Musk takeover

[SunnyDays]

Returning to the forums after several sleepless nights, hoping I could come here for some thoughtful discourse about how to proceed.  Our household is firmly impacted by the DOGE data breach, as DH receives a mil pension and Disability for the damages inflicted during active service.  So Musk and his tech bros now have our personal banking information.  Cool. 

We are thinking that account is already compromised, no point in linking a new account for fed payments as DOGE will just get access to that.

Would we be wasting our time by setting up a new checking account with a different bank to give ourselves a place to sweep our funds and run our household out of, knowing our current bank account is compromised by the current admin's actions?  CHASE is offering some fun incentives...is that a silver lining to this fuckery?

Useful or pointless?

Perhaps a Canadian bank?  My credit union offers American dollar accounts.  PM me if you want the name.

[Travis]

Trump calls Elon a "special government employee"

https://x.com/chrismegerian/status/1886469418273710210?s=46&t=0Se8YtjymFbsnOSBZQrb4g


Which means on paper he shouldn't be poking his fingers into federal contracts without supervision since he himself is a federal contractor.

https://x.com/rwpusa/status/1886493146508390612?s=46&t=0Se8YtjymFbsnOSBZQrb4g

[CrustyBadger]

But by gaining control over the treasury system, DOGE can accomplish two things which are key to their mission:
1. Analyze the database to find out where government spending is actually going.
2. Cut off wasteful spending at the source.

It’s like if you have a leaky pipe in your home, one of the first things you do is go down into the basement and shut off the water main.

This is actually a great analogy. You just misunderstand where the water is leaking from.

There's no need to analyze a database. Government spending is authorized each year by Congress. It's called an appropriations bill. It is 100% out in the open. Granted, it is a lot of government-speak. But we absolutely know what the federal government is spending each year. It is in the budget.

So there's absolutely no need for the plumber to be looking for leaks if by leaks you mean "spending that Congress authorized".

If Elon thinks he's looking for checks the Treasury department is cutting, that haven't been part of the authorized budget?  Then that is called an audit. I'm sure there is an actual procedure for an audit. He doesn't have to do it himself. But if that's what he is looking for, he's shown no signs of this.

Instead he is looking for spending that has already been authorized, and wants to stop the payments.  He has no right to do that.

The plumber in this case is shutting off water that isn't leaking. No one authorized him to do this. In fact, he has no legal authority to shut the water off. 

If Elon wants money to stop being spent on certain priorities, he needs to influence Congress. 

In the United States, we have three branches of government. The legislature makes the laws and provides the funding (through its power to levy taxes.). The executive branch carries out the laws and spends the money given to it. The executive branch has no authority to refuse to carry out the laws (and the spending) that Congress authorized.

[reeshau]

Trump calls Elon a "special government employee"

https://x.com/chrismegerian/status/1886469418273710210?s=46&t=0Se8YtjymFbsnOSBZQrb4g


Which means on paper he shouldn't be poking his fingers into federal contracts without supervision since he himself is a federal contractor.

https://x.com/rwpusa/status/1886493146508390612?s=46&t=0Se8YtjymFbsnOSBZQrb4g

It could be why he's doing it without pay.  That, and who needs the headache of a meaningless W2.

[Wolfpack Mustachian]

Isn't anyone concerned about Elon Musk muscling his way into Treasury data this weekend? It's criminal behavior and so dangerous! A huge security breach!

After a conversation today, I can say with a fair degree of confidence that those that were already concerned are still concerned (maybe moreso) but for those that weren't concerned, I don't think the needle has moved at all, as astounding as that is to me.

[Travis]

https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.dcd.277055/gov.uscourts.dcd.277055.1.0.pdf

Lawsuit filed against Treasury Secretary for giving Elon access to everyone's personal info.

[Travis]

https://archive.li/j6UC6

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/02/03/us/politics/musk-federal-government.html

Mr. Musk, the leader of SpaceX, Tesla and X, is working with a frantic, around-the-clock energy familiar to the employees at his various companies, flanked by a cadre of young engineers, drawn in part from Silicon Valley. He has moved beds into the headquarters of the federal personnel office a few blocks from the White House, according to a person familiar with the situation, so he and his staff, working late into the night, could sleep there, reprising a tactic he has deployed at Twitter and Tesla.

Several former and current senior government officials — even those who like what he is doing — expressed a sense of helplessness about how to handle Mr. Musk’s level of unaccountability. At one point after another, Trump officials have generally relented rather than try to slow him down. Some hoped Congress would choose to reassert itself.

Mr. Musk’s allies now aim to inject artificial intelligence tools into government systems, using them to assess contracts and recommend cuts. On Monday, Thomas Shedd, a former Tesla engineer who has been tapped to lead a technology team at G.S.A., told some staff members that he hoped to put all federal contracts into a centralized system so they could be analyzed by artificial intelligence, three people familiar with the meeting said.

