Elon Musk claims DOGE firings will boost American manufacturing. But who will really be working in these factories?

Last Friday, Elon Musk tweeted a grand unifying theory for America’s path to prosperity. “We need to shift people from low- to negative-productivity jobs in government to high-productivity jobs in manufacturing,” he wrote on X, combining DOGE’s Rapture-style approach to downsizing the federal workforce and the supposed reshoring goals of Trump’s tariffs.

Musk is so fond of this theory, in fact, he has tweeted some variation of it at least eight times since November’s election. All that repetition, however, has not yet rendered the logic behind the concept any more sound. Musk’s belief that the DOGE firings will create a manufacturing labor force conveniently disregards so many contradictions, no amount of tweeting could make it any less absurd. He might as well whisper the plan into a seashell.

For starters, classifying all government positions as “low- to negative-productivity jobs” in contrast with factory workers is a gross generalization. Whether it’s inspired by Musk’s boundless contempt for Big Government or just a product of his startup-world efficiency mindset, it’s wildly off base. 

If it were true, the FDA’s health regulators, who review medical devices and tobacco products, wouldn’t be struggling in the absence of their recently laid-off coworkers, which they are. The remaining IRS agents wouldn’t be predicting tax compliance will fall this year due to people trying to slip more risky filings past a slashed workforce, which they might. And even if Musk were indeed right about the government employing far more loafers than the average business, if DOGE had any real insight into which workers were the worst offenders, they wouldn’t repeatedly scramble to hire back fired workers, which they have.

Looking through the lens of Musk’s “low- to negative-productivity” assessment clarifies why he may have demanded federal employees send emails listing five things they accomplish each week. In this light, the weekly dispatch becomes an effort to “prove” a vast productivity deficit—as though a smoothly functioning government wasn’t proof of the opposite. Taking a giant leap, though, and assuming Musk has correctly diagnosed as terminally unproductive almost everyone in Human Health Services, the Social Security Administration, and other crucial departments, why are those specific people prime candidates for the manufacturing sector? 

Some of the many newly unemployed government accountants, analysts, and researchers will find other work easily. Others may struggle to land their next jobs. The chances are less than slim, though, that a majority of them will have nowhere to go but a hypothetical iPhone factory in Milwaukee. It seems like a misguided revenge fantasy against members of the regulating agencies Musk has long complained about throttling innovation, from the Securities and Exchange Commission (FEC) to the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA). Now, he can—at least in theory—condemn some of those agencies’ white-collar workers to lives of manual labor.

Relatively few Americans, though, actually want to work in a factory. According to the Financial Times, recent polling shows that 80% of Americans think the country would be better off with more manufacturing jobs, but only 25% of Americans think that they, personally, would be better off in such jobs. (Good news for everyone who makes up that 25%: The U.S. currently has more open manufacturing jobs than it can fill.)

Just for argument’s sake, though, assuming a significant number of laid-off government workers either did want manufacturing jobs or had no viable alternatives, there is no guarantee that the Great Reshoring will ever come to pass. As much as insiders like Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick appear convinced Trump’s tariffs will bring manufacturing jobs back, others are skeptical of whether that’s even the goal. Senator Chris Murphy, for instance, recently told Fast Company that he thinks Trump is using tariffs “to force industries and companies to come bend the knee to him and cut deals with him that benefit him politically.”

Considering it might take years for companies to establish the necessary infrastructure for domestic manufacturing, and in an environment where economic policy often seems dictated on a whim, companies may seek alternate workarounds for the tariffs. Faced with the prospect of moving manufacturing to America, many companies will simply diversify manufacturing out of China. Apple, for instance, has been moving more and more iPhone production from China to India and Vietnam over the past year, and Walmart has been sourcing more from India as well. Smaller companies grappling with the current 145% tariffs on China will likely follow suit.

Playing devil’s advocate, though, let’s assume a sizable portion of U.S. companies do commit to reshoring and that thousands of former government workers show up at those HR offices, hat in hand. A lot of those “high-productivity jobs in manufacturing” that Musk is fond of mentioning are already earmarked for AI. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent confirmed as much last week during an appearance on Tucker Carlson’s show.

Asked by the host whether the U.S. has the necessary labor force for a hypothetical transition back into manufacturing, Bessent said the following: “I think we do. I think with AI, with automation, with so many of these factories . . . they’re going to be smart factories. I think we’ve got all the labor force we need.”

Nothing makes Musk’s line about shifting government workers to high-productivity jobs seem more like a sneering troll than Bessent claiming U.S. factory jobs are the province of robots. Perhaps it’s time Musk shifted to a higher probability pipe dream. 

https://www.fastcompany.com/91317251/elon-musk-claims-doge-firings-will-boost-american-manufacturing-factories?partner=rss&utm_source=rss&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=rss+fastcompany&utm_content=rss