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Comment by 4ndrewl | Hacker News Reader

Funniest thing is that Musk isn't getting paid for this. He's literally doing it for shits-n-giggles.

Shutting down every agency that is investigating his companies is "shits-n-giggles"?

Tesla's valuation is 10x the rest of the Magnificent 7, obviously investors think his ties to government are worth something.

(edit- valuation means i.e. P/E ratio; I saw the chart about 2 weeks ago so forget the exact valuation metric)

From his pov yes. Look how he treated the press the other day.

Closing USAid isn't anything to do with Tesla etc - this is just a rich kid showing how powerful he is.

It's a very powerful person deliberately sabotaging the checks and levers they've to adhere to, with the reasonable possibility that they'll get to outright create the new ones and the probability that they'll at the very least get to heavily influence the new ones from the ground up.

What he's getting is worth way more than money.

Oh, really? Given that USAID is investigating Starlink?

https://oig.usaid.gov/node/6814

Going after the Treasury, given that X is moving into finance?

https://fortune.com/2025/02/13/elon-musk-doge-cfpb-x-payment...

The State Department just decided to order $400 million in "armored Teslas". [1] (Hastily changed to "armored electric vehicles" once it was caught out.[2] As if that fools anyone but fools.)

1. https://www.npr.org/2025/02/13/g-s1-48571/trump-administrati... 2. https://time.com/7221880/state-department-2025-procurement-f...

He's doing it for power, which enables wealth acquisition. Shutting down regulatory agencies that would prevent him from exploiting people for even more gain is the same as a paycheck.

He is getting paid in the sense he has a lot of power over everything that happens financially, it's how he will make a lot of money going forwards (if he doesn't get ousted somehow).

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