Inside Elon Musk’s ‘Digital Coup’

As America’s most decorated civil servants sipped cocktails in the presidential ballroom of the Capital Hilton, worrying about their table assignments and wondering where they fell in the pecking order between US senator and UAE ambassador, Elon Musk sat staring at his phone, laughing. Few of the guests at the Alfalfa Club banquet in Washington, DC, on January 25 knew what he knew: that a crew of senior executives and young Musk loyalists was preparing to occupy the top offices of a nearby federal building. Under guard, they would sleep on mattresses lined with body temperature and breath rate sensors as they raced to refactor the nation’s code base—or, better yet, scrap it altogether. Musk wasn’t big on formalities, but he’d dressed up for the occasion. The Alfalfa Club had been around since 1913 and existed solely to host a yearly banquet where the most important people in government could hobnob with the most important people in business. Membership was limited to around 200, and ... Read full article.