‘Circus monkey’: Elon Musk’s DOGE partner insulted him before landing Cabinet role

There are no friends or enemies in politics. It seems that logic applies to Vivek Ramaswamy, who will work together with Elon Musk at the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE).

Back in 2023 at “The TRUTH” podcast, Ramaswamy criticized Elon Musk for choosing to manufacture Megapack batteries in Shanghai. He said, “I have no reason to think Elon won’t jump like a circus monkey when Xi Jinping calls in the hour of need.” Ramaswamy assumes that all American CEOs are beholden to China. In this case, he thought that Tesla, Musk’s electric car company, was increasingly beholden to China.

The pharmaceutical billionaire went on to attack the electric vehicle (EV) movement. Ramaswamy believes that EVs make the United States “less competitive in fossil fuel” in both production and utilization. Not only did he call Musk “circus monkey” out of necessity, but he’s largely attacked Tesla’s business model as well.

United in gutting the government

None of these critiques matter anymore since Musk and Ramaswamy have an aligned goal to gut government spending. In turn, expect lax regulations on profiteering corporations. Ramaswamy even prefaced, “We expect certain agencies to be deleted outright.” This is just among his other promises to lay off thousands of federal workers in the name of saving money.

Donald Trump expects that the Ramaswamy-Musk duo can bring an “entrepreneurial approach” to government. This looks like a ton of power, but even the duo’s proposals need approval from Congress. To add insult to injury, despite Ramaswamy and Musk’s radical stances, DOGE will not be an official US agency. Rather, it will operate more like an advisory.

The biggest irony in all this is that Ramaswamy once thought Musk wouldn’t hesitate to become a circus monkey for Xi Jinping. Would it then be fair to assume Ramaswamy has joined Trump’s circus? At least he’ll be jumping around with Musk.