[Source: Reuters]

Elon Musk’s rapid takeover of two U.S. government agencies has enabled the South African-born billionaire to exert unprecedented control over America’s 2.2-million-member federal workforce and begin a dramatic reshaping of government.

The world’s richest man and an ally of President Donald Trump, Musk, 53, has in two weeks created a new center of power in Washington as he executes Trump’s cost-cutting initiative to reduce the size of the U.S. government.

Musk has acted swiftly since Trump’s Jan. 20 inauguration, deploying teams of current and former employees of his companies as his agents.

Musk’s actions have fostered a wave of panic among government workers and public protests in Washington and at times have threatened to overshadow Trump’s own agenda.

Trump’s up-and-down trade war with neighboring Canada and Mexico vied this week for space on front pages with Musk’s effort to shut down USAID, the Agency for International Development, America’s main humanitarian aid agency to the world.

Musk’s efforts are part of a massive government restructuring by Trump, who has fired and sidelined hundreds of civil servants in his first steps toward downsizing the bureaucracy and installing more loyalists.

Americans are witnessing “an extraordinary centralization of power in someone who lacks a top-level security clearance and has not been subject to any Senate confirmation process,” said Don Moynihan, a professor at the Ford School of Public Policy at the University of Michigan.

“Musk has unprecedented and centralized control of the basic plumbing of government,” he added.

Nonetheless, Musk operates at Trump’s pleasure. The president told reporters on Monday that the billionaire had to seek approval from the White House for any of his actions.

“Elon can’t do and won’t do anything without our approval, and we’ll give him the approval, where appropriate; where not appropriate, we won’t. But he reports in.”