‘Right-hand man’ helps Elon Musk streamline US government
Davis, Musk’s partner of more than 20 years, is applying his “demolish and rebuild” philosophy at DOGE to cut US government spending.

When Elon Musk bought Twitter in 2022, Steve Davis, one of his top aides, was so focused on cutting costs at the company that he even wondered how much it would pay for cleaning services at its Atlanta data center.

Davis, who heads Musk’s Boring Company, a tunnel construction and repair company, was tasked with cutting costs at Twitter. He became famous for always squeezing suppliers, quickly firing a series of senior leaders and making subordinates always insecure, according to former employees of Twitter, now social network X.

According to observers, Davis’s way of racing to improve operational efficiency as well as cutting the apparatus at Twitter is no different from a “playbook” being applied to the campaign to streamline the US government, when he became Musk’s “right-hand man” to run the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE).

Anxiety has spread throughout government agencies in Washington as the world’s richest billionaire is rushing to realize the commitment to cut the budget and streamline the apparatus that President Donald Trump made during the election campaign.

DOGE’s “uncompromising” approach has been clearly demonstrated by the Trump administration moving to abolish the US Agency for International Development (USAID), a foreign aid organization with 10,000 employees and a budget of $40 billion.

Davis and Musk have been working diligently on the effort, a USAID official said. Davis has been in regular contact with Peter Marocco, the State Department official who is leading the USAID streamlining effort.

Davis’s prominent role at DOGE comes as no surprise to those who have worked with him and Musk. Davis has spent more than 20 years helping to cut costs at companies like SpaceX, Boring, and Twitter, making him Musk’s top choice for the new role at DOGE.

In 2003, as an aerospace engineering student at Stanford University, Davis was handpicked by Musk to join SpaceX at a time when the concept of building reusable rockets was still in its infancy.

According to Ashlee Vance’s 2015 biography of Elon Musk, he called Davis’s teaching assistant at the school and asked for the names of hard-working, unmarried recent graduates. Davis fit the bill and began working on the Falcon 1 rocket in the Marshall Islands, sometimes sleeping in a tent next to the rocket.

He later worked on the Falcon 9, SpaceX’s flagship rocket, and the Dragon capsule. When Musk gave Davis a $5,000 budget to buy a component that had been quoted at $120,000, he did the unthinkable: Designing the same component in nine months for just $3,900.

Davis has run Boring for more than eight years, since Musk came up with the idea for fast underground travel while stuck in Los Angeles traffic in late 2016. He’s known for being frugal, according to former employees. Every expense, no matter how small, goes through Davis’s desk. That makes getting things approved difficult, but it helps him keep the budget low.

Davis even personally approved expenses of several hundred dollars, which was unusual for a company that had raised about $800 million in capital.

Two former Boring employees said Davis ran the company with extreme demands and a relentless focus on efficiency.

“He hated waste,” one said. “He wanted to be involved in every decision-making process.”

Davis also demanded tough terms from suppliers of products like steel, sensors, and even small items like pipe fittings. Davis’s favorite directive to employees when negotiating was: “Turn the issue around and ask again.”

“Davis has proven through all his efforts that he can do a lot with very little,” said one former Boring employee.

But three people who worked with Davis described him as sometimes “ruthless” or cold. One former employee said Davis once scheduled a meeting to coincide with the employee’s 13th wedding anniversary. He refused to reschedule, but then failed to show up.

When Musk bought Twitter, Davis was the one chosen to take over the social media platform.

Davis was so passionate about his work that he spent a period sleeping at Twitter’s offices with his wife and their newborn child. A former X employee said Davis would call them at any time of the day, including nights and weekends, to discuss work.

Davis was always focused on collecting data to cut costs. In documents from a lawsuit filed by former Twitter employees in 2023, Davis was involved in multiple email discussions about layoffs. One email to Davis even

headlined “Emails on Daily Savings.”

The lawsuit describes Davis as determined to drastically cut costs and staff at Twitter to please Musk. In a 2022 meeting, Davis said the company would stop working with brokers to negotiate property leases to reduce costs. When asked why, Davis and other Musk allies at the meeting said “Elon wants this,” according to the lawsuit. Davis asked Twitter’s then-vice president of real estate, Tracy Hawkins, to find ways to save $500 million a year. After Hawkins and her team warned Davis about the financial risks of breaking the lease, such as termination fees, Davis said “we’re not going to pay those. We’re not going to pay the landlord.”

When a Twitter employee told Davis that the company needed a building permit to install a private bathroom next to Musk’s office, Davis dismissed it.

“We don’t do that. We don’t have to follow those rules,” he replied.

A former Twitter employee said Davis’s go-to tactic was to stop paying suppliers, forcing them to renegotiate terms more favorable to Twitter.

Some speculated at the time that Davis would become Twitter’s CEO. But he eventually returned to Boring, which has headquarters in Las Vegas and Bastrop, Texas, near Austin.

There, he further cemented his reputation as a frugal and strict boss.

Former employees still tell stories of being flown back and forth between Austin and Las Vegas to deliver needed components, like sensors for tunnel boring machines. Davis preferred to pick up the parts the same day rather than have them shipped via commercial service and have to wait until the next day.

One time, employees nearly had a meltdown when a critical part got lost on its way to Las Vegas. The delivery truck Boring had been tracking from afar stopped for unknown reasons for several hours in Arizona. Under pressure to meet Davis’s tight deadline, they paid a relative of an employee who lived nearby to find the truck and urge the driver to move.

Several people said Davis often scheduled meetings for engineers at 7 p.m. or later. He often attended remotely. One person who spoke to Davis on the phone frequently said he tried to multitask during meetings, eating while taking calls.

Multitasking seems to have been a trait that Davis had been associated with since his college days. While pursuing a doctorate in economics at George Mason University in Fairfax, Virginia, Davis worked full time at SpaceX and owned a yogurt shop called Mr. Yogato in Dupont Circle, Washington. Alex Tabarrok, Davis’s former professor, remembers how his student juggled a variety of roles.

“I told him, ‘Hey, you’re doing your PhD, you can’t work for a company and run a business at the same time. Just focus on your PhD,’” Tabarrok said.

But Davis didn’t give up on any of his goals. He included Mr. Yogato’s entrepreneurial tendencies in an academic paper and brought yogurt to class for his classmates to sample. Tabarrok doesn’t remember Davis’ grades, but said he stood out.

“He had a lot of energy and a strong entrepreneurial spirit,” he said. “It was interesting to see him become Elon’s most trusted ‘right-hand man.’”