Griffin on Tech: Back to the business of being Elon, Welly’s tech-led revival
Well, it finally happened. The bromance that launched a thousand memes, inspired a thousand think pieces, and forced thousands of US government employees to update their résumés is over.
Elon Musk and Donald Trump have officially parted ways, and Washington, D.C. just got a little less weird—and a lot more relieved.
Just a few months ago, Musk was Trump’s golden boy, the “disruptor-in-chief” handpicked to lead the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE). Musk was everywhere, swinging a metaphorical chainsaw at federal agencies, and gleefully promising to cut US$2 trillion in waste. (Spoiler: He hasn’t got close—US$150 billion was the final tally before he departed, and even that’s being generous.)
The DOGE days are over
The Musk-Trump alliance was always more show than substance, but probably lasted longer than most expected. It was the “Big, Beautiful Bill,” Trump’s legislative magnum opus, that ended it. Musk that trashed as a “massive spending bill” that ballooned the deficit and “undermined the work” of DOGE. As Musk’s biographer Walter Isaacson told CNBC this week, Musk “was going to get frustrated, because he doesn’t own the federal government. The only thing that would ever surprise me about Elon Musk would be if he bit his tongue.”
The previous day, the White House was “offboarding” Musk, and he was posting his farewell on X, thanking Trump for the opportunity to “reduce wasteful spending” and assuring everyone that DOGE would “only strengthen over time” (which is exactly what you say when you’re leaving a project in shambles and hoping nobody notices).
Washington’s whipping boy
Musk’s stint in Washington will be remembered less for its accomplishments and more for its chaos. DOGE became D.C.’s “whipping boy,” and Musk’s companies, especially Tesla, became targets for protests and vandalism, even as far away as Wellington’s Ngauranga Gorge where the Tesla dealership was coated with anti-Musk graffiti. Even Musk’s most bullish supporters started to question whether the world’s richest man was spreading himself too thin.
Once hailed as the “unelected co-president,” Musk now finds himself on the outside looking in, his grand plans for government reform reduced to a footnote in the Trump administration’s ongoing circus.
Back to the Business of Being Elon
So, what’s next for Musk? He’s doing what he does best: retreating to his companies and promising to be “super focused” on X, xAI, Tesla, and, of course, SpaceX’s Starship—because nothing says “I’m over my government phase” like launching rockets and sleeping in the office again. Tesla investors, who have been begging Musk to spend 40 hours a week actually running the company, are breathing a sigh of relief, though whether Musk’s return will save Tesla from its sales slump is another question entirely.
The DOGE initiative will limp on, a monument to what happens when you let a tech billionaire play government for a few months.
Can tech save Wellington?
Meanwhile, a group of successful and influential tech entrepreneurs gathered on a rainy Wellington evening last night to float their ideas for how Wellington can reclaim its crown as the startup capital and use tech to revive the city’s flagging fortunes.
It was the latest in a series of talks hosted by the organisation Vision for Wellington, run by a group of prominent Wellingtonians disillusioned with the current political leadership of the country. The group has been written off by many as a right-leaning activist group reflecting the views of the wealthy elite.
But having attended three of these events, I haven’t seen a political agenda on display, just a desire to reclaim something the city used to have - a healthier economy, more vibrant cultural scene, and more united leadership. Whether that is possible is an open question, but Xero co-founder Rod Drury, Sharesies co-founder Rod Drury, startup investor Serge van Dam, and Victory University’s professor of strategy and innovation, Stephen Cummings, certainly had lots of interesting ideas about how tech can be a catalyst for change.
Those ideas spanned everything from the need to attract more young talent to the city, be more deliberate about what areas of tech we want to lead in, find ways for Wellingtonians to more easily invest in Wellington startups, and improve the connectivity between our universities, startups and the business community.
"Let's own that identity,” Roberts advised. “We're not trying to create Silicon Valley, we're carving our own David, using what we've got, shaping a new global symbol for what creativity and innovation can be." As background, Roberts has been going deep on Renaissance art and history and was surprised to learn that Leonardo Da Vinci carved his famous statue not from the most pristine, high-quality marble, but a fairly average chunk which was all he was able to get his hands on.
Drury recounted his early student days in Wellington and suggested the capital is the best place for young people to live and to launch a career.
"Every 20-year-old should come and spend two years in Wellington. We're an asset-light city where you don't need a car, everyone lives around the outside, and the culture of how you can meet people is just so easy," he said.
Serge van Dam put his finger on our funding problem, with precious little New Zealand wealth going into high growth companies.
"We've got $200 billion of Kiwis' money sitting there being managed, and point two of 1% of that is going to great assets like startups," he pointed out.
Cummings admitted that the university hadn’t been as connected to the business community as it could have been, but pointed to the new Taiawa tech co-working space on the Pipitea campus as an example of green shoots in the local tech ecosystem.
One theme emerged - the covid pandemic was brutal for the city, disrupting that ecosystem, changing the shape of government and increasing inequality in the city. Out tech leaders have lots of compelling ideas about how to tackle those issues. Less clear, for now, is how they can progress their vision for the city.
One thing’s for sure, Musk’s Washington experience shows the pitfalls of tech moguls getting too close to politics. Wellington Council is not a startup and there are a wide range of views on how the city should attempt a recovery. But its refreshing to see the energy and creativity from tech leaders who, lets face it, are still here because they love the city.
