Mike Brock writes:

Consider what we’re being asked to believe about Elon Musk. That he is simultaneously managing Tesla, a global automotive manufacturer facing fierce competition and complex production challenges. That he is overseeing SpaceX, a company conducting human spaceflight and handling critical national security contracts. That he is running X/Twitter through a tumultuous transformation affecting global discourse. That he is developing experimental brain implants at Neuralink under federal investigation. That he is competing in the most sophisticated artificial intelligence race in human history through xAI.

And now, through the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), we’re asked to believe he is also reorganizing the entire federal government. His twenty-something operatives are gaining unprecedented access to Treasury payment systems. Career civil servants are being purged for following security protocols. Congressionally established agencies are being illegally shuttered.

This isn’t just implausible—it’s physically impossible. Each of these companies requires intensive, full-time executive attention. Tesla alone, with its global manufacturing operations and fierce competition in the rapidly evolving electric vehicle market, would fully occupy any normal CEO. SpaceX, dealing with literal rocket science and human lives, demands constant high-level oversight. Yet we’ve collectively suspended our disbelief, accepting an obvious fiction because we’ve been conditioned to believe in the mythology of the tech genius who transcends normal human limitations.

Let’s be clear about what’s happening while we debate the impossible fiction of Musk’s supposed role: A coup is in progress in the United States of America. This isn’t hyperbole or partisan rhetoric—it’s as demonstrable as the fact that there are twenty-four hours in a day or that two plus two equals four. Private citizens have seized control of Treasury payment systems. Security officials are being removed for following classification protocols. Congressionally established agencies are being illegally shuttered.

The obvious impossibility of Musk’s supposed management of multiple companies serves the same purpose as Trump’s flood of disinformation—it creates an epistemic fog that makes reality harder to grasp. While we argue about whether Musk is really running all these companies effectively, while we debate sophisticated legal theories about executive authority, while we parse complex arguments about government efficiency, the machinery of constitutional governance is being systematically dismantled. [Continue reading…]