Digby's Hullabaloo Posts

He doesn’t understand what Act Blue does, obviously, so he thinks he can stop these protests by going after it. The groups he mentions are not funded by George Soros or any other billionaire. (DSA lol) Act Blue is just a pass through organization for small donors.

What this shows is that Musk is feeling the pressure:

[Tesla] CEO, billionaire oligarch Elon Musk, who had formerly cultivated the image of an altruistic innovator, is now the face of chaotic disruption in Washington and the most influential ally of President Trump. As a result, Tesla owners who disapprove of the MAGA regime are trading in. A redditor recently explained their decision to get rid of a Model 3: “Last week it hit me: The resale market and eventual trade-in value for this car could fall off a cliff at any time,” they wrote on r/RealTesla. “There’s no telling what lunatic antics Musk could further debase himself with. Our car could become completely unsellable as customers reject the brand at all levels.” Dealers they visited in Southern California reported that their lots were being flooded with unwanted Teslas, this owner added. 

Just six weeks into Trump’s second term, with Musk attached to his hip, it is suddenly clear that Tesla could be in big trouble. Eco-conscious customers, critical to its bottom line, are boycotting the brand. Sales have plummeted across the board. Tesla’s latest product, the stainless steel-paneled Cybertruck, was a maligned flop, and Musk has yet to make good on fevered visions of breakthroughs in artificial intelligence tech for autonomous vehicles. Anti-Tesla sentiment is at an all-time high, whether expressed through rude bumper stickers and peaceful protest or vandalism and arson, in part because Musk has continually stoked tension with his far-right politics. He is amplifying white nationalists on X, his social platform, and, in an astounding display at an inauguration event in January, gave a raised-arm salute recognized by neo-Nazis as an unambiguous “Sieg Heil” gesture. (He has, of course, laughed off any criticism.)   

The head of Tesla, who according to a poll last month is disliked by more than half of Americans, is also courting the rage of millions as head of the so-called Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) by threatening programs including Social Security and Medicare. In seeking a means to retaliate against the wealthiest man alive, their attention has been drawn to Tesla, in which Musk holds an approximately 13-percent stake that accounts for a substantial share of his fortune. His total net worth is down $121 billion from its peak in December, when the company had a market capitalization well in excess of $1 trillion — the gains of a post-election rally wiped out entirely, with the stock price tumbling 38 percent just since Trump’s inauguration. This downturn comes as warning signs of an imminent recession continue to multiply.

I’m seeing many fewer Teslas in my neighborhood than a year ago but there are plenty of other EVs. This is the beating heart of Tesla’s target audience.

The article goes on to point out that the sales have been flat for some time, that his “self-driving” promises have failed to deliver and that the Cybertruck is widely considered to be an unsafe, hideous piece of junk among other things. What with his rockets blowing up and his car company failing, maybe Musk ought to quite the government and pay a little more attention to his companies.

Musk gets a ton of money from government contracts and I think we can be sure that he won’t go broke any time soon. But with the destruction of Twitter as a mainstream social media platform, he’s busily destroying his brand among the very people who buy his product and if that’s not a sign that his entrepreneurial “genius” is overrated, I don’t know what is.

Also note that he’s even more toxic in Europe which has pretty much stopped buying his vehicles altogether. He’s considered a monster all over the world.

The NYT: As President Trump seeks to purge the federal government of “woke” initiatives, agencies have flagged hundreds of words to limit or avoid, according to a compilation of government documents.

I can understand that they want to erase all references to straight, non-white people and women. Who needs ’em. But I can’t believe they eliminated the word victim. How will they describe themselves without it?

Update — policing science as well. This is from the National Cancer Institute

Peanut allergies are controversial? Who knew?

Coming soon to a federal agency serving you

An “important safety recall” on my car arrived via U.S. Mail the other day. The notice arrived, it said, “in accordance with the requirements of the National Traffic and Motor Vehicle Safety Act” (NHTSA, passed in 1966). A wiring issue could cause “the unintentional deployment of the airbag(s).” Dealers will fix the defect at no cost.

