After the election and before the inauguration
World’s richest man was posting this as he was approaching xmas eve.
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— Murshed Zaheed (@murshedz.bsky.social) December 25, 2024 at 2:35 PM
This is how he is
CNN putting this in babyish language to be sure we get the point:
"Americans don’t know the full extent of what Elon Musk is doing as he embeds alongside President Donald Trump at the top of the federal government." Oh, "there are clues," yes, and "Musk claims to be reclaiming government for you, the taxpaying voter," but his "actual role is unclear," including whether "taken an oath, like the federal workers he apparently has plans to fire, to uphold the Constitution?" Hey: "People are supposed to know about the people who run their government."
— We do not know what exactly Elon Musk is doing to the federal government, Analysis by Zachary B. Wolf, CNN, February 1, 2025
"Remember how Elon Musk destroyed Twitter by ripping apart its infrastructure without understanding it? Now imagine that same playbook applied to the federal government. It’s happening, and the stakes are exponentially higher.
* * *
The parallel to Twitter is striking and terrifying. At Twitter, Musk’s “reform” strategy transformed a platform used by hundreds of millions for vital communication into his personal megaphone, hemorrhaging somewhere between 60-85% of its revenue in the process. But Twitter was just a private company. Now he’s applying the same destructive playbook to the federal government, where the stakes involve not just user experience or advertising dollars, but the basic functioning of American democracy.
* * *
This is the most powerful country in the world, and it’s being ripped apart by someone with no concern or care for the actual damage he’s doing.
I would be among the first to say that the federal government needs massive reform, just as I thought that Twitter needed a major overhaul (one of the reasons I wrote my Protocols not Platforms paper was to try to inspire that kind of overhaul). But there are smart ways to do it and then there’s this: which is just utter destruction while looking over his shoulder to see if the nihilistic kids who worship his every move are finding it entertaining.
* * *
"The federal government absolutely needs reform, but what we’re seeing isn’t reform — it’s vandalism dressed up as innovation. And unlike Twitter, where users could move to Mastodon or Bluesky (or just log off entirely), there’s no backup government waiting in the wings when Musk’s wrecking ball finishes swinging." (Elon’s Twitter Destruction Playbook Hits The US Government, And It’s Even More Dangerous. Mike Masnick. Jan 31, 2025)
To which Henry Farrell adds that "if we want something better - if in some improbable seeming future universe, we have the chance to make government better as Mike says - we will need to build 'the basic functioning of American democracy' into the process." (DOGE is ripping out the guts of government: Is there a democratic alternative? Henry Farrell, Feb 01, 2025)
Farrell goes on:
"Musk has overseen a lot of destruction at Twitter, but not very much creation. The people who used to defend Musk to me in private have stopped, and are now for the most part maintaining a discreet silence over his unique approach to public communication and business decision-making. It is perfectly possible that Twitter will start making more money again, possibly as a class of an unintended political protection racket, but that is not the kind of business model that one wants to publicly associate oneself with.
Now we are seeing a much bigger catastrophe unfurling. For years, many people in Silicon Valley have been convinced that if only they were in charge, they could eliminate the waste and ideological excesses of government, getting rid of all the obstructionists, and creating a leaner, tighter machine instead.
From this unique perspective, the fact that none of the DOGE people actually understand how government functions is a feature, not a bug. If you understand the workings of the federal bureaucracy you are almost certainly part of the problem, not the solution."
"Commentators should please stop using words such as “digital” and “progress” and “efficiency” and “vision” when describing this coup attempt. The plotting oligarchs have legacy money from an earlier era of software, which they are now seeking to leverage, using destructive political techniques, to destroy human institutions. That’s it. They are offering no future beyond acting out their midlife crises on the rest of us. It is demeaning to pretend that they represent something besides a logic of destruction."
