How Elon Musk and the Department of Government Efficiency are Impacting the Practice of Public Relations
By Gregg Castano
Founder & CEO, News Direct
Unless you’ve been living in a hermetically sealed phone booth without access to any sources of information, you are aware of Elon Musk and the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE).
Aside from witnessing the sheer panic across the width and breadth of the US Government bureaucracy, those in the public relations business may have noticed that Elon’s initiative has begun to play a pivotal role in shaping PR practices. Prior to DOGE, Musk was primarily known for his groundbreaking ventures Tesla, SpaceX, and Twitter (now X). However, with his immersion in the quest to eliminate government waste, fraud and abuse (WFA), he has almost instantaneously reshaped how businesses engage with the public.
Meanwhile, DOGE has introduced a new paradigm for public sector communication. Taken together, the communications landscape is being completely redefined, influencing how both organizations and governments interact with the public.
Disrupting PR Norms
Perhaps unwittingly, Elon Musk has arguably become one of the most influential figures in modern public relations, not just because of DOGE and his business ventures, but due to his antithetical approach to media and public engagement. He’s transformed PR via direct communication with audiences, often using platforms like X to bypass the ever-diminishing “traditional” media. He tweets frequently and without a filter, allowing him to engage directly with millions of followers (and critics), creating a singular type of transparency that is both a benefit and a challenge for PR professionals.
Musk breaks from traditional PR models in which the media acts as the middleman by, instead, doing an “end around” of traditional outlets and speaking directly to the masses. In doing so, he is setting a precedent for transparency, speed, and authenticity, which can be controversial and thus comes with certain risks. This makes it incumbent upon PR professionals to carefully manage public perception, as we’ve entered an era where leaders can have an instantaneous impact on public sentiment. While most PR strategy encourages clients to embrace boldness and authenticity, it also stresses the importance of knowing when to exercise restraint.
Department of Government Efficiency: Shaping Public Sector Communication
On the opposite end of the PR spectrum, DOGE is playing a major role in determining how public institutions communicate with citizens. Its primary goal is to increase efficiency and transparency (and curtail WFA) in government services, which has led to more proactive and responsive communication strategies. DOGE’s push for modernization throughout an apparently technologically archaic bureaucracy has pushed governmental communications into the digital age, employing social media and digital platforms to reach a broader and more diverse audience.
For PR professionals working in the government sector, DOGE signifies a pronounced shift toward more transparency and accountability in communication strategies. Whereas government communications were previously glacially slow and reactive, DOGE promotes a far more dynamic, real-time approach that emphasizes swift responses to public inquiries and concerns, which can be both refreshing and chaotic. Thus, this shift requires PR practitioners to rethink strategy to ensure that messaging is both clear but also efficient, which can have the benefit of fostering trust in government institutions.
The Intersection of Private and Public Sector PR
The influence of Elon Musk and DOGE underscores an increasing convergence of private sector and government PR efforts. Musk’s unfiltered, direct communication style aligns perfectly with DOGE’s emphasis on transparency. While Musk uses social media to manage his personal brand, his role as head of DOGE creates a mingling of the two, which directly correlates with how DOGE is working to reform how the government interacts with citizens.
The net result is that PR professionals must now navigate both the unregulated and regulated communications universe and are increasingly being tasked with finding the balance between transparency, speed, and strategy.
Gregg Castano