In his current role, Mr. Musk has a direct line to Mr. Trump and operates with little if any accountability or oversight, according to people familiar with the dynamic. He often enters the White House through a side entrance, and drops into meetings. He has a close working relationship with Mr. Trump’s top policy adviser, Stephen Miller, who shares Mr. Musk’s contempt for much of the federal work force.

[LaineyAZ]

https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.dcd.277055/gov.uscourts.dcd.277055.1.0.pdf

Lawsuit filed against Treasury Secretary for giving Elon access to everyone's personal info.

Trade union members filed this suit - unions with the power and spine to go after Musk, very encouraging!

[BC_Goldman]

It's frustrating that a lot of damage/violations will already be done before anything is done legally to stop him.

[Fru-Gal]

One of my young adult kids just pointed out to me that it would be in character for one of those kids helping musk to be a mole or spy.

[partgypsy]

Article "some hoped that Congress would reassert itself"
 Palm hitting forehead.

[Gremlin]

In the United States, we have three branches of government.

You used to... 

[Herbert Derp]

This isn't like hiring a plumber to fix a leaky pipe in your basement.

This is more like a person who isn't you gaining control of all your passwords, taking over your bank accounts, investments and credit cards, and announcing that from now on he's going to be in charge of your spending and will prevent you from purchasing anything he thinks you don't deserve to have.

To be perfectly honest, I think the government is in need of exactly this type of intervention. That actually sounds good to me.

This is actually a great analogy. You just misunderstand where the water is leaking from.

There's no need to analyze a database. Government spending is authorized each year by Congress. It's called an appropriations bill. It is 100% out in the open. Granted, it is a lot of government-speak. But we absolutely know what the federal government is spending each year. It is in the budget.

So there's absolutely no need for the plumber to be looking for leaks if by leaks you mean "spending that Congress authorized".

If Elon thinks he's looking for checks the Treasury department is cutting, that haven't been part of the authorized budget?  Then that is called an audit. I'm sure there is an actual procedure for an audit. He doesn't have to do it himself. But if that's what he is looking for, he's shown no signs of this.

The trouble is that how do you know if the money granted by Congress is being spent efficiently? I mean it’s not really a question, we already know the government is one of the most inefficient spenders of money on the planet. So in order to find out where the inefficiencies lie, one must follow the paper trail and see how the money is actually being spent. Seems perfectly logical to me.

Correct me if I’m wrong about this and every transaction is included in the apportions bill. But that seems unlikely to me.

As for audits, this is an audit. They are just doing it faster, I guess. If DOGE did a normal audit, I highly doubt they could accomplish anything at all before the midterms. And if there are no results by then, nothing will ever happen. We will lose our one and only chance to have fiscal discipline in the government.

[PeteD01]

Public Citizen just filed this in federal court:

COMPLAINT FOR DECLARATORY AND INJUNCTIVE RELIEF
1. Plaintiffs Alliance for Retired Americans, American Federation of
Government Employees, AFL-CIO, and Service Employees International Union,
AFL-CIO, file this action against defendants Scott Bessent, in his official capacity as Secretary of the Treasury, the Department of the Treasury, and the Bureau of the Fiscal Service, agencies of the United States, for declaratory and injunctive relief to halt Defendants’ unlawful ongoing, systematic, and continuous disclosure of personal and financial information contained in Defendants’ records to Elon Musk and other members of the so-called “Department of Government Efficiency” (DOGE), or to any other person.

https://www.citizen.org/wp-content/uploads/1-Complaint-7.pdf

[OzzieandHarriet]

https://archive.li/j6UC6

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/02/03/us/politics/musk-federal-government.html

Mr. Musk, the leader of SpaceX, Tesla and X, is working with a frantic, around-the-clock energy familiar to the employees at his various companies, flanked by a cadre of young engineers, drawn in part from Silicon Valley. He has moved beds into the headquarters of the federal personnel office a few blocks from the White House, according to a person familiar with the situation, so he and his staff, working late into the night, could sleep there, reprising a tactic he has deployed at Twitter and Tesla.

Several former and current senior government officials — even those who like what he is doing — expressed a sense of helplessness about how to handle Mr. Musk’s level of unaccountability. At one point after another, Trump officials have generally relented rather than try to slow him down. Some hoped Congress would choose to reassert itself.

Mr. Musk’s allies now aim to inject artificial intelligence tools into government systems, using them to assess contracts and recommend cuts. On Monday, Thomas Shedd, a former Tesla engineer who has been tapped to lead a technology team at G.S.A., told some staff members that he hoped to put all federal contracts into a centralized system so they could be analyzed by artificial intelligence, three people familiar with the meeting said.

In his current role, Mr. Musk has a direct line to Mr. Trump and operates with little if any accountability or oversight, according to people familiar with the dynamic. He often enters the White House through a side entrance, and drops into meetings. He has a close working relationship with Mr. Trump’s top policy adviser, Stephen Miller, who shares Mr. Musk’s contempt for much of the federal work force.