— Timothy Snyder, The Logic of Destruction, February 2, 2025
1/ Musk seeking control over nerve systems of the federal government. As someone who spent a decade studying how centralized information systems are used for coercion this is a five alarm fire. We need to name it, identify risks, and seek to mitigate their impacts.
www.nytimes.com/2025/02/01/u...
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— Abe Newman (@abenewman.bsky.social) February 2, 2025 at 7:32 AM
5/ The first point is to make the connection. Reporting has seen these as independent 'lock outs' or access to specific IT systems. This seems much more a part of a coherent strategy to identify centralized information systems and control them from the top.
— Abe Newman (@abenewman.bsky.social) February 2, 2025 at 7:40 AM
6/So what are the risks. First, the panopticon. Made popular by Foucault, the idea is that if you let people know that they are being watched from a central position they are more likely to obey. E.g. emails demanding changes or workers will be added to lists...
www.nytimes.com/2025/01/31/u...
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— Abe Newman (@abenewman.bsky.social) February 2, 2025 at 7:43 AM
7/The second is the chokepoint. If you have access to payments and data, you can shut opponents off from key resources. Sen Wyden sees this coming.
www.finance.senate.gov/chairmans-ne...
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— Abe Newman (@abenewman.bsky.social) February 2, 2025 at 7:45 AM
8/Divert to loyalists. Once you have a 360 view, you can redirect resources to insiders and cut off the opposition. Reports suggest, the GSA has a whiteboard with properties being sold. Who are they going to? Watch out for sweetheart deals.
www.wired.com/story/elon-m...
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— Abe Newman (@abenewman.bsky.social) February 2, 2025 at 7:48 AM
The names of the Musk “agents”
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— Olga Nesterova (@onestpress.bsky.social) February 2, 2025 at 1:35 PM
"On a quiet afternoon, in a relatively anonymous federal office, the world's richest man, a Nazi who heiled victory and Hitler at the inauguration not two weeks ago, a man with no official federal government position, (oh how they assured us DOGE's lack of legal status would prevent him from accruing real power), suddenly had full control of 5 trillion dollars of annual funding, as well as access to the social security numbers and bank information of every single American individual and business."
— Vicky Osterweil, "We Will Outlive Them," Caw Shiny Things, 3 Feb 2025
"Think about the wooden puzzle known as Jenga, where a tower is made out of criss-crossed wooden blocks. Players are asked to take out pieces of the wooden puzzle from the structure and then place their piece on top, increasing the pressure of gravity on the structure. The goal of the game is get your opponent to take the blame for making the entire system fall.
For years now, this has been my description of the administrative state as we’ve known it. Conservatives primarily take pieces out of the tower while liberals primarily add new blocks to the top. But all have a habit of removing blocks and adding pressures in certain circumstances. Meanwhile, both well-intended advocates and malfeasant ones mess with the blocks along the way.
The role of the civil servants play in the game of Jenga Politics has been to run around with duct tape in an exhausting effort to try to repair the tower before it all topples over. These “deep state” actors are viewed negatively by nearly everyone else by simply trying to keep the tower intact.
* * *
Amidst all of the news of all of the horrible actions of this Administration, it’s hard to explain the significance of political appointees accessing the Treasury’s systems and locking out civil servants. Systems like this are the protected jewels of the Jenga tower, the ones that civil servants obsess over protecting regardless of who is in power. They are like the key node in a social media network, after which the decline spirals out of whack. Many journalists recognized this, breaking the news at the top of their respective outlets. The Trump Administration also realized this, quickly announcing gobsmacking tariffs to shift the media’s attention. After all, the public is more interested in tariffs (and ICE) than esoteric technical systems that keep the government functioning. But the ashen look on the faces of civil servants I know said it all."
— danah boyd, What Game Are We Playing?, apophenia, February 3, 2025
"A coup is underway in plain sight, yet acknowledging this basic truth has become its own act of resistance. In just the past few days, we’ve watched Elon Musk gain control of Treasury payment systems while security officials who followed classification protocols were removed. Career civil servants are being systematically purged for having complied with previous legal requirements. Congressionally established agencies are being illegally shuttered. The president openly declares he won’t enforce laws he dislikes.