It’s the newest car I’ve ever owned and my first recall. Your recall mileage may vary. Literally.

The notice is required under Sec. 113 of NHTSA:

SEC. 113. (a) Every manufacturer of motor vehicles shall furnish notification of any defect in any motor vehicle or motor vehicle equipment produced by such manufacturer which he determines, in good faith, relates to motor vehicle safety, to the purchaser (where known to the manufacturer) of such motor vehicle or motor vehicle equipment, within a reasonable time after such manufacturer has discovered such defect.

(b) The notification required by subsection (a) shall be accomplished—

(1) by certified mail to the first purchaser (not including any dealer of such manufacturer) of the motor vehicle or motor vehicle equipment containing such a defect, and to any subsequent purchaser to whom has been transferred any warranty on such motor vehicle or motor vehicle equipment; and
(2) by certified mail or other more expeditious means to the dealer or dealers of such manufacturer to whom such motor vehicle or equipment was delivered.

(c) The notification required by subsection (a) shall contain a clear description of such defect, an evaluation of the risk to traffic safety reasonably related to such defect, and a statement of the measures to be taken to repair such defect.

Yup, that’s pretty much what arrived in the mail (not from Tesla). But it got me thinking.

NHTSA is now administered by Donald Trump Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy. He got into a little Cabinet Room dustup this week with Elon Musk, he of reusable self-parking rocket booster and “rapid unscheduled disassembly” fame. With his youthful but inexperienced DOGE saboteurs, Musk is bringing his cutting-edge, rapid unscheduled disassembly technology to bear on a government agency serving you. For example, the one required by law to set safety standards for motor vehicles and ensure I got the recall notice that was dropped into my mailbox by a union mail carrier.

The New York Times reported on the cabinet meeting here (gift link):

At least two secretaries aired their grievances about Musk and engaged in heated clashes with the billionaire. Secretary of State Marco Rubio was particularly incensed. After Musk accused him of failing to slash his staff, Rubio accused Musk of not telling the truth and asked, sarcastically, if he wanted the State Department to rehire staff just to fire them again.

Sean Duffy, the transportation secretary, accused Musk of trying to lay off air traffic controllers. Musk called that “a lie,” asking for their names. The exchange ended with Trump telling Duffy that he had to hire people from M.I.T. as air traffic controllers because they need to be “geniuses.”

(See where our genius of a president is headed here.)

So one musk ask, who will be left to ensure that a rapid unintentional airbag deployment doesn’t punch me in the face, blacken my eyes, and injure my passengers, other motorists and pedestrians once Musk and DOGE are done with the rapid intentional firings of federal safety watchdogs?

Musk has given us multiple fireworks display now that have disrupted air traffic and airline passengers’ lives to avoid being killed by his cosmik debris. MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow took note.

Marcy Wheeler (emptywheel) adds:

Why have are our FAA resources, reduced as they are after Elon Musk took a DOGE-ian chainsaw to them recently, been forced to scramble to protect civilian and commercial aircraft from yet another “rapid, unscheduled disassembly“?

Why wasn’t the FAA given enough advance notice of the possible (and likely) threat from debris so that flights could be re-routed or delayed BEFORE the launch attempt?

The reach of this fuckery is breathtaking:

Photographs and videos posted on the social media site X by users saying they were along the Florida coast showed the spacecraft breaking up. The falling debris disrupted flights at airports in Miami, Orlando, Palm Beach and Fort Lauderdale, and as far away as Philadelphia International Airport.

In other words, most of the eastern U.S. affected — no big deal. But that’s likely an understatement; you know the cascade of effects must have been wider given how tightly planes are scheduled.

Luckily, I filed my taxes early and electronically, and my refund dropped into my checking account a week later. So IRS computers haven’t experienced “rapid unscheduled disassembly” just yet.

But Musk and his DOGEes have turned their gaze upon the Social Security Administration’s computers, the ones that ensure my monthly check (and yours) drops into my checking account without disruption (CNN):

Millions of Americans could soon feel the impact of the deep staffing cuts being planned at the Social Security Administration, which is undergoing a massive reorganization that the acting commissioner has acknowledged is being steered by Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency.

