Behind the facade of the government efficiency efforts lead by the world’s richest man exists a vast network of government departments with missions ranging from pollution mitigation, banking regulation, consumer and employee protection, foreign aid, veteran healthcare, food safety, and on and on. Most Americans think of government as what they learned in high school; there are three branches and they offer checks and balances on each other. While true, that isn’t even a hyperbolic 30,000 foot view. Its more like a view from the moon. The inter-workings of government are complex and most Americans know little of how these systems work or, more importantly, why they are the way they are and how they got that way.

To those not on the inside, this effort to root out fraud, waste, and abuse, is sometimes seen as a shining achievement of Trump and Musk. And those who have worked in the federal service have stories from the inside. These folks are the silent class of American politics. People who just carry out marching orders and do the jobs assigned to them.

This podcast delves into the history of federal employment, how the federal government became so large, how it actually works, and what Elon Musk and those around him actually want.