JUST PAST midnight on February 3rd, Elon Musk appeared on X to explain what he is doing to the federal government. He had to speak over the patter of his four-year-old son, also called X. The bureaucracy, Mr Musk argued, constitutes “a fourth branch of government” which is “arguably the most powerful branch.” He then came to the US Agency for International Development (USAID), which he denounced as little more than a device to funnel taxpayers’ money to Marxists and criminals. He had, he claimed, the full support of Donald Trump and is “shutting it down”, notwithstanding that the agency’s existence is mandated by Congress. Later he posted that he had spent the weekend “feeding USAID into the woodchipper”.