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.

155 points
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42 points
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2 points

Perfection

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144 points
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7 points
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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.

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30 points

I think congress is the actual official in charge of funding allocations.

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1 point
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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?

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83 points

Does that mean his communications will be subject to FOIA?

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66 points

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.

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48 points

Legality is just words on a piece of paper if nobody is going to enforce it.

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33 points

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…

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12 points

I tend to agree, but we should at least try. Pull every lever of governance we have for as long as we have it.

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7 points

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.

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17 points

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

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75 points

He failed background check.

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54 points

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.

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44 points

And they were in an awful hurry to kill USAID.

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17 points

That’s probably just a trial run. They are floating the idea of killing the Department of Education now.

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