The damage Elon Musk did to the US government and its capacity to serve the people will be felt for years, although many of his cuts were swiftly reversed by the courts. His slash-and-burn tactics, his raids on government and personal data, and his almost cruel delight in firing government employees and closing entire agencies leave a horrific legacy.
The irony is Musk came nowhere near his initial target of $2 trillion in savings. He kept moving the goal posts, from $2 trillion to $1 trillion, then to $150 billion. I doubt the final savings will be more than $20 billion, although we may never know because his method of accounting for and claiming the savings was opaque.
Musk's hubris did terrible damage to thousands of civil servants, agencies such as USAID which benefited people worldwide, and many government programs the public relies on, from air traffic controllers to veterans benefits to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. A large portion of the American public came to despise him, and his own Tesla business tanked. Karma always bites back.