I see the NYT is still doing their whitewashing and normalizing of illegal activities.

[blue_green_sparks]

This isn't like hiring a plumber to fix a leaky pipe in your basement.

This is more like a person who isn't you gaining control of all your passwords, taking over your bank accounts, investments and credit cards, and announcing that from now on he's going to be in charge of your spending and will prevent you from purchasing anything he thinks you don't deserve to have.

To be perfectly honest, I think the government is in need of exactly this type of intervention. That actually sounds good to me.

This is actually a great analogy. You just misunderstand where the water is leaking from.

There's no need to analyze a database. Government spending is authorized each year by Congress. It's called an appropriations bill. It is 100% out in the open. Granted, it is a lot of government-speak. But we absolutely know what the federal government is spending each year. It is in the budget.

So there's absolutely no need for the plumber to be looking for leaks if by leaks you mean "spending that Congress authorized".

If Elon thinks he's looking for checks the Treasury department is cutting, that haven't been part of the authorized budget?  Then that is called an audit. I'm sure there is an actual procedure for an audit. He doesn't have to do it himself. But if that's what he is looking for, he's shown no signs of this.

The trouble is that how do you know if the money granted by Congress is being spent efficiently? I mean it’s not really a question, we already know the government is one of the most inefficient spenders of money on the planet. So in order to find out where the inefficiencies lie, one must follow the paper trail and see how the money is actually being spent. Seems perfectly logical to me.

Correct me if I’m wrong about this and every transaction is included in the apportions bill. But that seems unlikely to me.

As for audits, this is an audit. They are just doing it faster, I guess. If DOGE did a normal audit, I highly doubt they could accomplish anything at all before the midterms. And if there are no results by then, nothing will ever happen. We will lose our one and only chance to have fiscal discipline in the government.

The Nazis were very efficient, Derp. This holding that "efficiency" is some sort of virtuous excuse to dismantle what was left of a somewhat "democratic" republic makes as much sense as a box of hammers.   The GOP is in the business of installing a small, white, Christian Evangelical, isolationist federal government that provides little service to the poor and eliminates the remaining tax-burden levied on large corporations and billionaires. This makes blonde, blue-eyed Jesus very happy.

[RetiredAt63]

Mussolini made the trains run on time.

[BC_Goldman]

Herbert, that is NOT how an audit works.

An audit uses statistics and probabilities to look for anomalies that warrant further investigation. At no point in an audit are current transactions just stopped writ large while "investigation" is done.

Could government spending be more efficient? I'm sure there's room for improvement but government spending isn't as wasteful as it's portrayed by some people.

I disagree that government should be run like a business. It's a nice ideal but the reality is that most businesses do some pretty stupid stuff. Current goings on in the government with Musk/Trump is akin to a hostile takeover followed by gutting of the staff to save money. Yes, it improves the bottom line but I can say from a similar experience that performance suffers a lot. But that doesn't matter to them because the negative effects (longer wait times, more mistakes, etc.) are offloaded to the customers. Sometimes they can get away with it. Other times it means more customers go to a competitor. Not really an option for us in this case.

[PeteD01]

Mussolini made the trains run on time.

That is actually a propaganda lie promoting the efficiency myth that characterizes fascist movements.
In reality, neither the Nazi nor the Italian fascist governments were efficient except in burning down the place and kill millions.
DOGE has to be seen in the context of the old propaganda myth of fascist efficiency:

Mussolini and On-Time Trains
Did Mussolini make the trains run on time?
David Mikkelson
Published June 13, 1999

After the "march on Rome" (which was itself a myth of fascist propaganda) on 28 October 1922 that resulted in King Vittorio Emanuele's appointment of Benito Mussolini as prime minister and the accession to power of the fascists in Italy, Mussolini needed to convince the people of Italy that fascism was indeed a system that worked to their benefit. Thus was born the myth of fascist efficiency, with the train as its symbol. The word was spread that Mussolini had turned the dilapidated Italian railway system into one that was the envy of all Europe, featuring trains that were both dependable and punctual. In Mussolini's Italy, all the trains ran on time.

Well, not quite. The Italian railway system had fallen into a rather sad state during World War I, and it did improve a good deal during the 1920s, but Mussolini was disingenuous in taking credit for the changes: much of the repair work had been performed before Mussolini and the fascists came to power in 1922. More importantly (to the claim at hand), those who actually lived in Italy during the Mussolini era have borne testimony that the Italian railway's legendary adherence to timetables was far more myth than reality.

https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/loco-motive/

[PeteD01]

...

Could government spending be more efficient? I'm sure there's room for improvement but government spending isn't as wasteful as it's portrayed by some people.

...

Not criticizing your post but I think one needs to be careful and not take all that talk about efficiency at face value.
Fascist governments have always tried to convince people that they were working in their ultimate interest because they are supposedly making things more efficient.
It's a cover to justify takeover of government all levels and DOGE is is really out of fascism 101 and has nothing to do with efficiency.

