD 150 billion.