Elon Musk's right-hand man in charge of cost-cutting is currently recruiting staff at the Department of Government Efficiency, according to reports.
Steve Davis has remained loyal to Musk for years, working for multiple companies, and when Musk is acquired in 2022, billionaire demands employees to be “very hardcore” At one point, he even slept overnight with his wife and newborn baby in Twitter's office. Bloomberg reporting.
The aerospace engineer-turned-exec is known for pushing tough deals and is currently leading DOGE, Musk's new effort to cut government spending under President-elect Donald Trump. The report states that they are helping. While working for DOGE, he continues to work as president of the Boring Company.
President Trump appointed both Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy to lead DOGE. DOGE is not a government agency, but a new task force envisioned by Musk that aims to make sweeping spending cuts.
The Boring Company did not respond to requests for comment.
Musk's construction and equipment company Boring, which aims to ease traffic by building more underground tunnels, has raised about $800 million in capital. But Davis remains as frugal as ever. He is known for closing deals for as low as a few hundred dollars, people familiar with the matter told Bloomberg.
To save Boring Co. money, it is negotiating aggressively with product suppliers for the lowest prices on crude steel, sensors and even small items like hose fittings, people told Bloomberg.
Musk ordered Davis to find a cheaper replacement for the $120,000 part. After weeks of work, engineers made it happen for just $3,900, and Musk sent a simple “thank you,” according to Musk's biography.
According to reports, he is famous for telling staff working on negotiations to “go back and ask again.”
Davis began working for Musk at SpaceX in 2003, shortly after earning a master's degree in aerospace engineering from Stanford University.
By 2016, Davis was the head of the Boring Company, splitting his time between Las Vegas and Bastrop, Texas, near the company's two major facilities. In Bastrop, he stays in a mobile home with his mobile home workers, where he can often be seen walking back and forth and talking on the phone late into the night, sources told Bloomberg. told.
Davis regularly scheduled meetings after 7 p.m. and attended them remotely while eating dinner, the people said.
Mr. Davis met such tight deadlines at Boring that he would send employees on planes between the two facilities to deliver machine parts without waiting for commercial shipping, former employees told Bloomberg.
A former employee said critical mechanical parts were once swept off course by a delayed cargo truck en route to Las Vegas. Mr. Davis' deadline was so tight that Mr. Boling paid relatives of employees who lived in the area to track the truck driver and get him back on the road, the report said.
Like Musk's other companies, Davis had to deal with many government hurdles during his time at Boling.
Boring built a tunnel connecting the Las Vegas convention center and two nearby hotels, but it remains closed to the public more than a year after construction was completed. The Nevada Department of Safety and Security ordered Boring to pay more than $100,000 after an investigation revealed worker complaints about conveyor belts dripping toxic waste onto their heads and spilling onto work sites. fined.
He worked his way through college by working multiple jobs, working full-time for SpaceX, working as a yogurt shop owner, and earning a PhD in economics from George Mason University in Virginia.
Alex Tabarrok, a professor at Davis College, said the young engineer “had so much energy and was so entrepreneurial” that he never gave up his job.
“It's kind of exciting to see him become one of Elon's most trusted right-hand men,” he said.