In any case, Musk is channeling Benito Mussolini in many ways, with his fascination of ancient Rome, his salutes and more.
Funny thing is that compared with Mussolini, Musk is an intellectual dwarf and I suggest to learn a bit about Mussolini and Italian fascism to better recognize the recycled BS:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benito_Mussolini

[RetiredAt63]

Mussolini made the trains run on time.

That is actually a propaganda lie promoting the efficiency myth that characterizes fascist movements.
In reality, neither the Nazi nor the Italian fascist governments were efficient except in burning down the place and kill millions.
DOGE has to be seen in the context of the old propaganda myth of fascist efficiency:

Mussolini and On-Time Trains
Did Mussolini make the trains run on time?
David Mikkelson
Published June 13, 1999

After the "march on Rome" (which was itself a myth of fascist propaganda) on 28 October 1922 that resulted in King Vittorio Emanuele's appointment of Benito Mussolini as prime minister and the accession to power of the fascists in Italy, Mussolini needed to convince the people of Italy that fascism was indeed a system that worked to their benefit. Thus was born the myth of fascist efficiency, with the train as its symbol. The word was spread that Mussolini had turned the dilapidated Italian railway system into one that was the envy of all Europe, featuring trains that were both dependable and punctual. In Mussolini's Italy, all the trains ran on time.

Well, not quite. The Italian railway system had fallen into a rather sad state during World War I, and it did improve a good deal during the 1920s, but Mussolini was disingenuous in taking credit for the changes: much of the repair work had been performed before Mussolini and the fascists came to power in 1922. More importantly (to the claim at hand), those who actually lived in Italy during the Mussolini era have borne testimony that the Italian railway's legendary adherence to timetables was far more myth than reality.

https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/loco-motive/

I forgot the /s     ;-)

For sure. But it's the myth that counts. And gets built on by others of the same ilk.

It's like the old saying, "who are you going to believe, me or your own lying eyes?" Said by liars everywhere.

[lhamo]

https://archive.li/j6UC6

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/02/03/us/politics/musk-federal-government.html

Mr. Musk, the leader of SpaceX, Tesla and X, is working with a frantic, around-the-clock energy familiar to the employees at his various companies,

Can't somebody figure out who his dealer is and get them both arrested?  Or is he just hyped up on Adderall?

[BC_Goldman]

...

Could government spending be more efficient? I'm sure there's room for improvement but government spending isn't as wasteful as it's portrayed by some people.

...

Not criticizing your post but I think one needs to be careful and not take all that talk about efficiency at face value.
Fascist governments have always tried to convince people that they were working in their ultimate interest because they are supposedly making things more efficient.
It's a cover to justify takeover of government all levels and DOGE is is really out of fascism 101 and has nothing to do with efficiency.

In any case, Musk is channeling Benito Mussolini in many ways, with his fascination of ancient Rome, his salutes and more.
Funny thing is that compared with Mussolini, Musk is an intellectual dwarf and I suggest to learn a bit about Mussolini and Italian fascism to better recognize the recycled BS:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benito_Mussolini

Perhaps my post could have been clearer. I'm not arguing that DOGE is actually trying to make the government more efficient, rather that Herbert Derp seems to think they will.

I would argue that gutting spending and employees will make things LESS efficient.

Even if we were to take the efficiency claim at face value, the stated end doesn't justify the means in my opinion.

[PeteD01]

Mussolini made the trains run on time.

That is actually a propaganda lie promoting the efficiency myth that characterizes fascist movements.
In reality, neither the Nazi nor the Italian fascist governments were efficient except in burning down the place and kill millions.
DOGE has to be seen in the context of the old propaganda myth of fascist efficiency:

Mussolini and On-Time Trains
Did Mussolini make the trains run on time?
David Mikkelson
Published June 13, 1999

After the "march on Rome" (which was itself a myth of fascist propaganda) on 28 October 1922 that resulted in King Vittorio Emanuele's appointment of Benito Mussolini as prime minister and the accession to power of the fascists in Italy, Mussolini needed to convince the people of Italy that fascism was indeed a system that worked to their benefit. Thus was born the myth of fascist efficiency, with the train as its symbol. The word was spread that Mussolini had turned the dilapidated Italian railway system into one that was the envy of all Europe, featuring trains that were both dependable and punctual. In Mussolini's Italy, all the trains ran on time.

Well, not quite. The Italian railway system had fallen into a rather sad state during World War I, and it did improve a good deal during the 1920s, but Mussolini was disingenuous in taking credit for the changes: much of the repair work had been performed before Mussolini and the fascists came to power in 1922. More importantly (to the claim at hand), those who actually lived in Italy during the Mussolini era have borne testimony that the Italian railway's legendary adherence to timetables was far more myth than reality.

https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/loco-motive/

I forgot the /s     ;-)

For sure. But it's the myth that counts. And gets built on by others of the same ilk.