The loss of experienced employees who manage Social Security’s fragile and interdependent web of computer systems will likely leave the agency vulnerable to technical outages and, potentially, interrupt the benefit payments that are sent to more than 73 million retirees, people with disabilities and others, Martin O’Malley, who served as commissioner under the Biden administration, told CNN.

The former Maryland governor predicted a meltdown could occur within 90 days, though other employees and experts were unsure of the timing even as they agreed the risk exists.

“Everything they’re doing is driving this agency to system collapse,” O’Malley said of Social Security’s new management. “It will lead to interruptions in service, and that will ultimately cascade into more frequent system interruptions for the processing of claims, ultimately leading to system collapse and eventually the interruption of benefits.”

One wonders how long “leaders” on Capitol Hill will allow this uber-rich, seig-heiling sociopath to treat the United States of America and people like you as his personal playthings.

* * * * *

Have you fought the coup today?
Choose Democracy
Indivisible: A Guide to Democracy on the Brink
You Have Power
Chop Wood, Carry Water
Thirty lonely but beautiful actions

A steroid, an antibiotic and cod liver oil

From the New York Times account of this week’s fractious White House meeting between Elon Musk and Donald Trump’s cabinet secretaries:

“The exchange ended with Mr. Trump telling Mr. Duffy that he had to hire people from M.I.T. as air traffic controllers. These air traffic controllers need to be ‘geniuses,’ he said.”

We’re days away from a Trump Executive Order to water U.S. crops with Brawndo.

Meantime, “a steroid, an antibiotic and cod liver oil” walk into an emergency room with RFK Jr.:

There is a highly effective vaccine that prevents measles but no specific antiviral to treat it. Kennedy has previously pushed the use of vitamin A, and in an interview with Fox News this week, he endorsed an unconventional treatment regimen for measles including a steroid, an antibiotic and cod liver oil, which is rich in vitamin A.

In the interview, which was posted in full on Fox Nation, Kennedy praised two West Texas doctors who he said were using this remedy on their patients and had seen “almost miraculous and instantaneous recovery.” He said these doctors had “treated most of the patients” in the current outbreak, which has now reached 159 reported cases.

One of the doctors Kennedy is apparently taking cues from has troubled history. He was disciplined by the Texas Medical Board in 2003 for “unusual use of risk-filled medications.”

* * * * *

Have you fought the coup today?
Choose Democracy
Indivisible: A Guide to Democracy on the Brink
You Have Power
Chop Wood, Carry Water
Thirty lonely but beautiful actions

Baby eaglets!

Big Bear’s beloved bald eagle couple, Jackie and Shadow, have welcomed eaglets into the world! You can watch live as the proud parents keep a close eye on their babies.

Original live video courtesy of FOBBV.

The first eaglet arrived Monday night, popping out of its shell shortly before 11:30 p.m. The special moment was captured live during the 11 p.m. newscast of ABC7 Eyewitness News.

The second chick hatched sometime in the overnight hours.

The third egg appeared to be hatching, as well, about 1 p.m. Thursday.

Jackie and Shadow are taking turns watching and feeding the baby birds, who won’t be able to leave the nest for about 10 to 14 weeks.

The baby birds are unnamed, but suggestions will come from the public. The tough decision-makers will be local Big Bear third-graders.

In 2022, Jackie and Shadow successfully hatched an eaglet, later named Spirit via a contest held by Friends of Big Bear Valley.

Here’s the Live Cam. Join all of LA in watching this rare bit of unadulterated good news.

bonkers shit as Trump waves around a printout of one of his Truth Social posts meant to show how he purportedly gave water to California pic.twitter.com/9LTlyGhAIc

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) February 25, 2025

That’s incredibly dumb but then, what else is new?

