A Disillusioned Musk, Distanced From Trump, Says He’s Exiting Washington
nytimes.com
nytimes.com
- huge spending increase, which undermines (and is diametrically opposed to) the mantra of cost reduction
- moronic (Musk's words) tariffs on Europe
- probably other things
I zipped my mouth b/c I didn't want to get into that kind of conversation at the car dealership....
A "special Government employee" (or "SGE") is an officer or employee in the Executive Branch of the Federal Government who is appointed to perform important, but limited, services to the Government, with or without compensation, for a period not to exceed 130 days during any period of 365 consecutive days.
...and was broken.
This was supposed to be the biggest (+ all the other great adjectives one can think of) change in US government history, hence the unprecedented and mostly illegal powers that were given to DOGE.
6 months later the results are :
- first DOGE pillar (Vivek) quit the job before even starting
- second DOGE pillar (Musk) quit the job just now
- Musk installed a lot of his loyalist at very influential government jobs
- 20 years old or something, with very questionable past, were given close to root access to pretty much most of government data. Nobody knows what they were able to extract and give to Musk
- Countless people working for US agencies (like USAID) were fired without notice
- Courts are busy trying to restore order and block most of what was done, but in many cases it's too late
- estimated "savings" are maybe 1% of what it was supposed to be, and that's being generous
- and lastly, not a single person was convinced of fraud !
WOW.
Major US news orgs have a long and mostly unbroken history of deference to federal powers. If a head of a federal LEO, intelligence or related agency makes a significant announcement, the press will dutifully repeat the assertions without any analysis or attempt to vet the info.
During the 2010s we'd get claims like Cyber Pearl Harbor or FBI's Going Dark w/ 7k unlockable phones. Never with evidence. And it was never questioned.
Officials who had been eventually factchecked (once here, once there) by qualified, credible people were found (each time) have been untrue (Keith Alexander). With a zero percent credibility rating, they were still never doubted.
Local news orgs do the same for most Gov and corp entities. If Local Police say "..." it will be faithfully presented as if the statement is a verified fact - except no verification is done, usually ever.
Our current admin rattles off stuff that is impossible to believe. Finally the US press wonders if it's true. Huzzah for progress, I guess.