It's like the old saying, "who are you going to believe, me or your own lying eyes?" Said by liars everywhere.

I know, it is actually a joke at the expense of Mussolini and a put down of the fascist efficiency myth (making Italian trains run on time would have required superpowers as anyone alive at the time would have known).
In today's world I think the /s is very much needed, unfortunately.

[PeteD01]

...

Could government spending be more efficient? I'm sure there's room for improvement but government spending isn't as wasteful as it's portrayed by some people.

...

Not criticizing your post but I think one needs to be careful and not take all that talk about efficiency at face value.
Fascist governments have always tried to convince people that they were working in their ultimate interest because they are supposedly making things more efficient.
It's a cover to justify takeover of government all levels and DOGE is is really out of fascism 101 and has nothing to do with efficiency.

In any case, Musk is channeling Benito Mussolini in many ways, with his fascination of ancient Rome, his salutes and more.
Funny thing is that compared with Mussolini, Musk is an intellectual dwarf and I suggest to learn a bit about Mussolini and Italian fascism to better recognize the recycled BS:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benito_Mussolini

Perhaps my post could have been clearer. I'm not arguing that DOGE is actually trying to make the government more efficient, rather that Herbert Derp seems to think they will.

I would argue that gutting spending and employees will make things LESS efficient.

Even if we were to take the efficiency claim at face value, the stated end doesn't justify the means in my opinion.

No, your post is clear enough.

It's just that I noticed that people are still discussing DOGE in terms of an operation designed to improve government efficiency and that is just repeating a lie right out of the fascist playbook.

DOGE is an operation to gain control of essential government functions and over citizens´ supposedly protected information - biggest invasion of privacy we have ever seen and a massive crime. DOGE should be discussed only in these terms and the efficiency myth exposed as a propaganda lie.

[neo von retorch]

It's also a bit frustrating because DOGE was founded in 2013 under Obama as the US Digital Service, and it was actually really good at helping other agencies learn how to utilize software and technology to improve their processes and gain efficiencies.

It was renamed in January under Trump, and Musk was handed the keys. Then everyone believed the lie that Trump and Musk "founded DOGE" when really they're just using it for their own purposes under a new name.

[Morning Glory]

https://robertreich.substack.com/p/how-the-muskrat-is-messing-with-your

Robert Reich is calling it a coup:

Friends, this does seem like a coup. Offhand, I can think of at least eight federal laws that have been broken by Musk and his goons over the last few days, and at least two provisions of the U.S. Constitution.

Much of this occurred over the weekend. “Very few in the bureaucracy actually work the weekend, so it’s like the opposing team just leaves the field for 2 days!” Musk wrote on X on Saturday.

Hello? Musk’s “opposing team” works for you. Musk works for Trump and Musk.

Musk and his goon squad are riding roughshod over the institutions of our government, negating decisions that have been made by Congress. They are trampling on our democracy and getting information about you that they have no right to have.

[PeteD01]

And while the nihilists in charge are flooding the zone with their BS to overwhelm people's attention, let's review review Umberto Eco's Ur-fascism.
It helps filtering out the stupid noise.

Quote:
... Mussolini’s fascism was based upon the idea of a charismatic ruler, on corporatism, on the utopia of the Imperial Fate of Rome, on an imperialistic will to conquer new territories, on an exacerbated nationalism, on the ideal of an entire nation regimented in black shirts (MAGA garb), on the rejection of parliamentary democracy, on anti-Semitism...

Looks familiar, doesn't it?

Ur-Fascism
Umberto Eco

In 1942, at the age of ten, I received the First Provincial Award of Ludi Juveniles (a voluntary, compulsory competition for young Italian Fascists — that is, for every young Italian). I elaborated with rhetorical skill on the subject “Should we die for the glory of Mussolini and the immortal destiny of Italy?” My answer was positive. I was a smart boy.

I spent two of my early years among the SS, Fascists, Republicans, and partisans shooting at one another, and I learned how to dodge bullets. It was good exercise.

In April 1945, the partisans took over in Milan. Two days later they arrived in the small town where I was living at the time. It was a moment of joy. The main square was crowded with people singing and waving flags, calling in loud voices for Mimo, the partisan leader of that area.