Remember the big water release in California Trump bragged would soon be in Los Angeles and we would never have any fires again? You know, the one that almost flooded the flood plain and wasted billions of gallons of water for nothing? Well, it started out as a DOGE thing:

Representatives from the Department of Government Efficiency repeatedly pressured the head of a United States water management agency to open a major California pump system in late January, intending to release a huge amount of water south toward Los Angeles — even though the water would have never made it to the fire-scarred metropolis. […]

Representatives from Elon Musk’s then-nascent efficiency department repeatedly called senior officials at the Bureau of Reclamation — the federal agency that manages some of the country’s major rivers, reservoirs and dams in the American West — days before Trump ordered the Army Corps to open the dams.

DOGE agents, including Tyler Hassen, a former oil company CEO, told senior Reclamation officials they had an order from the president to turn on water pumps at the Jones Pumping Plant, three people with knowledge of the requests told CNN. The plant transfers water from the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta into a canal system, delivering water to farmers and other water users in the Central Valley.

They weren’t allowed in for obvious reasons. Nobody knew who the hell they were, they had no security clearances and the whole thing was insane:

Hassen and Bryton Shang, another DOGE representative, flew to California in the last week of January. They were given a tour of the Jones Pumping Plant and were briefed on Reclamation’s operations. The White House and DOGE did not respond to CNN’s question on which agency paid for the flights.

But the men’s request to have a photo taken of them turning on the Jones pumps didn’t happen; Shang wasn’t an official government employee, he wasn’t allowed inside the pump facility’s control room, which is under strict cybersecurity protocols. Hassen had to travel back before the electricity was scheduled to be restored.

Instead, Hassen and Shang posed in front of a 3-dimensional map of the Central Valley in a public space inside the plant and posted their photos to DOGE’s X account, congratulating Reclamation for getting its pumps back up and running — part of the facility’s standard operating procedure.

“They didn’t get their photo op,” a person with knowledge of the matter told CNN. The entire episode felt like “what DOGE has been this entire time — this slapstick operation of 20-somethings they’re seeing as whiz kids but have zero knowledge.”

This is what we’re dealing with. Cos-playing, tech bro, masters of the universe, bully boys running around like they can make the sun revolve around the earth because they are just that smart.

A few days later Trump ordered the Army Corps of Engineers to do it wasting 2.2 billion gallons of water which could have irrigated 6,000 acres of almond trees for a year.

How’s this all working out for us?

Trump is dead serious about annexing Canada.

As Chris Hayes noted on his show last night, six weeks ago people would have told you you were hallucinating if you’d said that Trump would make Canada enemy number one and that the U.S. would be engaged in a vicious battle over an alleged fentanyl and illegal immigration problem on our northern border.

But it’s happening. The New York Times ran down the evolution of this insane idea that has brought the leadership of Canada to the conclusion that he isn’t bluffing. It’s so ridiculous I can hardly wrap my mind around it:

Mr. Trump and Mr. Trudeau spoke twice on Feb. 3, once in the morning and again in the afternoon, as part of discussions to stave off tariffs on Canadian exports.

But those early February calls were not just about tariffs.

The details of the conversations between the two leaders, and subsequent discussions among top U.S. and Canadian officials, have not been previously fully reported, and were shared with The New York Times on condition of anonymity by four people with firsthand knowledge of their content. They did not want to be publicly identified discussing a sensitive topic.

On those calls, President Trump laid out a long list of grievances he had with the trade relationship between the two countries, including Canada’s protected dairy sector, the difficulty American banks face in doing business in Canada and Canadian consumption taxes that Mr. Trump deems unfair because they make American goods more expensive.

He also brought up something much more fundamental. He told Mr. Trudeau that he did not believe that the treaty that demarcates the border between the two countries was valid and that he wants to revise the boundary. He offered no further explanation.

Mr. Trump also mentioned revisiting the sharing of lakes and rivers between the two nations, which is regulated by a number of treaties, a topic he’s expressed interest about in the past.

You think he hasn’t thought through his annexation plan? Think again.

The Toronto Star, a Canadian newspaper, has reported that Mr. Trump mentioned the 1908 border treaty in the early February call and other details from the conversation. And the Financial Times has reported that there are discussions in the White House about removing Canada from a crucial intelligence alliance among five nations, attributing those to a senior Trump adviser.

