Some civil servants are using whatever levers they have to resist the orders of the world’s richest man, both in public and behind closed doors.

Elon Musk’s move-fast-and-break-things ethos has served him well so far in his efforts to demolish the federal bureaucracy. But now comes the moment the billionaire leading President Donald Trump’s DOGE initiative may not be prepared for — managing the politics of his sprawling cuts.

Elon Musk is keen on auditing the Federal Reserve, the independent agency that makes critical decisions on interest rates that reverberate throughout the US economy. Musk, the world’s richest man who is also overseeing a mass restructuring of the federal government,