'Far-right tech oligarch' Musk now embodies the judicial 'crisis' John Roberts 'warned of'

14 February

President Donald Trump issued countless executive orders after returning to the White House on January 20, some of which are being temporarily blocked by federal courts — much to the chagrin of Trump and billionaire ally Elon Musk, CEO of SpaceX, Tesla and X.com (formerly Twitter) and head of the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE).

Musk is arguing that lower federal judges have no business blocking any of Trump's executive orders or any of the Tesla CEO's efforts to greatly downsize federal government agencies via DOGE. And Trump is calling for Congress to impeach the judges.

But critics of Trump and Musk counter that separation of powers and checks and balances are protected by the U.S. Constitution — and that Trump's executive powers as president are much more limited than he claims.

In an article published on Valentine's Day 2025, The New Republic's Matt Ford contrasts Musk's comments on the federal judiciary with what conservative U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts had to say in his year-end report for 2024.

Roberts, Ford emphasizes, "warned…. about multiple threats to judicial independence."

"Less than two months later, the crisis Roberts warned of has arrived," Ford argues. "The Trump Administration has not declared outright that it would defy the federal courts — at least, not yet. But there are signs that orders by some judges are being inconsistently followed at best. And behind the scenes, some of the (Trump) Administration’s leading figures are building a rhetorical groundwork to defy the courts. Leading the charge into the breach is Elon Musk, the far-right tech oligarch who donated hundreds of millions of dollars to President Donald Trump's reelection campaign."

Ford laments that "the plain text of the Constitution does not appear to be among the things Musk reveres."

"Last week, Judge Paul Engelmayer in New York ordered the Trump Administration to temporarily block access to the Bureau of the Fiscal Service — the Treasury payment system that Musk seized control of — by political appointees and 'special government employees,' a category into which Musk currently falls, in response to a lawsuit filed by multiple states," Ford observes. "Musk denounced Engelmayer last Saturday by sharing a photo of him on social media with the caption 'This is an activist posing as a judge'…. Musk appears hostile to the idea that he can be constrained by a judge at all. He does not seem to know or care how the Constitution works."

Read Matt Ford's full article for The New Republic at this link.

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