But it wasn’t just the president talking about the border and waters with Mr. Trudeau that disturbed the Canadian side. The persistent social media references to Canada as the 51st state and Mr. Trudeau as its governor had begun to grate both inside the Canadian government and more broadly.

While Mr. Trump’s remarks could all be bluster or a negotiating tactic to pressure Canada into concessions on trade or border security, the Canadian side no longer believes that to be so. And the realization that the Trump administration was taking a closer and more aggressive look at the relationship, one that tracked with those threats of annexation, sank in during subsequent calls between top Trump officials and Canadian counterparts.

One such call was between Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick — who at the time had not yet been confirmed by the Senate — and Canada’s finance minister, Dominic LeBlanc. The two men had been communicating regularly since they had met at Mar-a-Lago, Mr. Trump’s home and club in Florida, during Mr. Trudeau’s visit there in early December.

Mr. Lutnick called Mr. LeBlanc after the leaders had spoken on Feb. 3, and issued a devastating message, according to several people familiar with the call: Mr. Trump, he said, had come to realize that the relationship between the United States and Canada was governed by a slew of agreements and treaties that were easy to abandon.

Lutnick laid out Trump’s plans: remove Canada from the Five Eyes intelligence sharing group, tear up the Great Lakes agreements and conventions, and a review of the military cooperation, specifically the North American Aerospace Defense Command.

In subsequent communications between senior Canadian officials and Trump advisers, this list of topics has come up again and again, making it hard for the Canadian government to dismiss them.

He’s serious. And he’s surrounded himself with a bunch of loons who see him as some kind of genius who can defy all political gravity and always win no matter what. So they’re on board.

I have to assume that informed Republicans everywhere, including the business community, have also bought into the idea that Trump has supernatural talents that make him some kind of a demi-god because otherwise they would all be freaking out that we have a certifiable nutcase running the country.

pic.twitter.com/AMrSYRuyen Is there ANYTHING more douchey than an FBI Excecutive?

This is James Dennehy who said he was going to "DIG IN" in order to resist a simple and lawful request from DOJ to hand over case information.

He was also leaking info as a "whistleblower" to Corey…

— Kyle Seraphin (@KyleSeraphin) March 7, 2025

His letter to the staff:

All,

Late Friday, I was informed that I needed to put my retirement papers in today, which I just did. I was not given a reason for this decision.

Regardless, I apologize to all of you for not being able to fulfill my commitment to you to serve as ADIC NY for at least two years. But as I leave today, I have an immense feeling of pride – to have represented an office of professionals who will always do the right thing for the right reasons; who will always seek the truth while upholding the rule of law; who will always follow the facts no matter where they lead and be unapologetic about it; who will never bend, break, falter, or quit on your integrity; who will always handle cases and evidence with an overabundance of caution and care for the innocent, the victims, and the process first; and who will always remain independent.

So with that, here is my final Top 10 list:

Top 10 Things I’ll Miss about the FBI

10. The commute to work. NOT.

9. The investigations. Doesn’t matter what squad you are on – the work is the best in the world.

8. The intensity. You have to be in it to realize what I mean. But we all know how significant what we do is.

7. The FBI brand. Do not fret. Those three letters still mean something – and there is only a select group of folks in this world, past and present, who can say they’re with the FBI. Be proud of that.

6. The camaraderie – within our own Bureau family, and with all law enforcement – local, state, federal, and international. There is no better fraternity in the world.

5. The opportunity to put on a suit and tie to conduct interviews in the morning, throw on some street clothes to conduct surveillance in the afternoon, debrief a sensitive source in a safehouse overnight, and then get up early for a SWAT arrest the next morning. Then rinse and repeat.

4. The badge. What it took to earn it and what it means to carry it.

3. The independence. We will not bend. We will not falter. We will not sacrifice what is right for anything or anyone.

2. The impact. Our work helps shape foreign policy, community awareness, international relations, wartime decisions, and public safety. Every. Single. Day.

