Part 3/11:
Waste at Scale: Billion-Dollar Insults
The scale of waste is staggering. Musk cites a simple example: government-funded online surveys costing nearly a billion dollars—despite being trivial and often resultless. These are indicative of broader mismanagement, such as the Navy’s misallocation of $12 billion for nonexistent submarine orders or the existence of a Pennsylvania mine housing hundreds of thousands of paper retirement records dating back to the 1950s, delaying retirements by months. These inefficiencies cause hindered operations, delays, and billions in unnecessary expenses.