| This is Bloomberg Opinion Today, the freelancing commissar of Bloomberg Opinion's opinions. On Sundays, we look at the major themes of the week past and how they will define the week ahead. Sign up for the daily newsletter here. Almost as soon as we found out that Elon Musk would be running a job-slashing entity with the nifty acronym DOGE, the wags in the press flooded us with hackneyed analogies between the richest man in the world and the former leaders of the richest republic of medieval Europe, the city-state of Venice. From 697 to 1797, Venetians elected, through an almost unfathomably intricate process [1] , a doge: a lifetime position charged with keeping the oligarchy fat and happy. One of the few quality efforts was by the economic journalist Tim Harford, who identified several lessons Musk might take from his Adriatic predecessors: trade makes you wealthy; military strength keeps the riches flowing; armed forces require physical infrastructure; and governance matters. If he's right, things don't bode well for a Donald Trump administration that is dead set on blocking trade, eviscerating the military leadership, slashing infrastructure spending, and devising some magic formula in which chaos and governance are synonymous. But Venice wasn't the only Italian society with a doge — Genoa, less sexy but equally powerful in maritime trade, had one for centuries as well. The first of these Genoese rulers is a more apt cautionary tale for the richest man in the world. The wealthy merchant Simone Boccanegra took office in 1339 in a populist groundswell, only to be deposed half a dozen years later. And while the actual man has largely faded from history, a fictional version remains for posterity in the form of Giuseppe Verdi's three-act opera Simon Boccanegra. First performed in 1857, it was a convoluted, demanding piece of work and a box-office flop [2] . All of which brings up two important questions. First, who got the cooler hat: the doge of Venice or the doge of Genoa?  Left: Leonardo Loredan, doge of Venice, by Giovanni Bellini (1501). Right: Agostino Spinola, doge of Genoa, by Giovanni Enrico Vaymer (1681). Source: Wikimedia commons The second comes from Justin Fox: "What if all DOGE's work turns out to barely make a dent in federal spending?" Consider these facts: The civilian employee payroll accounts for just 4% of federal spending; contracts by nondefense agencies are 5% of federal spending; discretionary outlays have gone from three-quarters of federal spending in the early 1960s to around a quarter today; nondefense discretionary spending, the main target of DOGE, was just 14.9% of federal spending in the 2023 fiscal year.  And that's before we get to the $314 billion elephant in the room. "There's this guy named Elon Musk who is one of the most successful entrepreneurs of our age, who has made his mark not with some dumb app but by manufacturing actual cars and rockets," writes Justin. "But there's also somebody with the handle @elonmusk who spends an inordinate amount of time on a dumb app called X (formerly Twitter), where he comes across as incurious, poorly informed, belligerent and desperately hungry for attention. Putting the first guy in charge of making the federal government more efficient seems risky but maybe worth it. Allowing the second anywhere near a position of authority in Washington seems like asking for a train wreck." Or for a nothingburger. "For all the chaos and confusion the Department of Government Efficiency has caused, it has so far saved the government nothing," the Editors write. "A report from the Congressional Budget Office found that federal outlays increased by 7% in February compared to last year, while the deficit grew by 5%. Supporters insist that DOGE just needs time. Don't buy it: Only Congress, not freelancing commissars, can make lasting changes to federal spending."  Liam Denning thinks the Trump-Musk "co-presidency" isn't immune to a job cut either. "Musk's proximity to the president provided an initial boost to his fortune, taking it to almost $500 billion in mid-December, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index. The subsequent slump to $314 billion reflects, in part, the corrosive effect of that proximity on Tesla's brand," writes Liam. "Indications surfaced last week that Musk's slash-and-burn approach to government efficiency is also angering some in Trump's cabinet. Put together, these are the first hints of trouble in the defining relationship of our current politics." Tesla stock may be tanking, but that "defining relationship" may be giving Musk's other companies a shameless advantage. "A conflict too blatant to ignore has surfaced between Space Exploration Technologies Corp., Musk's startup