America, the Mecca of Entrepreneurial Learning, Upended by Trump & Musk

Elon Musk is a first-generation founder. So am I. The similarities end there. I have perhaps created 2,000 times less personal wealth than he has. Does that entitle me to claim that I am 0.0005 times as intelligent as he is? Since there’s absolutely no way to figure this out, I will accept this humbling fraction as my due in life.

Oh, there’s another similarity. We’re both in America today. Except, again, we are separated; he’s on the East Coast, and I am on the West Coast. I guess we are just destined to be a world apart.

Oh heck, today’s my day of serendipity, because I’ve discovered one more commonality. We’ve both fired dozens of employees – but to be fair, that’s not a thing between just the two of us. Instead, it’s a fate we share with every first-generation entrepreneur ever born. If you are going to build a business, you will create jobs in go-go times, but equally, you will fire people in so-so times. It’s just your destiny, so don’t go all maudlin over it.

Jokes apart, ask any first-gen guy, “What’s been your loneliest moment?”. If he’s got a heart – not just some rockets, electric cars, and a digital bully pulpit – he will tear up and confirm it’s the “sack day”.

The Clueless First-Timer

I still recoil at my first encounter. Green around the ears, pumped up on an MBA (Management of Business Administration) degree earned at an Indian university but taught entirely on American tomes, I launched my first venture. Those early 1990s were heady days. India opened to American dollars, private equity poured in, and we created a TV empire. I thought the champagne days would last forever and overstocked on full-time talent at sky-high salaries. It was the classic blunder of the clueless first-timer.

Inevitably, recession hit, revenues slowed down, and the high wage bill threatened to drag us to the crush. To survive, we had to hack people.

I panicked; called in nearly 30 of my closest co-workers and culled them on a single day. It was mayhem and streaming tears, followed by venomous silence or angry abuse.

“My mother is in hospital, you’ve just killed her, murderer! I will have to pull my kid from the school trip, you fuc**ng sadist!! You son-of-a-bitch, I will default on my home loan, but I promise, we will shack up on your pavement and curse you to penury.”

I was shell-shocked. People were delirious, sullen, or on the verge of violence. I learnt a big lesson that day. A layoff must be handled with immense sensitivity and accommodation. Never put them on the street with one swing of the axe. Give them time, support them through the transition, even if it means you’ve achieved only 80 percent of your targeted cost-cut. We finally got so good at it that our last layoff was stretched over 150 days, ending with “thanks” instead of brickbats.

Culling a Nuclear Country

Why am I recalling my worst entrepreneurial memory so vividly? Because I am in America, where a whole country – not just one troubled company – is living through a similar nightmare. Just imagine, a whole country of nearly 350 million people, stunned by layoffs bulldozed by DOGE (M/s Donald Trump & Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency) that are even more insensitive and amateurish than my stupid act three decades ago! And to think that this country has taught management theorems to the whole world but is failing so miserably to act on them.

You simply won’t believe what happened at the Pantex Plant at Amarillo. Euphemistically, it’s attached to the Department of Energy. But the “energy” they create is not meant for innocent electric bulbs. In fact, workers there assemble nuclear warheads in a highly controlled and secretive facility.

But cowboys will be cowboys, quick to draw and shoot. Since Chief Elon Musk decreed that 2,000 jobs need to be culled in Energy, his hired guns began to scatter fire.

Before Elon could say “Twitter”, over a hundred critical workers at Pantex were sacked, their emails and entry passes blocked. “These DOGE people are coming in with no knowledge of what these departments are responsible for”, cried an anguished executive director.

“This is a pivotal moment. We must decide whether we are truly committed to leading on the world stage or if we are content with undermining the very systems that secure our nation’s future”, another high-ranking official posted ominously on LinkedIn (very tellingly, not on Musk’s X).

Employees fired at other facilities dealt with such critical functions as the safe disposal of nuclear contaminants. But since Trump and Musk are deniers of climate risk, they saw these guys as overpaid janitors, and merrily pink-slipped them.

Sh#@ on the Ceiling, Egg on Their Faces

Once the sh#@ hit the ceiling, and egg their faces, the DOGE-boys scrambled to undo the unthinking and dangerous act. They thought human beings are robots, who can be switched on and off, artificially intelligence-d into a dreadful vacuum of emotions.

They thought it would be business as usual once the sack orders were rescinded. But the DOGE-boys did not understand that human beings have a soft brain and heart, and over 10,000 kilometers of veins filled with warm blood. They were hurt. Many are unsure if they ever want to rejoin such a demonic work culture.

I’ve described just the most egregious example above. America’s conscience today is littered with such wildly unconscionable actions. Over 75,000 federal employees have been virtually coerced into a “deferred resignation”.

Nearly 200,000 probationary officers have been summarily shown the door. Nearly 1,000 officers in the Department of Veteran Affairs were dismissed. They were working on cancer and opioid treatments, and prosthetics. The Department of Education is almost wiped clean. Health and Human Services could be next…

It’s difficult to believe that M/s Trump & Musk have been at it for barely one month. The upheaval they’ve caused is already epic. I can understand such callousness from a privileged, blue-business-family-blooded scion. But from my fellow first-generation entrepreneur, one who is 2,000 times more intelligent than I am? Tut tut Mr Musk, you don’t do our biradri (clan) too proud!

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