A former maresciallo of the Carabinieri, Mimo joined the supporters of General Badoglio, Mussolini’s successor, and lost a leg during one of the first clashes with Mussolini’s remaining forces. Mimo showed up on the balcony of the city hall, pale, leaning on his crutch, and with one hand tried to calm the crowd. I was waiting for his speech because my whole childhood had been marked by the great historic speeches of Mussolini, whose most significant passages we memorized in school. Silence. Mimo spoke in a hoarse voice, barely audible. He said: “Citizens, friends. After so many painful sacrifices … here we are. Glory to those who have fallen for freedom.” And that was it. He went back inside. The crowd yelled, the partisans raised their guns and fired festive volleys. We kids hurried to pick up the shells, precious items, but I had also learned that freedom of speech means freedom from rhetoric.

https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/umberto-eco-ur-fascism.pdf

[Fru-Gal]

https://archive.li/j6UC6

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/02/03/us/politics/musk-federal-government.html

Mr. Musk, the leader of SpaceX, Tesla and X, is working with a frantic, around-the-clock energy familiar to the employees at his various companies, flanked by a cadre of young engineers, drawn in part from Silicon Valley. He has moved beds into the headquarters of the federal personnel office a few blocks from the White House, according to a person familiar with the situation, so he and his staff, working late into the night, could sleep there, reprising a tactic he has deployed at Twitter and Tesla.

Several former and current senior government officials — even those who like what he is doing — expressed a sense of helplessness about how to handle Mr. Musk’s level of unaccountability. At one point after another, Trump officials have generally relented rather than try to slow him down. Some hoped Congress would choose to reassert itself.

Mr. Musk’s allies now aim to inject artificial intelligence tools into government systems, using them to assess contracts and recommend cuts. On Monday, Thomas Shedd, a former Tesla engineer who has been tapped to lead a technology team at G.S.A., told some staff members that he hoped to put all federal contracts into a centralized system so they could be analyzed by artificial intelligence, three people familiar with the meeting said.

In his current role, Mr. Musk has a direct line to Mr. Trump and operates with little if any accountability or oversight, according to people familiar with the dynamic. He often enters the White House through a side entrance, and drops into meetings. He has a close working relationship with Mr. Trump’s top policy adviser, Stephen Miller, who shares Mr. Musk’s contempt for much of the federal work force.

I see the NYT is still doing their whitewashing and normalizing of illegal activities.

Fuckin NYT never fails man

[Fru-Gal]

And while the nihilists in charge are flooding the zone with their BS to overwhelm people's attention, let's review review Umberto Eco's Ur-fascism.
It helps filtering out the stupid noise.

Ur-Fascism
Umberto Eco

In 1942, at the age of ten, I received the First Provincial Award of Ludi Juveniles (a voluntary, compulsory competition for young Italian Fascists — that is, for every young Italian). I elaborated with rhetorical skill on the subject “Should we die for the glory of Mussolini and the immortal destiny of Italy?” My answer was positive. I was a smart boy.

I spent two of my early years among the SS, Fascists, Republicans, and partisans shooting at one another, and I learned how to dodge bullets. It was good exercise.

In April 1945, the partisans took over in Milan. Two days later they arrived in the small town where I was living at the time. It was a moment of joy. The main square was crowded with people singing and waving flags, calling in loud voices for Mimo, the partisan leader of that area.

A former maresciallo of the Carabinieri, Mimo joined the supporters of General Badoglio, Mussolini’s successor, and lost a leg during one of the first clashes with Mussolini’s remaining forces. Mimo showed up on the balcony of the city hall, pale, leaning on his crutch, and with one hand tried to calm the crowd. I was waiting for his speech because my whole childhood had been marked by the great historic speeches of Mussolini, whose most significant passages we memorized in school. Silence. Mimo spoke in a hoarse voice, barely audible. He said: “Citizens, friends. After so many painful sacrifices … here we are. Glory to those who have fallen for freedom.” And that was it. He went back inside. The crowd yelled, the partisans raised their guns and fired festive volleys. We kids hurried to pick up the shells, precious items, but I had also learned that freedom of speech means freedom from rhetoric.

https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/umberto-eco-ur-fascism.pdf

Amazing

[Travis]

The trouble is that how do you know if the money granted by Congress is being spent efficiently? I mean it’s not really a question, we already know the government is one of the most inefficient spenders of money on the planet. So in order to find out where the inefficiencies lie, one must follow the paper trail and see how the money is actually being spent. Seems perfectly logical to me.

Correct me if I’m wrong about this and every transaction is included in the apportions bill. But that seems unlikely to me.

As for audits, this is an audit. They are just doing it faster, I guess. If DOGE did a normal audit, I highly doubt they could accomplish anything at all before the midterms. And if there are no results by then, nothing will ever happen. We will lose our one and only chance to have fiscal discipline in the government.

Thank you for informing us you have no idea what an audit is or how to properly conduct one. Audits are performed by professionals with standards, checklists, and a reporting chain. Is Elon a certified auditor? No. Are any of this lackeys? No. Auditors are observers. They grade according to predetermined standards and inform decision-makers. They don't pull the plug on systems, rewrite code, and cancel contracts they didn't read but decide are bad anyways. Auditors are consultants. They're not in charge of anything and don't make decisions.


"How do we know if the money granted by Congress is being spent efficiently?"

