Meet the Educational Entrepreneurs Who Want to Teach a New Generation of Elon Musks

"When not wasting money on bureaucracy," he wrote, "The Department of Education has been funding anti-Americanism, gender nonsense and anti-meritocratic racism." By the end of the month, the department had been stripped to the bone, dismantled by Donald Trump and Musk's DOGE. And on Thursday, Education Secretary Linda McMahon, who has said her agency's "final mission" would be to send education programs "back to the states," was on hand as the president signed an executive order to begin eliminating what remained of the department. The companies' founders share an admiration for Musk and desire to help their students replicate his success. At the same time that federal support for public education is imperiled, two private online education programs whose seeds were planted with Musk and SpaceX are getting a second wind.