Elon Musk's Silicon Valley Fail-fast Ethos Is Clashing With Washington

President Donald Trump and Elon Musk are taking a distinctly tech-sector mindset to reshaping the federal government: Cut first, then see what breaks.

It’s an approach deeply rooted in Silicon Valley’s “fail fast” ethos that encourages rapid iteration without being certain whether the experiment will work. Musk, the world’s wealthiest person who has become a top adviser to Trump, has long championed the philosophy. “Failure is an option here. If things are not failing, you’re not innovating enough,” he told Fast Company in 2005.

But that ethos doesn’t always play in Washington.

“It’s a lot easier to crash an unmanned rocket when you’re spending other people’s money,” said Nu Wexler, a former Capitol hill staffer who has worked at Google and Twitter. “Musk has had great success in the private sector by exercising complete control over his companies. But it’s difficult, if not impossible, to replicate that in government.”

This week offered the latest example, as some of Trump’s appointed agency leaders told government workers to ignore Musk's demands that they justify their jobs in emails detailing their work product, in part because those who worked in national security jobs risked compromising government secrets.

The ensuing confusion has still not been resolved but Musk appeared unfazed Wednesday as he repeated the demand during a cabinet meeting with the president.

It’s part of a larger clash of cultures emerging, nearly six weeks into Trump’s second term, between Silicon Valley and Washington, as the government employees charged with implementing Musk's directives begin to realize that unlike a tech startup, the government can’t simply reboot when a critical function collapses.

In the tech start-up world, as many as three quarters to 90 percent of businesses fail, according to some estimates. That figure is acceptable because hitting the next Tesla or Facebook can be so lucrative. But government has long been averse to that kind of risk because it is responsible for essential public services — some life or death — for hundreds of millions of Americans.

“When you have a tech company, every day you’re failing because you’re trying to bring something that doesn't exist into existence,” said a former Trump official turned tech entrepreneur, granted anonymity to speak freely. “In government, you’re just trying to deliver legally guaranteed services to the public. You can’t fail. You have to succeed slowly.”

Even within Musk's Department of Government Efficiency initiative, some technologists are pushing back.

This week, 21 DOGE staffers resigned, writing in a joint letter: “We will not use our skills as technologists to compromise core government systems, jeopardize Americans’ sensitive data, or dismantle critical public services.”

Many of them began their careers in Silicon Valley before entering government. But even they have grown skeptical that Musk’s aggressive downsizing approach will lead to meaningful efficiency.

“Experience in the private sector does not always translate to domain expertise in a government context,” DOGE employee Steve Leibman wrote in a lengthy email response to the Office of Personnel Management’s request for five bullet points, which he published on his LinkedIn page.

Leibman was the engineering lead for the development of the IRS Direct File system, a free electronic tax return filing system that Musk has targeted.

In some agencies, Musk’s blunt-force approach isn’t just disruptive; it could have fatal consequences.

At the Federal Aviation Administration, a senior aviation safety official granted anonymity for fear of retaliation warned that their unit — which conducts some of the 8,000 congressionally mandated investigations across the country — is losing critical expertise as senior managers take buyout offers or retire early rather than ride out DOGE’s upheaval.

“It’s scary, especially at a time when manufacturers, maintenance shops and airlines are feeling the financial pinch too,” the FAA official said. “Aviation safety inspectors are already in short supply and now we’re losing some of the most experienced people.”

His team not only conducts investigations but also analyzes them to identify risks in maintenance procedures, approach protocols, airport congestion, unapproved aircraft parts and pilot fatigue. Their work helps prevent future accidents.

A park ranger for the National Park Service told POLITICO they discovered Tuesday night while packing for a patrol trip that their satellite phones were no longer working after the government purchase cards that were used to pay for them were paused.

“Everyone wants to do a great job, but we can’t without safety equipment. Without patrol, visitors have no support out here in backcountry,” the park ranger said.

Meanwhile, at the Food and Drug Administration, the Trump administration is backpedaling on some of its terminations, reinstating workers in the agency’s medical devices division after realizing they were responsible for approving and monitoring the safety of life-saving equipment like pacemakers and defibrillators.

Others who were fired and reinstated include U.S. Department of Agriculture employees who were working on the federal bird flu response and National Nuclear Security Administration employees, who oversee U.S. nuclear weapons.

The White House is standing firmly behind Musk.

“There is no reason why a CEO’s approach cannot work in the nation’s capital,” White House spokesperson Harrison Fields said. “The majority of Americans would rather have CEOs running the show than career bureaucrats.”

After a chaotic first wave of mass firings, the Trump administration has slowed its pace in some areas, acknowledging the risks of gutting critical agencies without a backup plan. Officials promised to scrutinize layoffs more carefully, with one White House official telling POLITICO that Trump’s team is now “double-, triple- and quadruple-checking” before firing personnel.

But experts warn that the structural damage may already be done.

“We don't have a process if government fails,” said Cary Coglianese, the Edward B. Shils Professor of Law at the University of Pennsylvania. “If people no longer get the cancer treatments that are going to prolong their life, if communicable diseases start spreading because nobody can track them or trust government information anymore, there's not a backstop for it.”