Elon Musk's promise of an 'epic' leaderboard of 'dumb' government spending reveals his marketing savvy

• Elon Musk says a leaderboard of "dumb" government spending will expose waste — and he wants your two cents.
• Experts say the board "gamifies" the conversation — and it's likely going to get a lot of attention.
• Still, some also warned that it could oversimplify something that can be complicated.

Elon Musk wants to gamify the act of slashing government spending — and experts said it's a savvy strategy to get people to pay attention to a dry subject.

The Tesla CEO said this week that he plans to post a public "leaderboard for the most insanely dumb spending of your tax dollars."

"This will be both extremely tragic and extremely entertaining," Musk posted, along with a promise to let the public weigh in on specific potential cuts.

Musk would create the leaderboard as part of a new position in President-elect Donald Trump's administration: head of a new "Department of Government Efficiency," or DOGE, which would be charged with cutting federal spending.

Musk said all the activities of DOGE — which he will lead alongside businessman Vivek Ramaswamy, and which is named after a Musk-linked cryptocurrency — would be published online in the name of transparency.

While the effectiveness of Musk's leaderboard remains to be seen, experts told Business Insider that it revealed his marketing savvy — even if it could also encourage "gotcha" moments that need more context.

The board promises entertainment, competition, and interactivity marketed to a group with skin in the game: the American public with an eye to their tax dollars.

And it would turn an often wonky exercise — government budgeting — into a participatory game of winners and losers. In the process, it would also likely give Musk a valuable prize: our attention.

A 'leaderboard' can gamify a wonky subject — and help it go viral

Natalie Andreas, a communications studies professor at the University of Texas at Austin and digital strategy consultant, said Musk's leaderboard "has intriguing potential as a viral, high-impact marketing strategy."

She said that, like a social media feed, the format "encourages frequent checking and sharing" and that public involvement through voting or sharing could fuel viral momentum.

Ayelet Fishbach, a professor of behavioral science and marketing at the University of Chicago's Booth School of Business, said a leaderboard takes advantage of a "gamification" strategy.

Such a strategy can be entertaining — which helps a prospective audience stay engaged. And an engaged audience can be more likely to pass on information to their friends and other social media contacts, disseminating a message.

Or, as Musk himself said about the leaderboard: "The entertainment value will be epic."

Interactivity helps give an audience a feeling of control

Musk has promised a virtual suggestion box where the public can give him tips on what to cut or protect. "Anytime the public thinks we are cutting something important or not cutting something wasteful, just let us know!" he wrote. Musk and Trump's representatives didn't return a request for comment.

Especially in a dry realm like government spending, Musk's plans are bound to grab eyeballs — and perhaps make people feel more invested in the outcome. And in an environment with so many distractions — social media, streaming video, text messages — attention is a valuable commodity.

Andreas said the leaderboard could strengthen Musk's brand "as a bold, transparency-driven disruptor," though she also cautioned that it also would need "careful handling" to let the people and organizations targeted by the board add context.

She said allowing users to vote or contribute examples of perceived waste "could drive high engagement and user-generated content, making the leaderboard both interactive and addictive."

Karen North, a clinical professor of communication at the University of Southern California's Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism, said the venture also speaks to Trump's unique ability to spark an emotional investment — and sometimes encourage vilification — in American politics. North previously served in the Clinton administration's science and technology policy office.

She said the leaderboard marks another example of how the president-elect turns politics "into a show."

"There's nothing more boring than talking about reducing spending in government. It's worse than just doing math for the sake of math," North said.

There are risks to the gamification strategy

North said the gamification strategy comes with risks. "People will be so easily drawn into playing 'gotcha' and being outraged that they may get caught up in the outcome rather than the meaningful details," she said.

But gamifying the subject makes it fun — and social media has created a "participatory society" where people feel even more involved and invested, she said.

There is some precedent for Musk's leaderboard, North said, noting that former Sen. William Proxmire, a Democrat from Wisconsin, began to issue the "Golden Fleece Award" for wasteful spending throughout the 1970s and '80s via monthly press releases.

North said it is often considered one of the most successful PR campaigns in government history, though she cautioned that it did lead to some unforeseen consequences: Some research that was initially ridiculed as wasteful government spending — including the sexual behavior of screwworms — later proved critical to the US livestock industry and significantly reduced beef costs for Americans.

And Amy Jo Kim, a game designer who has a doctoral degree in behavioral neuroscience and who's taught game design at Stanford, said that a leaderboard can inherently contain a point of view: Who's to determine, for instance, what's "waste" and how that's defined.

It's "a storytelling device," Kim said. "It's the opposite of transparency, but it'll be seen as transparency by people that don't realize that it all comes back to who defines waste."