To the Editor:

There was a letter to the editor in the March 13 edition titled “We should be communicating and leaning on each other.”  A lot of what was said in the piece was spot-on. 

The main element — Mr. Trump’s restructuring of government — has been long overdue. How the restructuring is being done, however, is the controversy. And, what wasn’t communicated in the piece was the pace of the reconstruction, its lack of congressional oversight, its conflict of interest, and its cruelty.

Restructuring a large corporation takes months to execute. The complexity of the United States government dwarfs even the largest U.S. corporation. It is impossible to review and understand the workings of our government in the few months Mr. Musk and his team had before he started dismantling it. 

That was evident by the careless mistakes made when critical agencies were closed down only to be reopened again. Everyone makes mistakes — smart people do not make careless mistakes.

Running a corporation and running a government are entirely different. Corporations are created to provide a product or service. Their sole purpose is to make money.

To quote the Constitution, our government was created to “… establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity ….”

Agencies were created by Congress (an equal branch of government with the executive) and can only be dismantled by Congress. A Congress that is standing so far behind its legal and constitutional duties as to be invisible.

Mr. Musk’s companies have government contracts worth millions if not billions of dollars. And, he contributed approximately $300 million directly to Mr. Trump’s campaign.

How can there not be a conflict of interest? Imagine the outcry if Biden hired George Soros to do what Elon Musk is doing. The screams would be heard on the space station.

How many of you, or your relatives, or your friends have been told (with little or no notice) that they are fired — for no apparent reason?

If you were president, would you hire a 53-year-old man jumping around a stage swinging a chain saw to “restructure” government?

William Goergen

Guilderland