So I just found this a few pages down at rank 129, where its ended up in only 3 hours, despite garnering 250 points in that time. That's abnormal for such a popular post. What gives?
I was here when HN tried "no politics" and clearly demonstrated how stupid and foolish that is even as a concept. You don't get to play "I just want to talk tech and be apolitical" when those titans of "tech" are swearing fealty to the regime and choosing to lose slam dunk cases as a means of bribing the president.
I won't muddy the comments repeating myself - but I have been fascinated by how quickly people latched on to this, have been absolutely incapable of finding any first party sourcing, and asked CoPilot to analyze each of these stories (13 so far!) and every single one is 'trust me bro, I heard it in a convo'.
I really really hope this isn't true for all the same reasons as people are freaking out... but at this point it has as much merit as saying "the sky is always green, I heard a guy say it the other week who I won't name but it's true"
Ctrl-F 'astroid' or click my last post in this thread for the complete breakdown of every source referenced, and ask yourself if there is enough info to warrant entertaining this fantasy.
Honestly I am shocked at how little critical thinking is being applied here. I know this website hates these guys, but there is usually a facade of critical thinking at the least.
"Wired: Reports that Marko Elez, a 25-year-old engineer linked to Elon Musk, has direct access to Treasury Department systems responsible for nearly all payments made by the U.S. government. The sources are unnamed, and they claim Elez has administrator-level privileges, including the ability to write code on the Payment Automation Manager and Secure Payment System."
It's an endless circle. No one is willing to stand behind the reporting, no one is willing to go on record. I almost regret wasting as much time trying to get to the bottom of the story because I feel stupid for trying to peel back on these layers and finding nothing -- like they were trying to take people on a ride and I fell for it.
I guess it could be worse though - I could have just taken them all at face value. Even the 'anonymous sources' appear to be second or third party on TOP of being anonymous.
EDIT: To clarify, if you were referring to https://www.wired.com/story/elon-musk-associate-bfs-federal-... that is the one with no real sources. If you meant another source about the audit in general I shouldn't have assumed -- it's just in the list of the 13 I have reviewed with no substance.
(Politics? Interesting that The Guardian files this under Technology)
So it's either lots of news outlets (journos but also fact checkers) being fooled, or that people are only willing to speak of the record because they fear for their career/freedom/life. All feds fear at the minimum for their career right now...