Trump-Musk joint reforms and the American constitutional crisis

Recently, Nobel laureate in economics Paul Krugman described the series of chaotic “reforms” stirred up by Donald Trump and Elon Musk in the US as a “self-coup”. This term refers to a situation where the head of state attempts to expand executive powers by abolishing the constitution, dissolving or freezing other constitutional institutions such as legislative and judicial bodies, and engaging in other acts that violate constitutional order. Krugman felt that the US was experiencing a full-blown “constitutional crisis”, and that the erratic trade policies of the Trump administration were merely a smokescreen intended to distract the public from their “self-coup”.

On 8 February 2025, a ruling by New York district judge Paul Engelmayer thrust the US Treasury Department into the spotlight. The ruling prohibited the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) led by Musk from accessing the US Treasury Department’s payment system data, on grounds that there would be risks involved in the disclosure of sensitive information. Keen observers can see that this is but the tip of the iceberg in Washington’s power games.

Last year, Musk’s team revealed that more than US$100 billion in welfare payments from the US Treasury were directed annually to “ghosts” without social security numbers or even temporary identification. Up to half potentially involved fraud — akin to US$1 billion vanishing into thin air each week. According to an absurd example cited, the social security system allegedly has 12 “150-year-old elderly” receiving payouts, which makes no sense because the oldest living American is a mere 114.

These figures hint at a staggering chain of corruption. In Musk’s words “your tax dollars are being stolen”. A former US Department of Energy scientist apparently asked on social media why the Treasury turned a blind eye to US$50 billion being stolen annually; some netizens replied that it was probably because the Treasury was sharing the spoils.

This controversy began with the Trump-Musk “joint operation”. On 20 January, Trump swiftly established the DOGE and appointed Musk as its head, declaring a mission to cut government spending by US$3 billion daily. On the surface, this was done in a bid to improve efficiency, but its real target was the power base of the Democratic Party.

The first salvo hit the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), which has been accused of transferring 98% of Haiti earthquake aid funds into the family accounts of former Democratic President Bill Clinton and even allegedly funding groups linked to terrorism in Syria. Trump, who was impeached over the “Russiagate” scandal, felt particularly aggrieved as USAID was involved in his investigation. Now, leveraging Musk to shut USAID down is both an act of vengeance and a purging of adversaries.

More intriguing is Trump’s insinuation about US debt. Trump claimed that “maybe we have less debt than we thought”, hinting that some of it could be “fraudulent”. This statement prompted five former Democratic Treasury secretaries to collectively make a warning in The New York Times that this could lead to “a form of default”. However, Trump’s team quickly clarified that the issue only involved contractors, not bondholders. Behind this wordplay lies a fight to the death for fiscal control between the two political parties — if Trump can indeed prove fraud in US debt, the Democratic Party’s credit system could collapse instantly.

The Treasury’s messy accounts are just a microcosm of the corruption network in the US. Another scandal unearthed by Musk’s team is the Pentagon’s failure to pass its audit for seven consecutive years and inability to fully account for its more than US$824 billion budget. The market price of screws purchased by the military, for instance, is just a few dollars, but they were expensed at US$1,000. Coffee cups, meanwhile, were priced at over US$1,200, and toilet seats at a whopping US$10,000. Even F-35 fighter jet parts went missing, incurring losses worth millions of dollars. 

Behind these absurdities is the corrupt relationship between the military-industrial complex and politicians. During a congressional hearing, a Republican congressman once held up a bag of bushings and lambasted the fact that the military paid US$90,000 for what would normally cost the average American around US$100.

Even more disturbing is that corruption has seeped into matters of life and death. In 2012, US ambassador to Libya, Christopher Stevens, who was apparently investigating arms smuggling, was killed in an attack on the consulate. His calls for help went unanswered, and key documents disappeared. Similar incidents are not uncommon among US military procurement officers — some have died in car accidents while others have mysteriously disappeared. These “coincidences” are chilling: the cost of corruption extends far beyond mere money.

The Democrats are not taking this lying down, swiftly mounting a counterattack. Attorneys-general from 19 mostly Democratic-led US states have filed a lawsuit accusing Musk’s team of violating the constitution; federal judges have issued a series of injunctions, cutting off access to the data; while Democratic members of Congress confronted staff at the Education Department, demanding to know if they were working for Musk. Meanwhile, Republicans are leveraging the exposure of “corrupt expenditure” to gain public support, such as revealing that the USAID has funded a transgender clinic in India and a transgender opera in Colombia.

At its core, this battle is about who controls the financial lifeblood of the US. The Treasury’s payment system processes trillions of dollars annually, spanning Social Security, tax refunds, and military spending — it is essentially the nation’s coffers. Whoever controls it, controls the government. Democrats fear Trump will make use of audits to install loyalists and reshape the bureaucracy, while Republicans are trying to permanently brand their opponents as corrupt. The consequence of this all-out brawl is a deluge of calls from the public jamming congressional phone lines, pushing the system to the brink of collapse.

Musk sleeping next to a gun, Trump’s calls to “drain the swamp”, and the Democrats warning of a “constitutional crisis” — these scenes are reminiscent of the fractured society in the leadup to the Civil War. Historians point out that the US’s previous constitutional crisis was the catalyst for the Civil War. Now, the bipartisan confrontation has escalated from policy disagreements to a struggle for the very survival of the system.

The root of the problem lies in the fact that America’s corruption is no longer just isolated instances of individual greed but systemic decay. From the Treasury to the Pentagon, and from Social Security to military spending, interest groups and politicians have formed a “spoils alliance”, creating a breeding ground for “legal corruption”. Musk’s audit is like a surgeon’s scalpel that cuts open an abscess but also releases lethal toxins. When vested interest groups fight back, can the US’s political system withstand this storm?

Perhaps, as a Republican senator said, Musk should be given a medal, but the US is destined to be trapped in a vicious circle. The ultimate outcome of this audit storm might not be the end of corruption, but rather the complete shattering of the American myth.

While the audit storm initiated by Musk is ostensibly an anti-corruption campaign, it is in fact a concentrated outbreak of American political decay. When two parties are locked in a power struggle, judges urgently block the truth and the public loses faith in the system; the “city upon a hill” is now plunging into an abyss. If messy accounts are never examined, they remain mere numbers. But how should America choose if the cost of uncovering them is the tearing apart of the nation? The answer is perhaps long written in the bloodstains of history.

This article was first published in Lianhe Zaobao as ““特朗普—马斯克变法”与美国宪政危机”.

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