Mr. Musk Goes to Washington

by Alex Miller

Multibillionaire Elon Musk, richest man in the world and CEO of Tesla, SpaceX and X, is trying his hand at a new venture of late:  remaking the US government with no more legal or constitutional authority than President Donald Trump’s say-so.  Musk’s romp through Washington bureaucracy is creating shockwaves across the US and the world, as each new day offers fresh revelations in his quest to cut federal spending by some $2 trillion, mostly at the cost of workers and aid programs.

Born 28 June 1971, Musk’s career path heretofore is easy to read in the stars.  Mercury (14 Cancer) conjunct asteroid Eros (10 Cancer) and his Ascendant (13 Cancer) shows Musk as passionate (Eros) about his ideas (Mercury), those “children” of the mind (also Mercury), with which he is so strongly identified, as his public image (Ascendant).  A square (90 degrees) to Uranus (9 Libra) suggests that borderline between genius and madness, conveying inventiveness and innovation, but also eccentricity and nonconformity (all Uranus keywords), as well as identifying his various entrepreneurial enterprises.  The Mercury/Uranus combination pairs well with electric (Uranus) cars (Mercury), a la Tesla; space (Uranus) travel (Mercury), as witness SpaceX; and unrestricted (Uranus) self-expression (Mercury), with Musk having removed guardrails and factchecking from Twitter after he purchased the social media giant in 2022 and renamed it X.

His foray into government is just as clear, with the right interpretive tools.  Mercury rests at the fulcrum of a T-Square pattern, formed of two points in opposition (180 degrees) to each other, with a third on their midpoint, squared to each.  In Musk’s case we see Mercury (ideas, plans, stratagems) reaching out to asteroids Washingtonia with Pandora (both at 16 Libra) and Whitehouse with Icarus (at 16 and 12 Aries respectively).  At a basic level, this shows Musk as the public face (Ascendant) of the administration (Whitehouse) policy (Mercury) to transform the federal government (Washingtonia), but note the qualifiers. 

Pandora is named for the mythic figure who allowed curiosity to get the better of her, opening a box she had been warned to keep closed, and thus unwittingly releasing all the ills of mankind.  It represents the unleashing of unintended consequences.  Icarus is named for another character unable to listen to good advice, the boy who fell from the sky to his death when he flew too close to the sun, despite his father’s warning, melting his waxen wings.  It represents rash, reckless acts heedless of the consequences.  Both myths conjure the image of foolish choices making a situation worse, or leading to disaster, which suggests the reduction of American soft power globally by eliminating foreign aid, or hollowing out the FBI, CIA and Justice Departments, leaving the US weakened and unprepared to face adversaries at home and abroad.  Musk’s cost-cutting measures now could lead to serious consequences later, in a modern rendering of “penny wise and pound foolish.”

US courts have already stepped in to slow Musk’s DOGE (Department of Government Efficiency, a meaningless Trump-crafted moniker designed to disguise the fact of its unofficial, extralegal status) bulldozer, prompted by suits filed by affected groups and individuals, leading to injunctions.  We can see this potential roadblock as Musk’s asteroid Justitia, named for the Roman goddess of justice and representing the courts, which is embedded at station in his birth chart, making it of signal importance in his life.  At 17 Scorpio, Justitia is trine (120 degrees) Mercury, a possible brake on Musk’s ambition.

Cover Title Image by Bulu Patel from Pixabay