‘Right arm’ helps Elon Musk to streamline the US government

When Elon Musk bought Twitter in 2022, Steve Davis, one of his top assistants, focused on cutting costs at this company that he had to ask how much money on the service. Hygiene at the data center in Atlanta.

Davis, a company leader specializing in providing Boring tunnel construction and repair services owned by Musk, at that time tasked with cutting costs at Twitter. He became famous for always pressing the price of suppliers, quickly firing a series of senior leaders and making subordinates always insecure, according to former Twitter staff, now social network X. .

According to observers, the way Davis races to improve operational efficiency as well as cutting the apparatus at Twitter is like a “guide book” that is being applied to the US government streamlining campaign, when he becomes itself. Musk’s “right arm” to operate the Government performance committee (DOGE).

Anxiety has spread throughout the Government agencies in Washington when the world’s richest billionaire aggressively realized the commitment to cut the budget, streamlining the apparatus that President Donald Trump launched during the election campaign.

Doge’s “uncompromising” approach was evident through the fact that the Trump administration is coming to eliminate the US International Development Agency (USAID), a foreign aid organization with 10,000 employees and 40 budgets and budgets 40 billion dollars.

A USAID official said Davis and Musk were hard to promote this effort. Davis regularly contacted Peter Morocco, an official of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs who are directing USAID streamlining.

In fact, Davis’s outstanding role in Doge did not surprise those who used to work with him and Musk. Davis spent more than 20 years help cut costs at businesses like SpaceX, Boring and Twitter, making him the number one choice for Musk for a new role in Doge.

In 2003, when he was a spacecraft technical student at Stanford University, Davis was chosen by Musk to join SpaceX at a time when the manufacture of launchers can be reused is still very vague. .

According to the Biography of Elon Musk by Ashlee Vent published in 2015, he called the assistant teaching at Davis’s school to ask the names of new and unmarried graduates. Davis is in accordance with the request and starts to participate in the Falcon 1 booster development project in the Marshall Islands, sometimes sleeping in the tent right next to the rocket.

He later participated in Falcon 9 research, SpaceX’s main missile, and the Dragon Capsle spacecraft. When Musk gave Davis a budget of $ 5,000 to buy a $ 120,000 component, he made an unbelievable thing: the same component design for 9 months at a cost of only $ 3,900.

Davis has run Boring for more than 8 years, since Musk came up with the idea of ​​moving quickly underground while traffic jam in Los Angeles in late 2016. According to the former employees here, Mr. Hang is floating. The reputation is a savings. All expenses, no matter how small, must go through Davis’s desk. This made it difficult to approve everything but helped him keep the budget low.

Davis even browsed his own expenditures to several hundred dollars, which is considered abnormal for a company that has successfully mobilized about 800 million USD.

The two former Boring employees said Davis managed the company with extremely high requirements and constantly focused on efficiency.

“He hates wasting,” one said, “He wants to participate in all decisions.”

Davis also offers difficult conditions for products suppliers such as raw steel, sensors or even small items such as piping accessories. Davis’s preferred directive for employees when negotiating is: “Turn the problem and ask again.”

“Davis has proven all his efforts that he can do a lot with very little resources in hand,” a former Boring employee commented.

But the three of them worked with Davis to describe him sometimes quite “cruel” or cold. A former employee told Davis once scheduled to coincide with the 13th anniversary of this employee’s wedding. He refused to change the calendar, but then did not appear at the meeting.

When Musk acquired Twitter, no one other than Davis was the one who was chosen to participate in the process of taking over this social network platform.

Davis was so passionate about work that had a while, he slept at the Twitter office with his partner and their newborn child. A former X employee said Davis would call them at any time of the day, including night or weekend to discuss work.

Davis always focuses on collecting data to cut costs. In documents from the lawsuits submitted by former Twitter staff in 2023, Davis participated in many email discussions related to cuts. An email sent to Davis even has the title “Email for daily savings”.

Davis describes the determination to cut the costs and human resources in Twitter to satisfy Musk. In a meeting in 2022, Davis said the company would stop working with brokers to negotiate asset lease contracts to reduce costs. When asked the reason, Davis and other allies of Musk at the meeting said “Elon wants this”, as a lawsuit.

Davis asked Twitter vice president to be in charge of real estate, Tracy Hawkins tried to save $ 500 million a year. After Hawkins and her group warned Davis about financial risks when breaking the lease contract, such as unilateral compensation fee, Davis said, “We will not pay those amounts. Do not pay the landlord “.

When a Twitter staff told Davis that the company needs a construction permit to install a private bathroom next to Musk’s office, Davis rejected.

“We don’t do that. We don’t need to follow those rules,” he replied.

A former Twitter employee said the tactics often used by Davis is to stop payment to suppliers, forcing them to re -negotiate more beneficial terms to Twitter.

Some people then speculated that Davis would become Twitter CEO. But finally, he returned to Boring, where the main basis in Las Vegas and Bastrop, Texas, near Austin.

Here, he continued to strengthen his reputation as a super economical and strict boss.

Former employees still tell each other stories about them being able to fly back and forth between Austin and Las Vegas to deliver the necessary components, such as the sensor for the tunnel drill. Davis prefers to receive components of the day rather than transporting them through commercial services and must wait until the next day.

Once, the staff almost fell into a crisis when an important component was lost when coming to Las Vegas. The transport truck that Boring monitored remotely stopped for unknown reasons for many hours in Arizona. Faced with the pressure to meet the strict time of Davis, they paid a relative of an employee living near the area to find the car parked and urged the driver to move.

Some said Davis usually scheduled at 19h or later for engineers. He often participates from afar. A person often talked to Davis by phone that he always tried to do many things at the same time in meetings, eating and calling.

Multitasking seems to be a characteristic associated with Davis from student days. While studying PhD at George Mason University in Fairfax, Virginia, Davis still works full time at SpaceX and owns a yogurt shop called Mr. Yogato at Dupont Circle, Washington. Alex Tabarrok, former professor of Davis, still remembered how the student managed to manage with all kinds of different roles.

“I told him, ‘I am studying a doctorate, I can’t work for the company and run a business at the same time. Focus on taking a doctorate diploma,” said Professor Tabarrok, “said Professor Tabarrok. .

But Davis did not give up any goals. He brought the business trend at Mr. Yogato into an academic article and bringing yogurt to class for you to taste. Tabarrok does not remember Davis’s point, but says this person is quite prominent.

“He has a lot of strong energy and spirit of business,” he said. “It is interesting to see that he becomes the most reliable ‘right arm’ of Elon.”