1. All of you – every single one of you who has earned your position within this phenomenal organization.

I’ve been told many times in my life, “When you find yourself in a hole, sometimes it’s best to quit digging.” Screw that. I will never stop defending this joint. I’ll just do it willingly and proudly from outside the wire.

Semper Fidelis,

JD

I would assume that this guy is a Republican (most of the mare) but if so, maybe he’s been wised up. He should run for office in one of those shitty NY purple districts and take down one of those jerks like Mike Lawlor.

He looks like Dick Tracy. Or Sgt. Rock. In these shallow, reality show times we live in that’s not nothin’.

The Guardian reported on his departure:

Dennehy’s ouster comes a month after the removal of eight veteran FBI officials, including the head of the Washington field office, involved in criminal investigations into Trump, which were launched after he lost the 2020 election. Department of Justice officials also demanded the names of all FBI agents who investigated Trump supporters who participated in the January 6 2021 attack that led to at least seven deaths.

“Today, we find ourselves in the middle of a battle of our own as good people are being walked out of the FBI,” Dennehy wrote to staff last month. “And others are being targeted because they did their jobs in accordance with the law and FBI policy.”

Dennehy compared the situation to his experience as a marine in the early 1990s. He recalled digging a small 5ft-deep foxhole where he hunkered down for safety.

“Time for me to dig in,” Dennehy said.

The resistance by Dennehy – along with the acting director, Brian Driscoll, and the acting deputy director, Rob Kissane – prevented the retaliatory firing of thousands of FBI officials, NBC News reported. Dennehy’s removal is likely to reignite fears of mass layoffs of career officers who were simply following the law and FBI policies.

Trump has promised to fire “some” FBI agents who he said were “corrupt” – without providing any evidence.

Dennehy spent six years in the Marine Corps before joining the FBI after the 9/11 terrorist attacks. He was appointed to lead the New York office in September 2024, and played a key role in the corruption investigation of the New York city mayor, Eric Adams.

The Dean of Georgetown Law School responds to that MAGA freak show of a DC US Attorney Ed Martin’s threat to not hire any Georgetown lawyers unless the school ends all “DEI” programs:

Elon Musk’s dream of going to Mars failed when the second Starship rocket in 2 months blew up over the Caribbean diverting airplanes throughout the area and offering some spectacular fireworks and lots of detritus falling in the ocean. You have to wonder if Musk was minding the store instead of blowing up the federal government, he’d have better luck.

Musk’s philosophy behind building these starships, which he has on an accelerated schedule in order to meet his deadline of sending a manned mission to Mars by 2030, is something he calls “rapid iterative development” the goal being to build prototypes quickly and put them on the launchpad with a willingness to blow them up. Sound familiar?

Unfortunately for us, a willingness to blow up government doesn’t just destroy a hunk of metal, it destroys tens of thousands of lives. Not that he cares about that. As he told podcaster Joe Rogan last week, “the fundamental weakness of Western civilization is empathy, the empathy exploit. There it’s they’re exploiting a bug in Western civilization, which is the empathy response.”

As it happens Musk had already had what one would usually describe as a bit of a humiliation when President Trump called him in before the cabinet and issued an edict that the agency heads were to do the “cutting” not Musk and his DOGE team. This almost certainly came at the best of lawyers who are dealing with several lawsuits that argue Musk has no legal authority to be ordering mass firings and directives as he has clearly been doing.

I suspect they took this action on Thursday due to Trump’s loose lips in his speech on Tuesday when he introduced Musk as the “head of DOGE” on national television and this was an attempt at a clean up. Unfortunately, Trump just did it again, telling the cabinet that he expects them to cut and if they don’t “Elon’s going to do it for them so they’re right back where they started.

Trump on his cabinet members: "We're gonna be watching them. And Elon and the group are gonna be watching them. And if they can cut, it's better. And if they don't cut, then Elon will do the cutting." pic.twitter.com/9Q24xxxEAU

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) March 6, 2025

It’s unlikely many of his cabinet stooges will buck the DOGE “advice” but there will probably be a slowdown now since Trump has clearly gotten the word that this project’s gone completely off the rails. Whether anyone can stop this speeding train, however, is anyone’s guess.

