Let's start with the truly vacuous "Who elected Elon?" form of the question. No one elected Elon, of course, because Musk didn't run for office in the first place. However, Donald Trump did get elected with over 77.3 million votes, over two million more than Kamala Harris received. Trump got elected on the explicit mandate to overhaul and vastly reduce the bureaucracy -- "deep state," "swamp," choose your term -- and to use drastic action within his authority to accomplish the task in this term.

In fact, Trump explicitly promised to partner with Elon Musk to accomplish the task during the campaign. Musk endorsed Trump last year and also began to discuss the shape of what would eventually take the tongue-in-cheek label Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, which had been a long-running humorous meme on Twitter/X. Musk appeared at rallies to exhort voters to choose Trump's drain-the-swamp agenda over Harris' and Democrats' agenda, promising to assist in delivering on Trump's promise.

Voters may not have 'elected' Musk, but they voted for Trump in full knowledge that Musk would participate in his administration. 

Also worth noting: In the executive branch of the federal government, there are over 2 million people -- but only two of them are elected. The president and vice-president win election together, and everyone else works for them, whether they are civil-service employees or political appointees.  No one elected them either, and yet they have enormous power to regulate Americans and investigate them as well. Voters elect presidents to choose personnel in the executive branch that will follow his policies and priorities, and hold presidents accountable for the outcomes.

Furthemore, Trump has given Musk an advisory position in the White House. Presidents choose their advisors based on their own perceived needs. Most if not all such advisors are neither elected nor confirmed by the Senate, because they exist within the defined sphere of executive authority. No one elected or held a confirmation vote for Valerie Jarrett, Jake Sullivan, or for that matter Jill or Hunter Biden either. The Senate didn't confirm Ron Klain or Jeffrey Zients as Biden's chief of staff and main gatekeeper. The decision by Biden (?) to rely on them belonged to Biden alone, and existed within that same sphere of executive authority.

Earlier today, I quipped about the fact that no one elected Samantha Power to run the grossly corrupt USAID slush funds either -- but Power did get confirmed by the Senate. So let's talk about why some positions require Senate confirmation.

Cabinet officials and others than run agencies and bureaus require Senate confirmation for a reason. With a couple of traditional exceptions -- the Departments of State and Justice primarily -- those agencies have been granted some legislative authority by Congress. Confirmation is traditionally required for senior officials at all regulatory agencies because they operate under a grant of authority from both the executive and legislative branches. This is often called "agency law," and it has warped the constitutional balance, but it nonetheless exists. Confirmation is one way for Congress to exercise oversight over those functions, although they have other methods at hand when necessary, such as committee investigations in both chambers when necessary, and referrals to prosecutors when warranted. Even the Department of Defense operates within that paradigm, or did when Congress kept the sole constitutional authority to declare war to itself rather than pass the buck to the White House in the War Powers Act.

Power's position exists by statute enacted by Congress, and has as part of its functions the authority to direct congressionally appropriated funds to outside organizations without any other oversight.  Congress could have created the position without a requirement for Senate confirmation, but chose to impose that requirement. However, Congress hasn't the jurisdiction to require that with presidential advisors because Article II makes the president co-equal and separate from Congress. As such, presidents should receive advice and consultation from those they wish. Voters can hold presidents accountable for their performance and whether they follow bad advice.

But what about the US DOGE Service? First, Musk doesn't have a direct position at the USDS; he's officially working there as a Trump attaché and White House advisor. Even if Trump named Musk administrator of USDS, however, he still wouldn't need a confirmation vote by the Senate. Barack Obama created USDS as the US Digital Service in 2014, and none of its three previous administrators required Senate confirmation. Obama set up USDS outside of specific congressional oversight, although Congress has general jurisdiction through House Oversight and Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs committees. Biden made sure that the top position could remain a political appointee that answered only to the president. 

In fact, the previous administrator created a problem for the Biden team. In early 2022, the Project on Government Oversight objected to the waiver of conflict-of-interest restrictions for Mina Hsiang when Biden appointed her to take charge of the USDS:

In an open letter published Wednesday, the Project on Government Oversight (POGO) called on OMB Acting Director Shalanda Young to rescind the exceptions and take action to mitigate her conflicts of interest.

“Ms. Hsiang’s significant ongoing investments in tech companies do real harm to the American people by exposing government projects to the influence of an official who may have financial interests in them,” said the watchdog, which is led by former Director of Office of Government Ethics Walter Shaub.

According to the nonprofit’s analysis, Hsiang was granted waivers that exempt nearly all of her investments from a criminal conflict-of-interest law, as well as a waiver for an unspecified $950,000 hedge fund investment.

POGO in its letter also challenged the technique used by OMB to assess a financial interest held by Hsiang in her family’s holding company and raised concerns over the sale of a stake she held in artificial intelligence defense contractor Rebellion Defense after starting the new role in government.

Notably, Congress never even harrumphed over the potential for corruption and self-dealing. The Biden team ignored the conflict of interest, likely because they knew they could count on Hsiang to carry their water via the USDS' authority and reach throughout the entire federal government. That's something to bear in mind when critics accuse Musk -- the world's richest man -- of attempting to scour relative pennies from his work with the US DOGE Service. 

And finally, Musk is participating in what is an obviously legitimate executive action in assessing the way money is spent by the executive branch. Trump has clear authority for that task; in fact, refusing to exercise scrutiny would be a dereliction of duty. Congress could also perform that task, but the authority for scrutiny is not exclusive to the legislature, and the executive branch is better positioned to conduct it. In working with DOGE as an attaché, Musk is not a rogue outside operator but an advisor who is acting on behalf of the elected president -- no more, no less. 

This argument is vacuous beyond belief, for all of these reasons. But one has to wonder why transparency and scrutiny drives so many people into nutty and vapid retorts such as these. Or ... maybe it isn't such a wonder after all. 

Update: Just in case people don't believe that administrators as well as advisors can be hired by presidents without Senate confirmation, here's a profile of Hsiang as she was leaving USDS from NextGov shortly after the election. Emphasis mine:

Whoever fills the job could take on an important role in the organization if that top administrator post isn’t filled soon after the start of the new Trump administration — although the USDS head doesn’t require Senate confirmation and could be installed quickly, said Michelle Amante, vice president of federal workforce programs for the nonprofit Partnership for Public Service.

The coming administration may also have flexibility in terms of who takes the deputy spot, the Partnership told Nextgov/FCW, adding that technically, Hsiang could stay on if Trump chose to keep her, as Schedule C appointees serve at the pleasure of the president.

And there's also this:

In the Biden administration, the top role switched back to an appointee, albeit a different type of appointee than the Obama-era administrator. USDS also gained a new political appointee during the Biden administration called a senior advisor for delivery, per the records the government keeps on political appointees, called the Plum Book.

I'd bet that's the position Musk could be leveraging. And it means he can operate with Trump's authority within the jurisdiction of the USDS, which Biden and Obama made nearly plenary.