Matilda Ziegler
Since Donald Trump’s second inauguration on January 20, 2025, Elon Musk has been condemned by numerous public figures, including Jamie Raskin, who represents Maryland’s 8th District. Raskin argues that Musk is guilty of gross overreach, and he is acting as though he has the power of one of the three branches of government, even going so far as to refer to Musk as “the fourth branch of government.”
According to NPR, Musk, who, along with Ramaswamy, is the unelected head of the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), has been making sweeping changes to the United States government in order to “cut government spending.”
However, many of Musk’s actions fly in the face of the principle of “the Social Contract,” which is the Enlightenment-era Lockean idea that governments must have the consent of their citizens in order to carry out actions. Locke, according to The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, believed people are “by nature free and equal,” and they enter into “social contracts” with their government, giving up a small portion of their freedom in exchange for protection and an orderly society.
However, all such actions must be carried out with the consent of the governed, not simply at the whims of an unelected official. According to Rutgers University, the Framers used the theories of “the Social Contract” and the consent of the governed in order to develop the United States Constitution.
While the 2024 official platform of the Republican Party claims it has a commitment to “upholding the Constitution of the United States,” Elon Musk, the new, unelected “Fourth Branch of Government,” has carried out many actions that are blatantly unconstitutional.
According to Harvard Law School, the United States Constitution states the Legislative Branch, not Elon Musk, holds what is colloquially referred to as “the power of the purse.” Despite this, Musk has taken it into his own hands as the head of DOGE to defund the United States Agency of International Development (USAID), which, in 2024, provided 42% of the world’s humanitarian aid.
According to Business Insider, Vivek Ramaswamy, who, along with Musk, heads DOGE, has stated that DOGE plans to “delete” entire government agencies. Such an action would be an unprecedented power grab and would fly in the face of both the principle of the consent of the governed and the United States Constitution itself.
Another constitutional problem with Elon Musk’s various power grabs is the issue of enumerated powers. Musk’s powers were not given to him by the Constitution, but rather by Donald Trump. In McCullough v. Maryland, Chief Justice John Marshall recognized the Constitution provides specific powers to specific branches of government, and each branch should only exercise the powers specifically enumerated to them.
It is important to realize Musk would not only be committing gross overreach if he were to compose a branch of government, but Musk is not the fourth branch of government. It sets a dangerous example for a president to bestow this much power upon an unelected individual, and the people of the United States must peacefully stand up against the setting of this dangerous precedent.
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