WSJ editorial warns Elon Musk’s 'blow-it-all-up' ideas will devastate US economy

On Tuesday night, November 12, President-elect Donald Trump announced that X/Tesla CEO Elon Musk will head a new "Department of Government Efficiency" along with MAGA businessman Vivek Ramaswamy.

Musk is telling Trump that the person he nominates for U.S. Treasury secretary should not be someone who favors "business as usual." But the conservative Wall Street Journal editorial board, in an editorial published on November 17, emphasizes that "disruption" at the U.S. Treasury Department could be risky and dangerous for the country's economy.

The WSJ editorial board argues, "Our concern isn't personalities so much as Mr. Musk's apparent belief in economic-policy disruption for its own sake. Treasury isn't the Education Department, or Defense, and financial markets don't want to trade one form of policy uncertainty for another. Steady and knowledgeable economic policy hands are needed if Mr. Trump wants to succeed."

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In the months ahead, the WSJ editorial board stresses, the U.S. economy will "require careful judgment, not blow-it-all-up rhetoric."

"One risk ahead is the tax bill that needs to pass next year to extend the 2017 tax reform," the WSJ board writes. "With narrow GOP majorities in Congress, that won't be easy. All the more so because Mr. Trump campaigned on new tax cuts, on tips, overtime, Social Security benefits, that will be impossible to afford unless Republicans want to sign up for an even larger deficit blowout than under President Biden."

The next U.S. treasury secretary, the WSJ board stresses, "needs an understanding of financial markets, which nowadays are global."

"A blowup in the foreign-exchange markets somewhere can affect the U.S. economy, and new financial investments like crypto need careful watching," the board argues. "Mr. Trump has promised to ease political control over these markets, but no one should think they are risk- free. Blowups somewhere are inevitable, and a treasury secretary needs the experience to deal with the fallout in a way that reassures markets."

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Read the Wall Street Journal's full editorial at this link (subscription required).