Sounds like something financial specialists should be doing. Where are they? What does "efficient" look like? Elon's project here isn't going to answer you that question. He's not looking for efficiency, he's just deleting funding and Tweeting about it like a 12 year old. So are his programmers. What happens when they leave? The funding can be appropriated again next year. Or is he now the permanent arbiter of what the US Congress and taxpayer get to spend their money on?

[Fru-Gal]

Musk is like “My team of unpaid interns is more efficient working 120 hours a week than those unproductive bureaucrats working 40 hours a week!”

[Travis]

https://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/musk-cronies-dive-into-treasury-dept-payments-code-base

More developments about Musk's team having access to Treasury, Social Security, Medicare, etc. 

In a normal universe, you'd need to be specifically qualified as a software developer to touch financial and healthcare systems due to the sensitive nature of the data and how easy it is to lose or expose that information.

Each of these technical fields have their own certified auditors as well. A financial systems auditor can't just pick up a clipboard and audit a healthcare system. I couldn't even get a job providing desktop support to a bank without a couple specific certifications.

[ixtap]

Musk has stated his goal is to get rid of all regulations and well, maybe it will turn out we need to bring some of it back. Much of that regulation is there because of the various ways people get hurt or die. Musk has already shown himself indifferent to that, so not sure what would inspire him to bring any back.

[Travis]

Musk has stated his goal is to get rid of all regulations and well, maybe it will turn out we need to bring some of it back. Much of that regulation is there because of the various ways people get hurt or die. Musk has already shown himself indifferent to that, so not sure what would inspire him to bring any back.

https://x.com/elonmusk/status/1886842910416535753

"I'll stop when Congress makes the government look the way I want it to"

[Travis]

Which includes using AI to write code for government systems, and tying Login.gov to your PII because his vision is to turn the government into an "everything app."

https://www.404media.co/things-are-going-to-get-intense-how-a-musk-ally-plans-to-push-ai-on-the-government/

[bacchi]

Court orders are ignored:

Nonprofits and state agencies still lacked access Monday to EPA grant awards funded through the Inflation Reduction Act. Two district court judges have issued orders to reverse such spending freezes — with U.S. District Judge Loren AliKhan reinforcing her order Monday.

The cracks of our democracy are being pried open by self-serving traitors.

[Fru-Gal]

It’s not surprising to me (though it was at first) that Hacker News (ycombinator) had zero response to Trump’s election. It’s disappointing that they still aren’t commenting on Musk’s takeover efforts.

It would be super cool if some of the software developers we have on this forum might speculate on what exactly Musk & his interns could actually do with access to the Treasury computers.

First off, is the Treasury running something like legacy Oracle payment systems? It probably is. If so, that won’t be easy for the interns LOL. I understand the data privacy issues, but like, literally, what does it look like to “hack” such a system from the inside?

WOAH never mind I found exactly such an analysis:
https://www.crisesnotes.com/day-five-of-the-trump-musk-treasury-payments-crisis-of-2025-not-read-only-access-anymore/

It’s all in COBOL!!!

[reeshau]

It’s all in COBOL!!!

Right.  How many 18-to-25-year-olds studied that at coding camp?

If he really wanted to accomplish something significant, quickly, he would have recruited a bunch of 55-to-65-year-olds.

I'm much more concerned about the damage they inadvertently do, that what they intend to do.  Either they make some kludge of a patch that spits out garbage, crashes the system, or opens it up to some malicious party.  Or, they try to immediately migrate it to something modern and off-the-shelf, breaking every infpterface and missing all the embedded business logic.

The latter is quite common in IT upgrades.

[FireLane]

I was a software engineer in my pre-FIRE life. The potential consequences of this are so much worse, even, than Musk deleting government agencies he disapproves of.

What happens if one of his 20-year-old techbros, who doesn't know COBOL, is trying to change something he doesn't understand and fucks up the system in a way that crashes it hard, or that permanently corrupts the data?

Will Social Security checks bounce? Will the U.S. default on Treasury bill payments and crash the global economy because of technical difficulties?

[bacchi]

I was wondering about security. Was network security kicked out of the building too? If so, it'd make hacking into the system much easier for a Chinese or Russian hacker.

[jrhampt]

It’s all in COBOL!!!

Right.  How many 18-to-25-year-olds studied that at coding camp?

If he really wanted to accomplish something significant, quickly, he would have recruited a bunch of 55-to-65-year-olds.

I'm much more concerned about the damage they inadvertently do, that what they intend to do.  Either they make some kludge of a patch that spits out garbage, crashes the system, or opens it up to some malicious party.  Or, they try to immediately migrate it to something modern and off-the-shelf, breaking every infpterface and missing all the embedded business logic.

The latter is quite common in IT upgrades.

Right??  I work for a megacorp and pretty much every new release breaks something in new and interesting ways. 

[Travis]

It’s all in COBOL!!!

If he really wanted to accomplish something significant, quickly, he would have recruited a bunch of 55-to-65-year-olds.

Who do you think was maintaining it in the first place?

