Steve Davis (executive)
Steve Davis (age 45 as of March 20, 2025[1]) is, among other things, the effective day-to-day leader of the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), and what the New York Times characterized as Elon Musk's "top lieutenant", playing many roles within Musk's enterprises, particularly focused on cost cutting, firing, and dismantling organizations. Musk has compared him to chemotherapy, that is, poison to save a body from imminent death of cancer.[1][2][3][4] His methods are controversial, "experts are worried that the focus on reducing expenses could lead to a breakdown in provision of essential services."[5]
Education
[edit]Davis holds a Bachelor of Applied Science in Aeronautics (Summa Cum Laude) from the University of Pennsylvania,[when?] and a Bachelor of Economics (Summa Cum Laude) from the Wharton School of Business, from where his superiors Donald Trump and Elon Musk also graduated.[6] He went on to earn a Masters of Science in Aeronautics and Astronautics from Stanford University, and a Masters of Science in Elementary Particle Theory from the University of Durham, UK, where he graduated with distinction.[6] While working at SpaceX and living in Washington DC, he obtained a PhD in Economics from George Mason University; he wrote his 2010 dissertation on U.S. currency debasement.[4][7]
Career
[edit]Davis began working for Elon Musk in 2003 at SpaceX, where he was the 14th hire. He was hired from the Stanford University graduate aeronautics program.[1] He became known for finding ways to cut costs.[1] He was Lead Systems Engineer for SpaceX Dragon, and prior to that analyzed and tested the guidance system for the Falcon 1, the first privately-developed liquid fuel rocket to achieve Earth orbit.[6] In 2008, he was appointed to Director of advanced projects, and moved to Washington, D.C. where he was closer to NASA.[1]
While in Washington, Davis noted there were not many frozen yogurt stores and as a side business opened "Mr. Yogato", which he ran from 2008 to 2018.[8][9] Davis in 2013 also started a bar in Washington called Thomas Foolery. It sold liquor in mini-bottles, served grilled cheese and peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, and sold candy. Each table had a board game and the store had a gimmicky kindergarten decor for adults.[10] The bar was one of the first places in DC to accept bitcoins.[7]
In 2018, Musk appointed Davis to lead the Boring Company.[1] Later the same year, he sold Mr. Yogato for $1, due to his increased responsibilities.[8] At Boring, Davis gained a reputation for being so extremely frugal that any expense higher than about $200 required his personal approval, despite having over $800 million dollars in capital.[4]
After the acquisition of Twitter in 2022, Davis played key roles in slashing jobs and costs; he moved into the Twitter office with his wife and newborn baby.[11] Davis left Twitter, now called X, soon after complaints reached X Corp.'s CEO Linda Yaccarino about his cost-cutting.[12]
In 2024, Davis oversaw a Donald Trump-supporting super PAC, America PAC, that Musk had financially backed.[1] According to a New York Times investigation, Davis was involved in the scheme to pay people to sign a petition.[13]
DOGE
[edit]Davis took part in the Musk "landing team" that interviewed candidates for the Department of Government Efficiency. The New York Times reported that Davis is "effectively the leader of DOGE", making major decisions without going through acting administrator Amy Gleason.[1] The Times reported that Davis led the effort to email all government employees at once, resulting in the "Fork in the Road" email, which contained a government-wide resignation offer.[1]
Davis and his wife had a base in the General Services Administration (GSA) building with a full armed security detail.[14] In mid-February, Davis ordered Social Security Administration (SSA) officials to onboard Akash Bobba and grant him access to every bit of data, including source code.[12] Davis is leading the DOGE effort to migrate the SSA's over 60 millions of source code developed in the COBOL computer language.[15][16] Davis set the unlikely timeframe of only a few months to write it all in a new language, "risking benefits and system collapse," according to experts.[15][16] The bug testing phase alone for such a large project would normally take many years.[15][16]
Reputation
[edit]According to Adam Green, a longtime old friend, Davis's "former Washington, D.C. apartment looked like a start-up, with a ping pong table and beverage machine to delight guests."[17] However, the former "fun outside-the-box thinker" later became a "blind servant" to Musk.[1][17] Jared Birchall remarked, "If Elon asked Steve to jump out of a window, he would do it."[18] Musk himself told a group at Mar-a-Lago that nobody in the world was better than Davis at dismantling organizations, while acknowledging that he might not be the right person to build them. "Steve is like chemo," Musk said. "A little chemo can save your life; a lot of chemo could kill you."[19] While numerous photos of Davis exist related to his "fun" enterprises in DC like the yogurt shop, after he became more deeply involved with Musk, he has attempted to stay out of public view, having mostly avoided having his picture taken.[1]
Ayn Rand ideology
[edit]Davis is an advisor to the Atlas Society that promotes the philosophy of Ayn Rand.[20] In July 2012, he made a 45-minute presentation at the Atlas Summit, on SpaceX and the future of space flight.[21]
See also
[edit]References
[edit]- ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Mac, Ryan; Conger, Kate; Schleifer, Theodore (2025-03-20). "Meet Steve Davis, Elon Musk's Top Lieutenant Who Oversees DOGE". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Archived from the original on March 20, 2025. Retrieved 2025-03-20.
