During a video appearance at a reunion of his former federal cost-cutting team, Elon Musk predicted that the country is at the start of a “great 12-year span” composed of the second Trump administration followed by two consecutive JD Vance terms.
Musk made the prognostication on Nov. 22 before current and former DOGE members gathered inside a Musk-owned, high-ceilinged building near his SpaceX and Boring Co. facilities in Bastrop, Texas, according to two attendees and another person familiar with the private event, all of whom were granted anonymity to discuss it candidly.
Musk dialed into the reunion at the Boring Bodega convenience store from what appeared to be a pitch-black, undisclosed location, the people said. He addressed roughly 150 current and former members of the DOGE team — the group Musk installed across federal agencies at the start of the Trump administration to slash federal spending and jobs — along with some of their family members who had flown in for the gathering.
Participants had their phones stored in security pouches until buses came to pick them up when the event concluded.
As attendees ate barbecue and fajitas at long Thanksgiving-themed tables, Musk told the room he opted against showing up in person because the news of the reunion was public. He said he believed he was among the top assassination targets in the country, behind only Trump and Vance.
In a characteristically wide-ranging and at times rambling set of remarks, Musk jumped from fears of civil conflict to the Kardashev scale [here], a theoretical measurement of a civilization’s technological advancement, to his argument for establishing a colony on Mars. He joked that Earth-launched missiles couldn’t reach Mars quickly, and that even if they did, the six-month travel time would give settlers plenty of time to prepare, drawing laughs from the room.
One attendee said Musk peppered his comments with references to science-fiction novels he had read, including Robert Heinlein’s “The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress,” about a lunar colony rebelling against Earth, and Isaac Asimov’s “Foundation” series.
A number of senior Musk lieutenants who were involved with DOGE including Steve Davis and Anthony Armstrong attended the gathering, where some DOGE alumni traded stories about living on the sixth floor of the GSA building in Washington while executing Musk’s cost-cutting directives.
Lambert here: Cost-cutting was the very last thing DOGE was about, especially considering they made no substantial cuts.
In a recent interview with Nikil Kamath, Musk reflected: “Generally I’ve found that when I get involved in politics, it ends badly.”
But Musk’s reunion, by nature, was about reconnecting with people who aided his political ambitions in Washington. And he is clearly looking as far ahead as 2032.
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