Elon Musk shows no signs of slowing down in his efforts to dismantle the entire U.S. government. Though his Department of Government Efficiency is theoretically restricted to it IT realm of the former U.S. Digital Service – since renamed the U.S. DOGE Service, a Russian nesting doll of acronyms – Musk and his army of youth technofascists gained access to the Treasury’s payment system and have since taken a hack saw to the entire apparatus.
WIRED, a technology media outlet, was the first to report on the Musk Youth:
The six men are one part of the broader project of Musk allies assuming key government positions. Already, Musk’s lackeys—including more senior staff from xAI, Tesla, and the Boring Company—have taken control of the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) and General Services Administration (GSA), and have gained access to the Treasury Department’s payment system, potentially allowing him access to a vast range of sensitive information about tens of millions of citizens, businesses, and more. On Sunday, CNN reported that DOGE personnel attempted to improperly access classified information and security systems at the US Agency for International Development and that top USAID security officials who thwarted the attempt were subsequently put on leave. The Associated Press reported that DOGE personnel had indeed accessed classified material. –WIRED
Though WIRED has since amended its article to name those involved, its initial reluctance to do so – and Musk et al’s weaponization of that narrative with absurd claims of “doxxing” – speaks to the secrecy this administration will demand and enable moving forward.
Once their names were revealed, many of their supporters in the online tech and conservative worlds came to their defense, sharing anecdotes of their – in some cases, admittedly impressive! – academic and intellectual achievements.
In other cases, maybe less so much.
And, shocking only because I mostly assumed over racism is no longer disqualifying in the Trump/Musk administration, one DOGE employee, Marko Elez, has already had to submit his resignation based on comments he made on social media.
“I was racist before it was cool.”
“I would not mind at all if Gaza and Israel were both wiped off the face of the Earth.”
But by Friday morning, Elez appeared to be on his way back to DOGE, after Musk posted a poll about reinstating Elez, to which Vice President JD Vance responded with his support.
Online, defenders of this team claim that this is all normal – that the government is always staffed by people in their early 20s – or that Silicon Valley should be running the government anyways.
We’re all about to learn if we can withstand four years of governance by edgelords who are too young to even rent a car.
By now, everybody is aware of this team’s laser-like focus on the U.S. Agency of International Development (talk about good acronyms), which as of this week all but ceases to exist. With all but 300 of the agency’s 14,000 employees now laid off, the country not only risks the immediate well-being of thousands of aid recipients around the world, but is also handing China and Russia the gift of a vacuum of soft power in many countries critical to our national security.
The Times identified more than 30 frozen studies that had volunteers already in the care of researchers, including trials of:
- malaria treatment in children under age 5 in Mozambique
- treatment for cholera in Bangladesh
- a screen-and-treat method for cervical cancer in Malawi
- tuberculosis treatment for children and teenagers in Peru and South Africa
- nutritional support for children in Ethiopia
- early-childhood-development interventions in Cambodia
- ways to support pregnant and breastfeeding women to reduce malnutrition in Jordan
- an mRNA vaccine technology for H.I.V. in South Africa
Meanwhile, the least curious people on the internet, like All In’s Jason Calacanis, are celebrating the demise of the agency, though at less than 1% of the federal budget, its elimination will do virtually nothing to address their issue du jour, wasteful government spending.
And, just as much of our modern politics boils down to conservatives being afraid of cities, it turns out they’re also afraid of… USAID?
But, of course, DOGE isn’t limiting itself to USAID. In the wake of last week’s tragic plane crash in the Potomac River, the Department of Transportation has announced that it will tap DOGE to address its outdated systems.
And across the sciences, DOGE is doing everything in its power to eliminate government-funded scientific research, taking down scientific databases wholesale and announcing broad-based layoffs similar to those at USAID.
“Together, [NOAA and its six offices] form a colossal operation that has become one of the main drivers of the climate change alarm industry and, as such, is harmful to future U.S. prosperity,” the document says. -Los Angeles Times
What’s most frustrating, of course, is that there is wasteful spending in the government, just not where DOGE is looking. (Surely, not a coincidence.)
It’s not the most consequential outcome of this entire horrifying episode, but in contention for the stupidest episode in a record-breaking stupid era has to do with the government’s “subsidy” (purchase) of Politico subscriptions.
As if that weren’t enough, neuroscientist and podcast megastar Andrew Huberman inaccurately claimed in a viral tweet that the government spent millions on the New York Times. Turns out, he got a bit confused by how keyword searches work.
It’s possible a court will intervene and stop all this – indeed, given how Trump’s second term has gone, that’s not unlikely. Or, better yet, maybe an asteroid will hit. But no matter what happens in the coming days, we now live in a world ruled by random Twitter account, where misinterpreted screenshots stand in for the truth and the outcomes of your actions don’t matter if you’re first and foremost owning the libs.
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