Just as the Party in 1984 demands Winston deny the evidence of his own eyes, we’re being asked to accept increasingly absurd explanations for what we’re witnessing. We’re told this is about “government efficiency” when it’s clearly about seizing control of state power. We’re asked to believe that dismantling civil service protections somehow serves democratic interests. We’re expected to accept that private citizens can gain unauthorized access to classified systems in the name of “reform.”
* * *
Consider how this reality distortion operates in real-time: When Elon Musk illegally shuts down USAID, defenders of this action claim the agency serves “at the pleasure of the president.
* * *
This isn’t just wrong as a matter of law — it represents an attack on the very concept of law itself. If we accept that the president can unilaterally shut down congressionally established agencies, then congressional power to establish agencies becomes meaningless. If executive authority can override clear statutory mandates, then our entire system of checks and balances collapses.
This is precisely how democratic breakdown occurs — not just through the violation of laws, but through the corruption of the very language and concepts we use to understand law. When we accept arguments that two plus two equals five—that presidents can simply ignore congressional statutes at will—we’re not just making a legal error. We’re participating in the dismantling of constitutional order itself.
This same distortion of reality appears in how the administration justifies removing civil servants. Career officials who followed legally required protocols—whether attending mandatory training or protecting classified information—are being purged under the pretense of “efficiency” and “reform.” Just as with USAID, we’re being asked to believe that following the law is somehow grounds for punishment. This isn’t just a violation of civil service protections established by the Pendleton Act and strengthened after Watergate—it’s an attempt to make us doubt whether laws mean anything at all."
Mike Brock, To Stop The Coup, We Must Be Clear About The Truth: Two Plus Two Equals Four, TechDirt, Feb 4, 2025. Reprinted from Notes on the Circus.
A February 4 letter to Congress
"illustrates the range of questions that the administration will not answer about Musk’s arrangements.
* * *
The top-line claim in Treasury’s letter—which is a response to a January 31 letter from Wyden posing questions about Musk—is that this access is “read-only.” It says that a tech executive named Tom Krause—a member of Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency—has this “read-only access” to “coded data” of Treasury’s payment systems, to undertake a review of the systems to enhance their efficiency and integrity.
* * *
First, why is someone on Musk’s DOGE being given access to coded data on Treasury’s payment systems in the first place? If this were a mere expansion of a previous review process, why didn’t Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent assign one of those “veteran career officials” to oversee it, as opposed to granting it to someone who apparently answers to Musk?
* * *
What sort of access does Musk have to these data and systems via Krause? The White House has declared that Musk is also a Special Government Employee. Does Musk have access to this data and these systems, and can he issue directives with regard to them via Krause—who again is part of DOGE—or not? Does Krause have the authority to override those career officials as part of this process?
* * *
Somewhat insultingly, the letter says nothing meaningful about Musk’s role. So naturally, none of these unknowns are addressed.
* * *
It’s also worth looking at the questions in Wyden’s January 31 letter that are not answered in Treasury’s response: Why did Treasury grant DOGE officials access to its payment systems? What’s the legal authority for granting this to DOGE officials in particular? Who are the full range of officials on DOGE that have access to them? Has Treasury vetted whether DOGE’s access—and Musk’s access—raises conflicts of interest, given Musk’s extensive business holdings, particularly in China?"