known as SpaceX, and the Federal Aviation Administration, which regulates SpaceX," writes Thomas Black. "The move undercuts the whole argument that Musk has no need nor interest in taking advantage of his position as Trump's right-hand man to further his business interests, and even fans of DOGE should urge Musk to back off." If the president won't rein in Kekius Maximus, Adrian Wooldridge thinks America's business leaders should grow a spine. Case in point was DOGE's firing of a handful of federal inspectors general who conduct audits and weed out fraud, a classic example of minute savings and Maximus risk. "Trump might argue that we no longer need the IGs because DOGE is doing a much better job of going after fraud and abuse. But DOGE is an opaque body, beholden to one man, Elon Musk, which seems to be more interested in eliminating woke ideology than in traditional metrics of efficiency," writes Adrian. "All these boring rules and unglamorous organizations have played an important part in making business great. Business has both a moral and a practical obligation to save them from destruction." So, should we be cynical about stopping an autocratic regime, or hopeful that a mix of disappointed populists and business elites can come together to end the rancor and chaos? History might give us some optimism. You'll be pleased to know Simone Boccanegra (the real one) made a political comeback, regaining his position of power 1356, a victory for Genoa's common merchants over the old aristocracy. Verdi, for his part, revised the opera into a smash hit in 1881 — adding the famous scene in which Simon Boccanegra (the fictional one) throws open the doors of the council chamber to the masses, urging "Plebeians! Patricians! People with a ferocious history!" to make peace among themselves after decades of acrimony and turmoil. We should be so lucky. Bonus Death by a Thousand Cuts Reading: What's the World Got in Store? It's Rate Week everybody — woot woot! - Fed decision, March 19: Latest Inflation Readings Put the Federal Reserve in a Bind — Jonathan Levin
- Japan decision, March 19: Use the Bogeyman to Confront Japan's Defense Taboos — Gearoid Reidy
- UK decision, March 20: Britain Needs a Housing Boom. Here's How — The Editorial Board
Say what you will about Musk, but you have to respect his range of ambition: Electric cars! Internet satellites! Space rockets! Brain chips! Hyperloops! X Æ A-Xii! [3] Bringing Grok to Everyone! He also wants to send you to Mars. Sales pitch: "Gravity on Mars is about 38% of that of Earth, so you would be able to lift heavy things and bound around." Sorry, this hairbrained scheme seems about as likely to work as his plan to send you from SF to LA in less time than it takes to get to the front of the line at Trader Joe's. Plus, it's a dumb way to spend your money, says Lara Williams: "Last week, science delivered a really cute experimental result. Researchers created a 'colossal woolly mouse,' a fluffy rodent that's purported to be a step on the way to resurrecting woolly mammoths from the age of dinosaurs. But that project — along with Elon Musk's obsession with establishing a colony on Mars — makes me wonder: Wouldn't the enthusiasm and resources be better devoted to protecting the animals and planet we already have?" The woolly-headed company behind this mammoth mistake, Dallas-based Colossal Biosciences, is a startup valued at $10 billion. Where could that kind of money be better spent? F.D. Flam has a list: - Build Biosphere 3!
- Save an Ecosystem!
- Solve the Seed Bank Problem!
- Cloning in the Public Interest!
But the one that interests me most is: Adopt an Even More Colossal Creature! [4] "The North Atlantic right whale can weigh more than 10 mammoths. Fewer than 400 of these colossal mammals remain," writes F.D. "Protecting them might be expensive, though cheap, compared to cloning a mammoth. NOAA recently scrapped an initiative to spare right whales by slowing boat traffic because it would have been costly. Whales also get caught by fishing gear, especially lobster and crab traps. With enough money, this equipment can be designed to be safe for the whales." Besides, as F.D. points out, some scientists say a modern-day Mammuthus primigenius— born of an egg injected with stitched-together DNA, gestated in a female elephant — wouldn't really be a mammoth, but a "mammoth-like animal." A sort of Woolly Frankenmammoth. What would inspire anyone to invest in such a venture? One backer, Laetitia Garriott de Cayeux, has explained that she sought some advice from a friend. You guessed it: Elon Musk. Notes: Please send colossal rodents and feedback to Tobin Harshaw at tharshaw@bloomberg.net. | 
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