[majormajor]

Musk is interested in money and power. Not science.

His interest in money has led him to beliefs that he gets the most money if he cuts as aggressively as possible and pushes others to do as much as they can for as little as they will take. "Efficiency" to protect him from things like taxes or regulation, at the expense of anyone else's desire to not be cut to the bone.

And he's getting power by making a trade - he gets Republican approval by cutting a Federal workforce that right-wingers have long complained about. In exchange they give him power. So even if those cuts don't make a material dent on the national budget or debt, he'll have taken advantage of that power to make a few specific actions to benefit him personally.

Look at the difference between how he talks about space and how NASA does, say. Mars? Not science, not research, but just a place to plant a colony beholden to him that he can tax (without using those words) as much as he wants.