("Trump-Musk Purge Scandal at Treasury Takes Yet Another Unsettling Turn," Greg Sargent, The New Republic, February 5, 2025)/
Read also
CIA Staffers Offered Early Retirement To Leave Their Jobs: This package differs from what was offered to over 2 million federal workers last month. Marita Vlachou,
HuffPost, Feb 5, 2025
Marko Elez used to have racist posts on X; he had deleted his X account. Upon being revealed, he resigned from DOGE. See: DOGE Staffer Resigns Over Racist Posts, Katherine Long, WSJ, Feb 6, 2025
Mark Cuban Calls Out Elon Musk's Growing Influence Under Trump: 'On A Mission To Make Himself...Above And Beyond The President Of The United States', Namrata Sen, Benzinga, February 7, 2025
In response to a post on X from @maxwellfrost.bsky.social showing the effort to get into the Department of Education building this morning, Elon Musk replied, "No such department exists in the federal government"
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— Marisa Kabas (@marisakabas.bsky.social) February 7, 2025 at 4:19 PM
This morning, we won a court order blocking Elon Musk, the world’s richest man, from accessing Americans’ private data.
Musk and his DOGE employees must destroy all records they've obtained.
I've said it before, and I'll say it again: no one is above the law.
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— New York Attorney General Letitia James (@newyorkstateag.bsky.social) February 8, 2025 at 7:53 AM
Federal judge blocks Elon Musk’s DOGE access to critical Treasury payment system, Ray Sanchez, CNN, February 8, 2025
Judge blocks Trump administration from placing 2,200 USAID employees on leave, Jacob Rosen, CBS News, February 8, 2025
Trump Administration Orders 'Catastrophic' Funding Cuts For Science Research, Igor Babic, HuffPost, February 8, 2025
What Trump is doing to the US government is not a spoils system, Zachary B. Wolf, CNN, February 8, 2025
Democrats plot strategy in shutdown fight against Trump: ‘Not a lot of good options’, Sarah Ferris, Manu Raju and Lauren Fox, CNN, February 9, 2025
Elon Musk Says Team Behind CBS's '60 Minutes' Deserves 'A Long Prison Sentence': "60 Minutes are the biggest liars in the world!" the world's richest man wrote on his social media platform, X. Marita Vlachou, HuffPost, Feb 17, 2025
"We weren’t quite sure what we were facing in 2017. A racist game show host had accidentally won the presidency and had no concrete plan for governing. Those working in his hastily-assembled administration couldn’t figure out how to turn on the White House lights on their first day in power. The new president didn’t believe in anything – he still doesn’t – but was monstrously racist and a longtime sexual abuser who may or may not go along with Republicans’ anti-abortion crusade. Beyond that, we didn’t know much about what was in store.
* * *
Musk’s entry into the fascist equation seems to have helped focus the crowd’s anger, for he is the One Who Was Promised by the Supreme Court’s anti-democracy Citizens United ruling twelve years ago.
* * *
Musk’s takeover of the U.S. government is the difference between 2017 and 2025: Eight years in which pro-democracy forces did nothing to protect the system and guard against the hostile takeover of the brainworm-infested product of capital. It is the ultimate manifestation of the rise of technofascism, a societal disease which threatens everyone and will forge some (very) unlikely alliances in the coming years. Congressional Republicans are no longer the primary threat. Neither are the far-right think tanks that held such sway during Trump’s first term. It is Musk and Musk alone who represents an existential crisis for the US, the most acute crisis in the nation’s history, and folks gathered in D.C. on Monday seemed to recognize that."
— Denny Carter, "Long Way From A Fire," Bad Faith Times, 18 Feb 2025
"President Donald Trump Wednesday evening again asserted that he put billionaire Elon Musk “in charge” of his “Department of Government Efficiency,” contradicting his own Department of Justice, which is claiming that Musk is merely a White House adviser with no authority.
“I signed an order creating the Department of Government Efficiency and put a man named Elon Musk in charge,” Trump said at a Saudi Arabian financial conference in Miami Beach, with Musk sitting in the audience. “Thank you, Elon, for doing it. And he’s doing a great job.”"
Trump Again Claims He Put Musk ‘In Charge’ Of DOGE, Contradicting His Own DOJ: The statement could help the Trump critics who've sued to stop job cuts and contract cancellations, on the grounds that Musk does not have authority to make those calls. S.V. Date, HuffPost, Feb 19, 2025
