Rep. Greg Casar (D-Texas) got a big response when he said “fire Elon Musk” into a bullhorn at a rally outside the U.S. Department of Labor in February.
It was cold, cloudy and several other Democrats had already spoken, but the crowd of worried federal workers cheered loudly for the idea of firing Musk, the architect of President Donald Trump’s efforts to gut the federal workforce, and did a little call-and-response chant with Casar.
It was a moment of clarity for the second-term Democrat and new chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus.
“In that moment, when there were just hundreds of union workers who just couldn’t stop chanting and yelling and stomping their feet after I said just those three words, after that, I knew that this is the direction we all had to go,” Casar told HuffPost.
(The only lawmaker who got a louder response that day was Rep. Robert Garcia (D-Calif.). His applause line? “Fuck Elon Musk.”)
Musk has done a remarkable job causing unnecessary chaos in federal agencies while shredding his own public image, with national polls putting him 10 points less popular than the president, and his high-profile intervention on behalf of a Republican candidate seemingly helping a Democrat win a Wisconsin Supreme Court race earlier this month.
Democrats weren’t always united around villainizing Musk, who, not too long ago, was an admired figure known more for building space-age cars and rockets than for sharing conspiracy theories and blindly slashing critical government programs. Now, he’s a critical part of their plans for seemingly every race between now and the midterm elections, 19 months away.
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But there’s a potential hiccup on the horizon: Musk’s relevance could decline sooner rather than later. For one thing, he’s a temporary employee of the White House, and DOGE is supposed to wrap up by next July, according to Trump’s executive order establishing his “18-month DOGE Agenda.” Trump has hinted at Musk’s eventual departure, Musk has been feuding with Trump’s trade advisor over tariffs, the president’s signature economic policy, and the White House has pulled back on Musk’s controversial anti-fraud work at the Social Security Administration.
Musk is unlikely to disappear completely ― his social media usage is borderline compulsive and he’s already suggested he wants to spend $100 million more backing Trump’s agenda ― but the tariff-centric past week has shown how quickly even the world’s richest man who also happens to be a top White House adviser can disappear from the news cycle.
“There is some concern in some quarters that Trump’s going to kick him to the curb, and then we spent all this time sort of building this guy up as a focal point, but he’s gone,” Glenn Ivey (D-Md.) told HuffPost.
Ivey said Trump himself, and the economic damage he’s doing with tariffs are fine targets for Democrats: “We just need to kind of remind people it’s there and kind of point it out.”
Rep. John Larson (D-Conn.) is a veteran lawmaker who has served in the House since 1999. He remembers the second-term overreach of a previous Republican president, George W. Bush, whose bid to privatize Social Security propelled Democrats to a massive victory in the 2006 House midterm elections. Rather than pick a villain, Larson said Democrats should maintain their focus on Trump’s threats to Social Security and federal health programs.
“The very things that they’re after in trying to attack Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid are going to remain the core base ― that is the numero uno Democratic policy, the banner issue of which Franklin Delano Roosevelt took us out of the Depression into modern day politics,” Larson said.
Musk’s DOGE team has caused havoc at the Social Security Administration and pushed for mass layoffs at the Department of Health and Human Services, which oversees Medicare and Medicaid. Trump has vowed not to support actual benefit cuts in those programs, but Democrats have staged multiple press conferences to highlight the turmoil, especially at Social Security, and insisted it’s all a prelude to privatization.
Now, even lawmakers such as Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.) and Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), who had praised the prospect of Musk taking on government waste, especially in the bloated defense budget, told HuffPost they’re disappointed in his “Department of Government Efficiency” project.
“If the goal is to combat waste, inefficiency and bureaucracy, that is a noble goal,” Sanders said. “The way DOGE has operated is totally illegal, outrageous, and counterproductive. What they’re doing now to Social Security, to the Veterans Administration, is totally disgraceful.”
But Khanna still doesn’t agree with making Musk into a villain, saying, “We should keep it to the issues.” Other rank-and-file Democrats have their doubts, too. Rep. Seth Moulton (D-Mass.) said Democrats need “a positive vision for the future” and to admit they were wrong about border security during Joe Biden’s presidency.
Casar said Democrats should get off their old Social Security talking points. In his view, there’s no replacement for a good villain.
“If we’re willing to say, ‘Fire Elon Musk, because he’s stealing Social Security dollars to enrich himself, and after we fire Elon Musk, we need start taxing billionaires like him so we can expand Social Security for every single senior In this country,’ then people might actually hear us,” Casar said.
The preference for a more combative public relations strategy is common among younger Democrats like Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (N.Y.) and Jasmine Crockett (Texas), and a contrast with former president Joe Biden’s nostalgic musings about his friendships with Republican senators.
If Musk does go away, Casar said Democrats would celebrate the win and remind voters at the midterms, much like they did before retaking the House in 2018 in Trump’s first term.
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“When Democrats saved the Affordable Care Act during the first Trump administration, we still were able to campaign on the fact that we saved the Affordable Care Act when Republicans were trying to take people’s health care away,” Casar said. “If we fire Elon Musk, we’re still gonna be able to say that, yeah, we’re against billionaires stealing your money for themselves.”