Trump Wants to Merge Government Data. Here Are 314 Things It Might Know About You.; The New York Times, April 9, 2025

Emily Badger and Sheera Frenkel, The New York Times ; Trump Wants to Merge Government Data. Here Are 314 Things It Might Know About You.

"The federal government knows your mother’s maiden name and your bank account number. The student debt you hold. Your disability status. The company that employs you and the wages you earn there. And that’s just a start...

These intimate details about the personal lives of people who live in the United States are held in disconnected data systems across the federal government — some at the Treasury, some at the Social Security Administration and some at the Department of Education, among other agencies.

The Trump administration is now trying to connect the dots of that disparate information. Last month, President Trump signed an executive order calling for the “consolidation” of these segregated records, raising the prospect of creating a kind of data trove about Americans that the government has never had before, and that members of the president’s own party have historically opposed.

The effort is being driven by Elon Musk, the world’s richest man, and his lieutenants with the Department of Government Efficiency, who have sought access to dozens of databases as they have swept through agencies across the federal government. Along the way, they have elbowed past the objections of career staff, data security protocols, national security experts and legal privacy protections."

Elon Musk hands out $1 million payments after Wisconsin Supreme Court declines request to stop him; AP, March 30, 2025

SCOTT BAUER AND THOMAS BEAUMONT , AP; Elon Musk hands out $1 million payments after Wisconsin Supreme Court declines request to stop him

"Elon Musk gave out $1 million checks on Sunday to two Wisconsin voters, declaring them spokespeople for his political group, ahead of a Wisconsin Supreme Court election that the tech billionaire cast as critical to President Donald Trump’s agenda and “the future of civilization.”"

The power of boycotts; The Ink, March 31, 2025

 Anand Giridharadas, The Ink; The power of boycotts

"Elon Musk’s feelings are hurt. His companies are suffering.

Weird, coming from the guy who denounced empathy as Western civilization’s “fundamental weakness.” While a little needling by Tim Walz about Tesla’s plummeting share price may have set him off, the real pain point is the #teslatakedown movement, which this past Saturday put on a worldwide day of action.

Folks on the right like to complain about boycotts. They’ve called them illegal. They’ve tried to intimidate those who’d dare use their economic power. They’ve threatened to criminalize the very idea. They’ve commingled peaceful calls for investors and shoppers to withhold their hard-earned dollars with acts of vandalism, and have tried to paint the entire movement as terrorism. But, as you might expect, accusations are confessions: what far-right political figures mean when they denounce boycotts is that they want to decide who gets boycotted.

So what is it that scares the guy who wants to privatize everything? Members of the public, exercising their private power to decide, and doing it collectively (Musk famously hates that whole collective thing). Because when that power is clearly targeted and well organized, it gets results. Maybe it’s the sheer gumption of speaking truth to power in its native language — money — that pains Musk. But that’s the free market, isn’t it?"

Russell T Davies: gay society in ‘greatest danger I’ve ever seen’ after Trump win; The Guardian, March 16, 2025

Hannah Al-Othman , The Guardian; Russell T Davies: gay society in ‘greatest danger I’ve ever seen’ after Trump win

"Russell T Davies has said gay society is in the “greatest danger I have ever seen”, since the election of Donald Trump as US president in November.

Speaking to the Guardian at the Gaydio Pride awards in Manchester on Friday, the Doctor Who screenwriter said the rise in hostility was not limited to the US but “is here [in the UK] now”.

“As a gay man, I feel like a wave of anger, and violence, and resentment is heading towards us on a vast scale,” he said.

“I’ve literally seen a difference in the way I’m spoken to as a gay man since that November election, and that’s a few months of weaponising hate speech, and the hate speech creeps into the real world.”

“I’m not being alarmist,” he added. “I’m 61 years old. I know gay society very, very well, and I think we’re in the greatest danger I have ever seen.”...

Davies also used his keynote speech at the awards ceremony, which rewards the efforts made to improve the lives of LGBTQ+ people in the UK, to criticise Trump, and the president’s ally Elon Musk.

“I think times are darkening beyond all measure and beyond anything I have seen in my lifetime,” he told the audience, which included the singers Louise Redknapp and Katy B, and the Traitors contestants Leanne Quigley and Minah Shannon.

Davies said he had turned 18 and left home in 1981, adding: “And that is exactly the year that rumours and whispers of a strange new virus came along, which came to haunt our community and to test us in so many ways.”

“The joyous thing about this is that we fought back,” he said. The community “militarised, campaigned, marched and demanded the medicine”.

He added: “We demanded the science. We demanded the access.”...

But the peril the gay community now faced, he said, was even greater than that in the 1980s.

“The threat from America, it’s like something at The Lord of the Rings. It’s like an evil rising in the west, and it is evil,” Davies said.

