Elon Musk certainly has a lot of ideas. Since making a fortune from PayPal in the original dotcom boom, he’s taken over Tesla, pushing forward production of electric cars, and founded SpaceX, the rocket company that now flies plenty of NASA payloads.
Two newer companies — the Boring Company, focused on digging holes for transit tunnels, and NeuraLink, which is developing brain-computer interfaces — also occupy his time. Then there’s the Hyperloop, the high-speed land travel design he’s encouraged others to develop. Somehow, this brash billionaire still has time to get himself into trouble on Twitter.
The billionaire is taking over the federal government and remaking it in Twitter’s image.
Senator Ron Wyden joined Decoder today to talk about what’s going on with Elon Musk and DOGE, the future of TikTok, and everything else that’s going on. The full episode hits on Monday, but it felt important to note Wyden isn’t mincing words about Trump’s running roughshod over the Constitution.
‘We have got to tell Elon Musk, nobody elected your ass.’
Said a law professor quoted by The Washington Post in an article about government officials raising internal legal objections to the actions of Elon Musk’s DOGE team. These messages have surfaced from departments like USAID, the Treasury, GSA, OPM, and others:
“I swore an oath to the Constitution of the United States and the Commission serves the people of the United States,” an administrative judge at the agency wrote to EEOC acting chair Andrea R. Lucas, in a previously unreported message. “If you want to continue following the illegal and unethical orders of our president and the unelected leader of ‘doge’ that’s on you.”
The top Senate and House Democrats are introducing a new bill seeking to bar access to the Treasury Department’s payment system to “special government employees,” or those with conflicts of interest or who lack the appropriate security clearance. While it’s likely an uphill battle to pass in a Republican-controlled Congress, it would perhaps theoretically rid the Treasury of the 25-year-old engineer reportedly poking around that system.
Federal employees face a flood of executive orders, termination notices, and a breakdown in communication.
Elon Musk, running amok in American government, is attempting to dismantle USAID, taking an interest in federal real estate, and “reveling in the trappings of the opulent Secretary of War Suite in the Eisenhower Executive Office Building.” His goons are also attempting to access Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services systems.
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent gave DOGE members access to the system on Friday, which “sends out money on behalf of the entire federal government,” according to The New York Times. Senator Ron Wyden (D-OR) has already written a letter to Bessent expressing concerns about the report, saying “any politically-motivated meddling in them risks severe damage to our country and the economy.”
The buyout offer that just went out to millions of US federal workers has the subject line, “Fork in the Road,” which is the same subject line Musk used when he gave his “extremely hardcore” ultimatum to Twitter employees in 2022. While it’s unclear if he was involved in the creation of this new email, Musk himself seems to at least be in on the reference.
[opm.gov]
From an interview with Gates published overnight by The London Times:
“You want to promote the right wing but say Nigel Farage is not right wing enough… I mean, this is insane shit. You are for the AfD [in Germany].” Is he embarrassed a billionaire techie has gone rogue? “We can all overreach… If someone is super-smart, and he is, they should think how they can help out. But this is populist stirring.”
Law professor Kate Klonick explains what Big Tech’s Trump appeasement is really about.
In a CNBC interview this morning, Microsoft’s CEO avoided the accusations that OpenAI and Softbank don’t have the money to support their AI infrastructure dreams.
Nadella said he’s “not in the details” of investments in The Stargate Project, confirming only the $80 billion Microsoft will invest annually in building up Azure to handle AI.
Communities including r/hockey, r/NFL, r/NBA, r/MLB, and r/MLS are discussing the possibility, as reported by Awful Announcing.
Part of the reason is that X posts sometimes aren’t accessible if you’re logged out or don’t have an account. But I’ve also seen users bring up X owner Elon Musk.
[Awful Announcing]
“[Elon] Musk now has a badge to enter the White House complex and is likely to get a West Wing office,” according to The New York Times’ Maggie Haberman. President Donald Trump apparently wanted him to have the space.
Elon Musk made a gesture during his inauguration speech that’s raising eyebrows. People online are (unsurprisingly) likening it to a Nazi salute, and even Haaretz says he “appears to make [a] fascist salute.” The National Review says he was simply “miming the act of throwing his heart to the crowd,” noting that he says “my heart goes out to you.” Musk, of course, has supported Germany’s far-right party and has a history of suing people who associate him with Nazis.
Our tech overlords all have problems, and they want to buy the solutions.
The Federal Trade Commission and Justice Department didn’t take a position on the appropriate outcome, but write in a statement of interest that holding a seat on two competing boards can violate antitrust law — even if the board member foregoes one. At issue is Reid Hoffman’s simultaneous participation on the OpenAI and Microsoft boards.
Other than posting disinformation like the “non-zero risk of armed looters,” Elon Musk arrived in the “greater LA/Malibu area” yesterday with eight Cybertrucks plus Starlink receivers for hotspots. Tesla also has a list of the other gear currently in service.
The city of Malibu has details about more resources, including hotspots and power sources set up by others like T-Mobile, Verizon, and AT&T.
The outgoing transportation secretary on EVs, robotaxis, Trump, Musk, and the work still left to do.