[the_gastropod]

In any place I've ever worked, your first weeks as a software developer are spent primarily learning the domain of the app you're working on. You almost always are hired because you know at least most of the tech stack (the programming language, the database, etc.) The code you write during this early period is generally trivial bug fixes, changing some copy (e.g., "It's 2025 now, update our Copyright 2024 text!"), writing test code, etc. You're almost certainly not doing anything impactful. And this is assuming you're being helped by coworkers who can explain things / show you the ropes.

These children Elon's hired very likely have never written a line of COBOL in their lives. Sounds like they've removed all the existing programmers who know these systems. They probably have very limited understanding of the domain of this codebase, and *certainly* have never worked on anything remotely as important. That they've apparently already "shipped" code to production pretty much confirms, for me, that these nerds know they're in over their heads. It's like a Hollywood understanding of how computer programming is done: some elite squad of super-nerds can just swoop into a foreign organization, and are immediately able to "hack shit". Not a chance.

[Travis]

In any place I've ever worked, your first weeks as a software developer are spent primarily learning the domain of the app you're working on. You almost always are hired because you know at least most of the tech stack (the programming language, the database, etc.) The code you write during this early period is generally trivial bug fixes, changing some copy (e.g., "It's 2025 now, update our Copyright 2024 text!"), writing test code, etc. You're almost certainly not doing anything impactful. And this is assuming you're being helped by coworkers who can explain things / show you the ropes.

These children Elon's hired very likely have never written a line of COBOL in their lives. Sounds like they've removed all the existing programmers who know these systems. They probably have very limited understanding of the domain of this codebase, and *certainly* have never worked on anything remotely as important. That they've apparently already "shipped" code to production pretty much confirms, for me, that these nerds know they're in over their heads.

This is who he has working on it.

https://x.com/DataRepublican/status/1886647920566636637

https://x.com/DataRepublican/status/1886613749148344527

[Fru-Gal]

Actually, the datarepublican guy, at a cursory glance, is being somewhat transparent, which gives me hope (that they’re not destroying/stealing things). So this is an audit of a very small portion of our budget (USAID only?). (Aside: Is it true USAID is CIA-run?)

I imagine they wouldn’t be allowed to touch something like the DoD.

I mean, if i have to choose between libertarian and dark gothic maga I’ll take the former. Not that he describes himself that way (again, only cursory glance).

[Travis]

Actually, the datarepublican guy, at a cursory glance, is being somewhat transparent, which gives me hope (that they’re not destroying/stealing things). So this is an audit of a very small portion of our budget (USAID only?). (Aside: Is it true USAID is CIA-run?)

I imagine they wouldn’t be allowed to touch something like the DoD.

I mean, if i have to choose between libertarian and dark gothic maga I’ll take the former. Not that he describes himself that way (again, only cursory glance).

It's not an audit. I'm going to keep smashing that button. It's a 22 year old programmer who opened a data set and colored it red to show off like he cracked a mysterious code. He doesn't know what to do with this information other than post it to Twitter. I work in emergency management. Drawing a straight line between HHS, FEMA, USAID, and a charity that settles refugees is called a Tuesday in my world.

[Wolfpack Mustachian]

Actually, the datarepublican guy, at a cursory glance, is being somewhat transparent, which gives me hope (that they’re not destroying/stealing things). So this is an audit of a very small portion of our budget (USAID only?). (Aside: Is it true USAID is CIA-run?)

I imagine they wouldn’t be allowed to touch something like the DoD.

I mean, if i have to choose between libertarian and dark gothic maga I’ll take the former. Not that he describes himself that way (again, only cursory glance).

It's not an audit. I'm going to keep smashing that button. It's a 22 year old programmer who opened a data set and colored it red to show off like he cracked a mysterious code. He doesn't know what to do with this information other than post it to Twitter. I work in emergency management. Drawing a straight line between HHS, FEMA, USAID, and a charity that settles refugees is called a Tuesday in my world.

The audit narrative is such a lie it's hard to fathom people saying it with a straight face. In what world does someone come in to do a financial audit and decide, I don't think you should pay your customers, and I'm going to lock you out of your own computers to make sure your don't?

[Metalcat]

It’s all in COBOL!!!

Right.  How many 18-to-25-year-olds studied that at coding camp?

If he really wanted to accomplish something significant, quickly, he would have recruited a bunch of 55-to-65-year-olds.

I'm much more concerned about the damage they inadvertently do, that what they intend to do.  Either they make some kludge of a patch that spits out garbage, crashes the system, or opens it up to some malicious party.  Or, they try to immediately migrate it to something modern and off-the-shelf, breaking every infpterface and missing all the embedded business logic.

The latter is quite common in IT upgrades.

And very in line with the Musky way of doing things.

He has no qualms with trying something, breaking things, and then shrugging off that he broke it.

He sees that kind of damage as the cost of doing business.

[Sandi_k]

DH and I plan to change bank accounts.