“We’ve had bad prime ministers and we’ve had bad presidents before. What we’ve never had is a billionaire tech baron openly hating his trans daughter,” he added.

Musk, the de facto head of the “department of government efficiency”, bought the social networking site Twitter, which he renamed X. A study by the University of California, Berkeley found hate speech on the platform rose by 50% in the months after it was bought by the billionaire.

“We have never had this in the history of the world,” Davies said. “It is terrifying because he and the people like him are in control of the facts, they’re in control of information, they’re in control of what people think, and that is what we’re now facing.”

But Davies said the gay community would do “what we always do in times of peril, we gather at night”, and would once again come together, and fight against this latest wave of hostility and oppression.

“What we will do in Elon Musk’s world, that we’re heading towards, is what artists have always done,” he told the Guardian, “which is to meet in cellars, and plot, and sing, and compose, and paint, and make speeches, and march.”

“If we have to be those rebels in basements yet again,” he added, “which is when art thrives, then that’s what we’ll become.”"

Trump's White House Tesla showcase for Musk raises ethics concerns; ABC News, March 12, 2025

 Ivan Pereira, ABC News; Trump's White House Tesla showcase for Musk raises ethics concerns

"President Donald Trump and Elon Musk’s controversial showcase of Tesla cars in front of the White House has set off alarms around Washington over what some see as an infomercial for the billionaire’s car company on high-profile government property.

Ethics experts ABC News spoke with are raising concerns that the Tuesday event could blur or even cross the lines of what's considered proper conduct by elected officials."

Musk Retweets ‘Hitler Didn’t Murder Millions’ Message Amid Ongoing Nazi Controversy; Forbes, March 13, 2025

Antonio Pequeño IV , Forbes; Musk Retweets ‘Hitler Didn’t Murder Millions’ Message Amid Ongoing Nazi Controversy

"Tesla chief and presidential adviser Elon Musk shared a post Thursday that said public sector workers, not Nazi dictator Adolf Hitler, murdered millions of people, marking the billionaire’s latest Nazi-related post as he and his electric vehicle company face continued backlash and boycotts as critics say his embrace of right-wing politics is veering more extreme."

DOGE says it’s saved the federal government $115 billion. Experts say the figures don’t stack up.; Fortune, March 13, 2025

BEATRICE NOLAN , Fortune; DOGE says it’s saved the federal government $115 billion. Experts say the figures don’t stack up.

Trump, an E.V. Naysayer, Gives Tesla and Musk a White House Exhibition; The New York Times, March 11, 2025

Tyler Pager, The New York Times; Trump, an E.V. Naysayer, Gives Tesla and Musk a White House Exhibition

[Kip Currier: Elon Musk and Donald Trump are on public record for having uproariously laughed like juvenile school boys when talking about firing workers in 2024.

In 2025, they've been similarly gleeful about their efforts to fire thousands of gainfully employed workers who are providing services to the American people and the world. 

Trump and Musk have been utterly indifferent to the economic needs of single workers and workers with spouses and children, many of whom have childcare costs, mortgages, and older parents to look after. Workers with spiraling groceries -- including eggs -- to pay for, student loans to pay back, and illnesses and medicines covered by healthcare, who are being summarily terminated from their jobs and losing that medical care (see here and here and here).

Losing their jobs is no laughing matter to these workers and their families.

Now, when Tesla sales are cratering (see here and here and here and here and here), Musk and Trump want you to buy Musk's cars, as this New York Times article reports today. A photographer at the White House-held Tesla endorsement/advertising event even captured a photo of the handwritten note Trump carried, which Business Insider said "read like a sales pitch"; some legal experts have suggested these actions violate the Hatch Act. 

Trump and Musk want you to forget how they're gutting government services that taxpayers depend on and destroying the lives of thousands of middle and lower class workers and persons in need.

The only thing that billionaires like this will notice is when the People stop buying their products.

That gets their attention.

That gets them upset and angry enough to falsely claim that boycotts are illegal.

That causes them (some degree of) pain. If nothing else, at least to their asset portfolios, net worths, and unchecked egos.

We the People have the power to say No to their 21st century Gilded Age.]

[Excerpt]

"President Trump hosted an exclusive car show at the White House on Tuesday afternoon.

The only company represented: Tesla. The only purpose: helping Elon Musk.

With Tesla facing a backlash over Mr. Musk’s role in the Trump administration, the president said he wanted to buy one of the company’s electric vehicles. But Mr. Trump, always a salesman, did not just want to purchase a car. He wanted to hawk it and help out his friend, who also happens to be Tesla’s chief executive."

