Elon Musk is the new Dick Cheney
The comparison isn't flattering to either man
For three months in 2000, Dick Cheney vetted potential running mates for George W. Bush’s presidential candidacy. And then, shortly before the Republican convention, Bush announced his choice for vice president: Dick Cheney.
Cheney was the head of the defense contracting firm Halliburton, but also had deep experience in the federal government, having served in the White House during the Nixon, Ford and George H.W. Bush administrations and as the single member of Congress from Wyoming. The Bush-Cheney ticket was elected that year, after the U.S. Supreme Court stopped the recount of votes in the crucial state of Florida.
Five years older than the new president, the famously-secretive Cheney was an adept operator, ever-present behind the scenes in the White House. During Bush’s first term, "he was so influential that it was almost insulting to call him a vice president," according to New York University professor Paul Light. "He was a mentor, chair of the kitchen Cabinet, legitimizer, Rasputin — you name it — all rolled into one."
No president has ever had a co-pilot as powerful as Cheney — until this year, when Elon Musk’s sway over President Donald Trump has given him the power to plant a group of acolytes in federal agencies, get his hands on the machinery for trillions in federal payments, threaten to shut down arms of the government like USAID and the Education Department and attempt to persuade some among the millions of federal workers to quit. He has seemingly eclipsed not only Vice President J.D. Vance but also the two most powerful members of the Cabinet: Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent.
Embarrassing position
It was embarrassing for George W. Bush when people suggested Cheney was the one in charge. It’s equally embarrassing for Trump when Musk appears to exercise such authority. Trump has pushed back, saying, “Elon can’t do—and won’t do—anything without our approval and we’ll give him the approval where appropriate. Where not appropriate, we won’t.”
The Wall Street Journal reported that, “A person close to Musk compared the Tesla chief executive to Dick Cheney’s time as vice president during the George W. Bush administration. Cheney was considered the most powerful person to hold the post because of his access to the president and his deep knowledge of how the federal government operated.”
For someone “close to Musk” to invoke the comparison to Cheney is beyond strange. As vice president, Cheney was a key player in bringing about the biggest American foreign policy blunder since Vietnam: the disastrous war in Iraq.
Here’s how NPR’s Nina Totenberg summed up Cheney’s influence:
In the first term, Cheney reshaped national security law, expanded the prerogatives of the executive branch and orchestrated secret, warrantless domestic surveillance, circumventing a court set up by Congress specifically to oversee such surveillance. He presented the president with options that led to a shutdown of negotiations with North Korea, and played a major role in persuading President Bush to go to war against Iraq.
On the domestic front, he screened potential Supreme Court nominees, presided over the budget, led the selection of personnel from Cabinet officers to key lower-level positions. Without the president's knowledge, he engineered the rewriting of the president's tax bill so it included a capital gains tax break that the president had initially rejected. With the president's knowledge, he led an industry-friendly revamping of energy and environmental regulations.
Co-president
In a 2009 book called, “The Co-Presidency of Bush and Cheney,” political science professor Shirley Anne Warshaw wrote that “Cheney, with his lengthy service in both the executive and legislative branches of government, exerted more influence than any vice president in history.”
“He and Bush created the first co-presidency in America's history: a division of labor, based on their separate spheres of interest and influence. Bush managed his faith-based agenda, moved forward his compassionate conservatism, and served as the public face of the administration. Cheney managed the larger portfolio of economic, energy, and national security policy and worked to expand the power of the presidency.”
Warshaw noted that “the only two cabinet members that Cheney did not bring into the administration were Secretary of State Colin Powell and Attorney General John Ashcroft. Not surprisingly, both men became thorns in Cheney’s side challenging his decisions—and often blocking their implementation—on weapons of mass destruction, regime change, torture, and wireless surveillance without court-approved warrants.”
She added that even the recommendations that Bush should appoint John Roberts and Samuel Alito to the U.S. Supreme Court originated from Cheney’s office.
Cheney vs. Musk
Cheney was a skilled political operator who understood how to get things done in Washington’s arcane governmental structure. Musk, the richest man in the world, has very different strengths — including a record of innovation in the private sector and a fanatical work ethic — and different weaknesses, including a total lack of experience in Washington and a fondness for whipping up social media mobs.
Musk has more than 215 million followers on X, the platform he owns. He used it relentlessly to bash Joe Biden and promote Trump’s campaign for the presidency. Trump, who has 100 million followers on X, has to worry about the cost of actually reining in Musk — and seeing the Tesla chief turn on him.
Having an all-powerful associate is a very mixed blessing for a president, who has legitimacy through election and is answerable to the people for the results of his administration. To the extent that a vice president harbors ambition for the top job, he too can be held accountable by voters. But there’s no way Americans can hold Elon Musk accountable for what he does.
In a smart column for the Financial Times, Edward Luce lamented the passivity of Democratic leaders in the face of the blitz of dramatic changes rolled out by the infant Trump administration.
“Congress is sidelined,” Luce wrote. “The one person whose powers the Senate ought to adjudicate is Musk. The giga-tycoon has seized control of the federal payments system and the country’s personal data. He has no legal basis to do so.”
“Where in the constitution does it say that the unelected richest man in America gets to decide which programmes live or die, who to hire and fire, and what contracts to revoke? An alert opposition would ask: ‘Who elected Elon Musk?’ It seems an act of will not to make that a rallying cry. When life gives you a Bond villain, make Bond-villain lemonade.”
Second thoughts
History has not been kind to the role played by Dick Cheney in the George W. Bush administration. Even one of his boosters, former President George H.W. Bush, soured on him.
In interviews with Jon Meacham, Bush 41 said Cheney “had his own empire there and marched to his own drummer. It just showed me that you cannot do it that way. The president should not have that worry.”
Bush senior said Cheney, who had served as his defense secretary, “just became very hard-line and very different from the Dick Cheney I knew and worked with…Just iron-ass.”
Will Trump let Musk continue to build “his own empire” in Washington? The jury is out on that question.
For another Now It’s History take on the new administration, read here.
I used to think that Trump’s insatiable desire for center stage would eventually lead him to bounce Musk out on his butt. Now, sadly, I am not so sure. He is already worse than Cheney in many ways.