But what if Musk has already gotten what he wanted out of all this? Yes, it’s likely true that he’s been radicalized by the online right into thinking that “the left” and immigrants are destroying the world. I don’t doubt that he truly believes all that. But it’s of pretty recent vintage and his long term interests are of a completely different character.

According to this very intriguing NY Times article by a whole passel of top reporters, Musk’s political philosophy, such as it is, was gelling in the fall of 2023 when he attended a $50,000 a head dinner party in Silicon Valley for entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy who was running for president. He “held forth on the patio on a variety of topics, according to four people with knowledge of the conversation: his visit that week to the U.S.-Mexico border; the war in Ukraine; his frustrations with government regulations hindering his rocket company, SpaceX; and Mr. Ramaswamy’s highest priority, the dismantling of the federal bureaucracy..” They write:

Mr. Musk made clear that he saw the gutting of that bureaucracy as primarily a technology challenge. He told the party of around 20 that when he overhauled Twitter, the social media company that he bought in 2022 and later renamed X, the key was gaining access to the company’s servers.

Wouldn’t it be great, Mr. Musk offered, if he could have access to the computers of the federal government?

According to the article he subsequently became obsessed with this idea, and after helping Trump win with a massive $288 million campaign contribution, he immediately looked around the government and discovered the “little-known unit with reach across the government: the U.S. Digital Service, which President Barack Obama created in 2014 after the botched rollout of healthcare.gov” which would give them “direct, insider access to government systems.”

They got it. As we know, Musk’s crew has infiltrated all the government computer systems from Treasury to Social Security to the Pentagon. He has obtained access to vast reams of data about every American, business competitors, foreign intelligence, all of it. And all we know is that his DOGE kids have been harassing and laying off people willy nilly and making so many mistakes they would have been fired immediately in any other job.

But maybe that isn’t really their primary job. Tech reporter Kara Swisher appeared on The Focus Group podcast a week or so ago and had a very interesting theory about what’s actually going on. We all know that AI is where all the action has been for the last few years with the “Magnificent 7” Big Tech companies leading the impressive growth in the stock market. Swisher claimed that Musk has been behind on the AI boom, having had his partnership with Sam Altman of Open AI blow up over his desire to monetize the free service, and was almost certainly on a hunt for data to use for his own AI purposes. She said:

What Elon is after, from what I can guess, if I had to guess, is… He is behind. One of the big debates going on right now in AI is we’re running out of data. All the LLMs have sucked in all the data. Now they need more to have an advantage.

And so that means that all the LLMs have become a commodity because they’re all parsing the same information, right? That they’ve scraped everything they can. Government is the biggest trove of information on the planet. U.S. government is at this point, would be my guess, or China would be.

The only other country that has it all consolidated is China, because it’s a surveillance economy and it’s a communist country, and so they want great control over their citizens. Our government data is siloed all over the place. What if someone could bring it all together and then load it into an LLM? What if…

Swisher isn’t the only one asking these questions. According to Politico, even some Republicans who are savvy about the technology are wondering. The White House press secretary Karoline Levitt assured them that Musk isn’t using government data to train its AI models and I’m sure she would know. Interestingly, when the Politico reporters put the question to Musk’s Grok AI, it didn’t exactly deny it:

Asked whether it was trained on data from the federal government obtained by DOGE, Grok 3 responded that “it’s plausible that data DOGE accessed could have flowed to xAI projects like Grok 3.” Its “best guess” is that “Grok 3 probably wasn’t primarily trained on DOGE-obtained federal data.” (It’s worth noting AI is capable of deception.)

I have no idea if this is one of the ideas that was percolating in Musk’s mind that night back in 2023 when he was smoking cigars and shooting the breeze with his fellow tech billionaires but it would hardly be surprising. As Swisher said, “why do you rob banks? Because that’s where the money is. Why do you rob government agencies? Because that’s where the data is.” In the DOGE eat DOGE world of AI, anything is possible.

Salon