The New York Times characterized Davis as Elon Musk's "top lieutenant", having played many roles within Musk's enterprises, particularly focused on cost cutting, firing, and dismantling organizations.
Musk has compared him to chemotherapy, that is, poison to save a body from imminent death of cancer.[1][2][3][4] His methods are controversial, as "experts are worried that the focus on reducing expenses could lead to a breakdown in provision of essential services."[5]
Davis began working for Elon Musk in 2003 at SpaceX, where he was the 14th hire. He was hired from the Stanford University graduate aeronautics program.[1] He worked on the guidance navigation and the control system of the Falcon 1, which he says "is a fancy way of saying make sure the goes straight when it takes off".[9] He was Lead Systems Engineer for SpaceX Dragon.[7] In 2008, he was appointed to Director of advanced projects, and moved to Washington, D.C. where he was closer to NASA.[1]
While in Washington, Davis and some friends noted the lack of frozen yogurt stores in the city, and being a fan of the desert opened one of its first shops, Mr. Yogato.[10][9] He ran Mr. Yogato, as a side hustle, from 2008 to 2018.[11][12] Davis, who wanted to create a "fun place", made up rules so that clients could earn a discount, for instance reciting the Braveheart speech or dressing up like Bjorn Borg or singing "I'm Too Sexy" with a Swedish accent.[10][13] Davis in 2013 also opened a bar in Washington called Thomas Foolery, another "fun place" concept.[10] It had gimmicks including selling liquor in mini-bottles, a bar menu of grilled cheese and peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, and a candy dispensary. Each table had a board game, and the interior design was a kindergarten room decor for adults.[14] The bar was one of the first places in DC to accept bitcoins.[15]
In 2018, Musk appointed Davis to lead the Boring Company.[1] Later the same year, he sold Mr. Yogato for $1, due to his increased responsibilities.[11] At Boring, Davis gained a reputation for being so extremely frugal that any expense higher than about $200 required his personal approval, despite having over $800 million in capital.[4]
After the acquisition of Twitter in 2022, Davis moved into the company's headquarters with his wife and newborn baby.[16] He was effectively a chief operating officer, along with James Musk (Elon's cousin) and Jared Birchall, who were responsible for cutting staff and expenses. Davis was responsible for the decision to charge for API access.[17]
Davis was tasked with reviewing finances at the San Francisco headquarters. One employee described him as "the grim reaper who only shows up for bad things."[18] Davis asked the former vice-president of real estate to "find" $500 million in savings; when told that lease terminations incur fees, Davis said: "We just won't pay those [...] We just won't pay rent."[19] Davis gave the Twitter head of security the ultimatum to "cut the physical security budget by an additional 50 percent by midnight"; shortly after his refusal (it could violate court orders), Twitter fired him, and withheld his severance package while investigating his conduct.[20] According to testimony, Davis refused to pay for the tools required to comply with the FTC.[21] Davis was tasked with renovating Twitter headquarters. In a lawsuit involving fraud, breach of contract, and labor-rights violations, a contractor testified that after being told that permits would be needed to Musk's restroom, Davis responded: "We don't do that; we don't have to follow those rules". He suggested hiring an unlicensed plumber instead.[22] His wife, who works with Davis, suggested never to put anything in writing.[16]
Davis left Twitter soon after complaints about his cost-cutting reached the CEO, Linda Yaccarino.[23]
In 2024, Davis oversaw America PAC, a Donald Trump-supporting super PAC that Musk had financially backed.[1] According to a New York Times investigation, Davis was involved in the scheme to pay people to sign a petition.[24]
Davis took part in the Musk "landing team" that interviewed candidates for the Department of Government Efficiency. The New York Times reported that Davis is "effectively the leader of DOGE", making major decisions without going through acting administrator Amy Gleason.[1][25] The Times reported that Davis led the effort to email all government employees at once, resulting in the "Fork in the Road" email, which contained a government-wide resignation offer.[1]
Davis and his wife had a base in the General Services Administration (GSA) building with a full armed security detail.[26][1] In mid-February, Davis ordered Social Security Administration (SSA) officials to onboard DOGE recruit Akash Bobba and grant him access to every bit of data, including source code.[23] Davis is leading the DOGE effort to migrate the SSA's over 60 million lines of source code developed in COBOL; Davis set the unlikely timeframe of only a few months to write it all in a new language, "risking benefits and system collapse," according to experts, the bug testing phase alone for such a large project normally taking many years.[27][28]
On March 27, Steve Davis was interviewed by Bret Baier on Fox News, alongside Musk and six other DOGE members.[29] The acting administrator of DOGE, Amy Gleason, was absent.[30]
Reputation
According to Adam Green, a longtime old friend, Davis's "former Washington, D.C. apartment looked like a start-up, with a ping pong table and beverage machine to delight guests."[31] However, the former "fun outside-the-box thinker" turned into a "blind servant" of Musk.[1][31]Jared Birchall remarked, "If Elon asked Steve to jump out of a window, he would do it."[32] Musk himself told a group at Mar-a-Lago that nobody in the world was better than Davis at dismantling organizations, while acknowledging that he might not be the right person to build them. "Steve is like chemo," Musk said. "A little chemo can save your life; a lot of chemo could kill you."[33] While numerous photos of Davis exist related to his "fun" enterprises in DC like the yogurt shop, after he became more deeply involved with Musk, he has attempted to stay out of public view, having mostly avoided having his picture taken.[1]
Personal life
Davis is married to Nicole Hollander. She worked with him at Twitter, and is working with him at DOGE. They have one child.[16]
Davis is an advisor to the Atlas Society that promotes the philosophy of Ayn Rand.[34] In July 2012, he made a 45-minute presentation at the Atlas Summit on SpaceX and the future of space flight.[35]
Publications
In 2010, Davis submitted a thesis called The Trend Towards the Debasement of American Currency. In it he argues that the debasement (rather the devaluation) of the currency since 1792 "occurred subtly due to ten discrete events". He supports that monetarist narrative using regression analysis.[8]
In 2012, Davis collaborated on the technical report entitled Red Dragon: Low-cost Access to the Surface of Mars using Commercial Capabilities.[36]
1 2 3 Kelly, Makena (January 31, 2025). "Elon Musk's Friends Have Infiltrated Another Government Agency". Wired. ISSN1059-1028. Retrieved 2025-03-09. After Musk bought Twitter, Hollander and Davis moved into the office with their newborn baby. Hollander helped oversee real estate and office design—including the installation of hotel rooms at Twitter HQ, according to a lawsuit later filed by Twitter executives. During the installation process, one of the executives emailed to say that the plans for the rooms were likely not code compliant. Hollander "visited him in person and emphatically instructed him to never put anything about the project in writing again," the lawsuit alleged. Employees were allegedly instructed to call the hotel rooms "sleeping rooms" and to say they were just for taking naps.
↑ Karcz, John; Davis, S. M.; Aftosmis, M. J.; Allen, G. A.; Bakhtian, N. M.; Dyakonov, A. A.; Edquist, K. T.; Glass, B. J.; Gonzales, A. A.; Heldmann, J. L.; Lemke, L. G.; Marinova, M. M.; McKay, C. P.; Stoker, C. R.; Wooster, P. D.; Zarchi, K. A. (2012-06-12). "Red Dragon: Low-cost Access to the Surface of Mars using Commercial Capabilities". NASA. Retrieved 2025-04-08.
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