What Elon Musk and the rest of us have in common: How he pushed out SpaceX and SpaceX, and what he did about it
Musk is put in a playpen at his companies where he can’t damage the real work. When there wasn’t any padding between him and the company, he started to switch everything off at random, fire engineers, and turn its revenue into a giant bonfire. Now Musk has brought this strategy to the federal government.
What’s good for Musk isn’t good for the rest of us. His factories are not safe to work in. He drove out security professionals after purchasing the platform. SpaceX has been busily polluting Texas. Throughout the years he’s been very clear: he’s going to do whatever he wants, whatever the consequences.
We are all supposed to pretend this is happening in the name of efficiency and cost-savings, and not as a way for Musk to pursue his shitty personal feuds. I think it is one of the more pressing questions in this situation, and I am not sure anyone can answer it. And when I say “this scenario,” I mean that Elon Musk is going to do whatever he wants, and post through it, and threaten anyone who tries to stop him with, apparently, a US attorney.
Can anyone stop President Musk?: The Case of the Delaware Chancery Court and the Ruling Out of the US Department of Labor and Human Services
is a reporter who writes about tech, money, and human behavior. She worked as a science editor for The Verge. She was a reporter at that time.
Musk can sort out which of America’s rules are real. It turns out punishment from the National Labor Relations Board isn’t real, punishment from NASA isn’t real, and punishment from the FAA isn’t real. The Delaware Chancery Court is extremely real. Based on the past two weeks, the Delaware Chancery Court may be the only real thing in the entire American government.
Did I get everything? Probably not. Musk has said that he removed a department but since he is known to lie, it may not be true. It is not possible to give a full story of the events between Musk’s posts and the confusion of government employees. There will be more bullshit when this is published.
The current administration, which did not pay attention in civics class, doesn’t care about the checks and balances. It tried to freeze spending with a legal statement. Several courts halted that. Then Musk decided to bust into the bureaucracy and start ripping out wires — a technical solution to a legal problem.
Does that sound like liberal hysteria? Okay, here’s Brian Riedl, an economist who works for the conservative Manhattan Institute, and before that, the Heritage Foundation and Republican Senator Rob Portman: “I see a lot of people want to throw out 230 years of constitutional government and replace it with an authoritarian dictator because they have big feelings about the budget and can’t be bothered to work through Congress.”
The most immediate consequences have been borne by USAID, whose programs include George W. Bush’s effort to care for HIV patients in Africa — one that is reputed to have saved 20 million lives so far. The building housing USAID has been shuttered. The reply should be to an email address that appears to be associated with the special adviser to the director of the Office of Personnel Management, who is listed on his LinkedIn profile as a member of the DOGE.
Source: Can anyone stop President Musk?
What does Musk really want to do with the United States Agency for International Development (USAID)? The “Viper’s Nest” of Left Political Phishing and Mao
Consider again the Twitter playbook — because this is just the beginning. Let’s say Musk gets direct access to treasury payments, which seems very likely to be his aim. Will he stop paying bills like he did in the past? It could be fun to learn about what the military does when they don’t have their paychecks, or how many grandparents get evicted because the Social Security checks don’t go out. Do you think foreign spies have already penetrated Musk’s server? All of them, maybe?
If I was a government contractor, I would not be so excited about Treasury stuff. Do you think Musk will pay out your contracts on time if you upset him?
The first casualty that we know of is the United States Agency for International Development, or U.S.A.I.D. Musk seems to hold a vendetta against the agency. He said it was a radical left political psy op, a criminal organization, and a viper’s nest of Marxists who hate America. On Monday, shortly before 2 a.m., he bragged that he and his allies had spent the weekend “feeding USAID into the wood chipper.” In addition to wreaking vengeance on an agency he hates for still undisclosed reasons (although it may be worth noting that U.S.A.I.D. supported the efforts of Black South Africans during and after apartheid), Musk believes that cutting government spending is the only way to reduce inflation and put the U.S. economy on firm footing.
Musk has seized hold of critical levers of power and authority within the federal government, apparently enabling him to destroy federal agencies at will, barring congressional action or judicial pushback.
The past week would be considered one of the most serious examples of executive branch malfeasance in American history even if anyone had elected Musk.