Three billionaires: America’s oligarchy is now fully exposed; The Guardian, February 27, 2025

Robert Reich, The Guardian; Three billionaires: America’s oligarchy is now fully exposed

"One of the unacknowledged advantages of the horrendous era we’ve entered is that it is revealing the putrid connections between great wealth and great power for all to see.

Oligarchs are fully exposed and they are defiant. It’s like hitting the “reveal codes” key on older computers that let you see everything.

On Wednesday, Jeff Bezos, the third-richest person in America, who bought the Washington Post in 2013, announced that the paper’s opinion section would henceforth focus on defending “personal liberties and free markets”.

Anything inconsistent with this view would not be published, according to his statement. “Viewpoints opposing those pillars will be left to be published by others.”

The Post’s opinion editor, David Shipley, promptly resigned, as he should have...

Elon Musk, the richest person in the world, bought Twitter in 2022, laid off everyone who was filtering out hateful crap on the platform, renamed it X and turned it into a cesspool of lies in support of Trump.

Mark Zuckerberg, the second-richest person, has followed suit, allowing Facebook to emit lies, hate and bigotry in support of Trump’s lies, hate and bigotry.

All three of these men were in the first row at Trump’s inauguration. They, and other billionaires, have now exposed themselves for what they are.

They are the oligarchy. They continue to siphon off the wealth of the nation. They are supporting a tyrant who is promising them tax cuts and regulatory rollbacks that will make them even richer.

They are destroying democracy so they won’t have to worry about “parasites” (as Musk calls people who depend on government assistance) demanding anything more from them.

When billionaires take control of our communication channels, it’s not a win for free speech. It’s a win for their billionaire babble."

Elon Musk’s Cringey Chainsaw Act Exposes a Deep Ignorance Fueling DOGE; The New Republic, February 21, 2025

 Michael Tomasky, The New Republic; Elon Musk’s Cringey Chainsaw Act Exposes a Deep Ignorance Fueling DOGE

[Kip Currier: Read and share this New Republic article with as many people as possible. We must work to raise awareness of what the Trump/Musk alliance is perpetrating and inflicting.

Matthew 20:16: "So the last shall be first, and the first last."

As this article unpacks, even catching a glimpse of the richest man on Planet Earth perversely fetishizing a chainsaw on stage -- as he elatedly wreaks havoc on the lives of Americans and the world -- is both stomach-churning and heart-breaking. We see before us a WWE-esque caricature of a human; a performative individual who is profoundly lacking an ethical center and values like compassion, reason, and integrity.

Elon the Oligarch can buy whatever access his heart desires. He can attain whatever healthcare he or his family needs. Musk also has unfettered access to lucrative government opportunities for self-enrichment, despite having clear conflicts of interest and supporting the abrogation of government ethics rules. The unchecked damage that Team Musk is unleashing will be far-reaching for millions.

Consider just a few examples:

• The veteran who has served this country and may need, say, a pair of hearing aids or a cancer treatment regimen but may not now be able to get the healthcare they need and deserve. 

• The recent college graduate who wants to serve their country in the FBI, FDA, or FAA but who was summarily fired because they were one day shy of finishing their probationary period before DOGE jubilantly sacked them and countless other probationary federal employees sharing their expertise and service.

• The university researcher who has been performing medical research that is leading to new insights and treatments for common and rare diseases but whose funding and research studies may now be halted and eliminated altogether.

Musk wants us to feel guilty for government programs that we support with our tax dollars, while he games the system to advance his aim of being the world's first trillionaire.

When the time comes to vote, remember the politicians who unabashedly are supporting Elon the Tyrannical right now, and the administration giving him a free hand to take a chainsaw to programs that assist persons in need and empower other people to help their fellow humans in need.]

[Excerpt]

"At the Conservative Political Action Conference on Thursday, Elon Musk appeared on stage in oversized sunglasses, a black gothic MAGA hat, a thick gold chain around his neck—and wielding a chainsaw. Ha ha. Over at Politico’s Playbook, the new team may not have heard of the New Deal, but thank goodness they do have enough sense to know that the richest man in the world and the president he works for (or is it the other way around?) might—make that will—come to rue that cringey image.

The way Musk’s DOGE is going about these cuts is the equivalent, as I heard former Biden administration official Mitch Landrieu say on TV this week, of a man thinking he needs to lose 30 pounds and deciding to saw off his leg. That’s funny, and true. But this is even worse. A man sawing off his leg hurts only himself. What Musk is doing will hurt millions of people in ways that we’re only beginning to see.

Here’s one small example, which you likely haven’t read about but which I take a little personally. If you’re one of my regular readers, you know that I was born in Morgantown, West Virginia, and went to my hometown university, West Virginia University, or WVU (not UWV, thank you). A week ago, West Virginia Watch, a small nonprofit news organization in the state, moved a story noting that the university expects to lose $12 million annually in funding that supports cancer and vascular research. 

