Summary
The White House confirmed that Elon Musk is working as a “special government employee” under Trump, granting him significant authority to cut federal spending.
Musk has a government email, office space, and access to sensitive Treasury systems. His team abruptly shut down USAID headquarters on Monday.
Musk is consolidating unchecked power, raising legal and ethical concerns, particularly given his federal contracts.
Musk is unpaid and may not be required to disclose financial interests.
No no, not a coup, a special government operation )))))l
As Jon Stewart said “it has been done within the confines of our legal system, therefore it’s not fascist”
Nothing will meaningfully improve until the rich fear for their lives
Like… Like a super special employee? An S.S.?
Someone really needs to shoot him.
No no, violence is not the answer. Someone really needs to send him to Guantanamo Bay, outside of US jurisdiction, and introduce him to all the immigrants he’s illegally detained. They can each take a piece of him.
Violence is the only answer. It’s the only thing that has ever worked. I know we like that myth here in the US. After all it’s a myth that is propagandized into us from the moment we’re capable of retaining it. But it’s not real. It never was. Much like American Exceptionalism and laissez-faire economics. They are a fiction that was never in your best interests. Meant to control and defang you while your betters treat you like a slave.
“Elon can’t do and won’t do anything without our approval,” Trump told reporters in the Oval Office on Monday.
Any bets on how long it will be until Elon does something so unpopular that there’s blowback on Trump and it becomes “Elon acted on this alone and I had nothing to do with it.”
I insist on only calling him President Musk because I know when he takes enough attention and credit from Trump, Trump will get mad and tell Elon to fuck off.
It will be glorious if it blows back so hard that Musk ends up in prison.
We can only hope. This morning, I saw multiple news articles with “President Musk” in the title. I suspect it’s intentional for that reason. But at minimum, I hope it’s starting.
It’s legal because I said so
So is there no conflict of interest with the companies he runs getting federal contracts? Don’t politicians need to put their companies into some type of trust where they can’t run it and make decisions that would be in their favour? I mean I know it doesn’t work like that with stick trading (cough cough Pelosi).
Company he runs? You really think he has time to run 5 companies while jerking off on twitter and now is spending his time jerking off in the treasury. The man just does what ever he feels. None of it is remotely called “work” he’s basically a walking jerk off
I brought up the conflict of interest to a trump coworker and he deadass said, “I get the conflict of interest, but I just don’t care.” The mask is fully off.
Edit: not that I’m surprised, just depressed and somewhat bewildered
Trump did away with the trust thing. And they let him because it wasn’t a law, it was just something that was understood to be done. No talk of him doing it this time either.
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Perfection
Where’s all the “But…but…Jack Smith wasn’t legally appointed” people at?
I imagine that as a formality Musk’s recommendations go past Trump, then to Russell Vought who is head of the OBM (office of management and business), and the actual official in charge of funding allocations.
I think congress is the actual official in charge of funding allocations.
Is that the appropriation bill that fills the annual budget? Would the OBM be more like, allocation of those funds? I don’t know much about this stuff.
Would dems even have the votes to “shut down the government” that way? Is that in June/July?
Does that mean his communications will be subject to FOIA?
Fat chance. I read he brought in his own server and connected it to the network at the OMB to spam emails to federal employees. That seems highly illegal.
Gosh, I remember a quaint time in the olden times when having your OWN EMAIL SERVER was something worthy of being lined up against a wall and shot for.
Guess that only applies to Democratic candidates for President named Hillary.
Also, and it bears repeating - I guess this would have been jUsTaSbAd under Kamala, because something something neoliberal argle bargle status quo genocide…
Legality is just words on a piece of paper if nobody is going to enforce it.
I tend to agree, but we should at least try. Pull every lever of governance we have for as long as we have it.
I don’t disagree but it’s not as if we’re dealing with people who have any sort of integrity or honor, who’ll accept when they’ve done something wrong.
Doubt it. I bet they’ll try to classify any of his communications as presidential advice, which would make them privileged communications not subject to foia
He’s special, alright.
He failed background check.
The richest man on the planet who once joked about ending world hunger is cutting federal spending of the richest and most powerful nation on the planet. Let that sink in for a moment.
And they were in an awful hurry to kill USAID.
That’s probably just a trial run. They are floating the idea of killing the Department of Education now.
But he’s autistic guys! We’re all misunderstanding, there is no Nazi coup going on.
Elon is special. Not in a good way though.