- ^ Bing, Christopher; Asher-Schapiro, Avi; Waldman, Annie (2025-03-14). "Who's Running the DOGE Wrecking Machine: The World's Richest Man or a Little-Known Bureaucrat?". ProPublica. Retrieved 2025-03-17.
- ^ "Meet Steve Davis, Elon Musk's cost-cutting crusader at Doge". Firstpost. 2025-02-11. Retrieved 2025-02-26.
- ^ a b c McBride, Sarah (15 November 2019). "Elon Musk's Boring Co. Is Run by a Former Bar Owner Who Can Quote Ayn Rand". Bloomberg News. Archived from the original on December 10, 2019. Retrieved 10 December 2019.
- ^ "Who is Steve Davis? Meet the man Elon Musk has tasked with reducing expenses under DOGE". The Feed. February 13, 2025. Retrieved 2025-03-28 – via The Economic Times.
- ^ a b c "Steve Davis". Goddard Space Flight Center. December 15, 2008. Retrieved 2025-03-28.
- ^ a b "Who is Steve Davis, Elon Musk's likely choice for next Twitter CEO?". Firstpost. March 1, 2023. Retrieved 2025-03-28.
- ^ a b Sidman, Jessica (2018-10-31). "Frozen Yogurt Shop Mr. Yogato Has Been Sold For $1". Washingtonian. Retrieved 2025-03-26.
- ^ "Steve Davis To Succeed Elon Musk As Twitter CEO? What We Know". News18. Retrieved 2025-03-27.
- ^ Sidman, Jessica (2013-07-15). "12 Craziest Things About Thomas Foolery, Opening Wednesday". Washington City Paper. Retrieved 2025-03-26.
- ^ Kelly, Makena (January 31, 2025). "Elon Musk's Friends Have Infiltrated Another Government Agency". Wired.
{{cite news}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link) - ^ a b Kilander, Gustaf (2025-03-20). "Meet the cost-cutting engineer who runs the day-to-day operations of DOGE". The Independent. Retrieved 2025-03-27.
- ^ Schleifer, Theodor. "Steve Davis, Top Elon Musk Lieutenant, Joins Trump Super PAC". The New York Times. Archived from the original on February 6, 2025. Retrieved 2025-03-28.
- ^ Northey, Hannah (2025-03-06). "IKEA beds? Dressers? Inside the 'exceedingly odd' DOGE office setup". Politico. Retrieved 2025-03-07.
- ^ a b c Kelly, Makena (March 28, 2025). "DOGE Plans to Rebuild SSA Codebase in Months, Risking Benefits and System Collapse". Wired.
{{cite news}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link) - ^ a b c Deutscher, Maria (March 28, 2025). "DOGE reportedly planning to rewrite Social Security Administration's software". SiliconANGLE. Retrieved 2025-03-28.
- ^ a b Green, Adam (2025-03-20). "My Old Friend Is Helping Elon Musk Destroy America". Rolling Stone. Archived from the original on March 23, 2025. Retrieved 2025-03-28.
- ^ Conger, Kate; Mac, Ryan (2024). Character Limit: How Elon Musk Destroyed Twitter. New York: Penguin Press. p. 134. ISBN 9780593656136.
- ^ Swan, Jonathan (February 28, 2025). "How Elon Musk Executed His Takeover of the Federal Bureaucracy". The New York Times. Retrieved 2025-03-20.
- ^ Korosec, Kirsten; Whittaker, Zack; Rollet, Charles; O'Kane, Sean; Franceschi-Bicchierai, Lorenzo (2025-02-18). "Donald Trump picks Elon Musk for US government cost-cutting role". TechCrunch. Archived from the original on 2025-02-18. Retrieved 2025-02-18.
- ^ Murphy, Tim (2025-03-16). "Ayn Rand in Space". Mother Jones. Archived from the original on 2025-03-16. Retrieved 2025-03-27.