Under dynamic Dean Clay Marsh, a native of the state recruited back to West Virginia from Ohio State by WVU President E. Gordon Gee (and the son of hell-raising newspaper editor Don Marsh, who once upon a time made The Charleston Gazette one of the most aggressive regional newspapers in the country), the cancer institute has made tremendous strides. The cuts, a university spokeswoman told West Virginia Watch, could cost the school the faculty it has recruited to do the research and conduct the clinical trials that could lead to the breakthroughs that would save a lot of lives in the state with the third-highest cancer mortality ratein America.

And if it’s $12 million at the smallish West Virginia University Health Sciences Center, imagine what it is at New York University, or UCLA, or Johns Hopkins, or even much larger state research hospitals in Florida or Washington. And it’s happening to every state university medical system in the nation."

Kennedy Library closes abruptly; Politico, February 18, 2025

KELLY GARRITY and SEB STARCEVIC, Politico; Kennedy Library closes abruptly

[Kip Currier: The chaos is the point.

Remember what Steve Bannon said: Flood the zone with ****]

[Excerpt]

"The John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum closed abruptly Tuesday afternoon amid a flurry of mass firings at federal agencies across the government.

The effort to slash the federal workforce spearheaded by the Elon Musk-led Department of Government Efficiency hit the Boston-based intuition Thursday afternoon, when the National Archives passed down an order telling leadership to terminate probationary employees, former Rep. Joe Kennedy III said Tuesday evening...

The closure, which began at 2 p.m. Tuesday, isn’t expected to last long. According to a statement from the National Archives, the library “will be open tomorrow, and the National Archives staff looks forward to welcoming guests, visitors, and researchers.”"

Elon Musk ridiculed a blind person on X. Then a mob went to work.; The Washington Post, February 18, 2025

Pranshu Verma, The Washington Post ; Elon Musk ridiculed a blind person on X. Then a mob went to work

[Kip Currier: Elon Musk repeatedly shows us exactly who and what he is: the richest person on the planet and a man who is to be pitied for the severe impoverishment of character, decency, and ethical principles from which he suffers.

We can't easily counter the hate speech, disinformation, and chaos that are the democracy-damaging byproducts of this wannabe-Bond-villain's amoral philosophical approach to life. But we can support the brave souls whom Musk and his minions ruthlessly target with their cyberbullying and scare tactics.

Thanks to all those willing to stand up for the rule of law, fairness, accountability, truth, service to those in need, and human dignity.]

[Excerpt]

"Dylan Hedtler-Gaudette works at the Project on Government Oversight,a nonpartisan watchdog group focused on reducing bureaucratic waste. He also happens to be blind. So when he criticized Elon Musk’s U.S. DOGE Service in testimony on Capitol Hill last week, Musk unleashed an online attack Hedtler-Gaudette described as “surreal” in its juvenile bigotry.

First, Musk retweeted a post on X noting that the “blind director of watchdog group funded by George Soros testifies that he does not see widespread evidence of government waste” and added two laughing/crying emojis. The tweet garnered more than 21 million views, and sparked dozens of hateful messages to Hedtler-Gaudette’s account...

Digital rights experts say the situation has created an unprecedented imbalance in power. Musk’s massive online following, his ownership of a social media platform where he can dictate content moderation rules, and his position heading a government entity with access to private data, give him a unique ability to threaten those who question him and chill dissenting speech."

As Musk reshapes the government, some ask: Where are the guardrails?; The Washington Post, February 16, 2025

Lisa Rein , The Washington Post; As Musk reshapes the government, some ask: Where are the guardrails?

"Some dismissed civil servants are preparing lawsuits against the administration, citing the guardrails that Congress erected to protect their jobs. Legal experts are closely watching to find out if they will survive."

USAID fought apartheid. Musk is killing it; The Ink, February 3, 2025

The Ink; USAID fought apartheid. Musk is killing it

"As we speak, an unelected billionaire, born in South Africa, is staging an unconstitutional coup in the United States, shutting down an agency that happened to fight the apartheid regime he and his family thrived under as rich whites.

Now take a moment and read that again.

This is not a drill. All the drills are behind us now.

The billionaire, of course, is Elon Musk, who decided in recent days to disembowel USAID, the nation’s primary agency for foreign aid, an indispensable tool of diplomacy and the exercise of soft power, and one of the largest aid providers on the planet. Musk is reportedly (and by his own claims) overseeing the dismissal of security staff, followed by the apparent firings of 600 USAID employees over the weekend, and, more generally, his project to carry out Trump’s wish to destroy the agency. This is, of course, illegal and unconstitutional, as only Congress — certainly not an unelected consultant without even an appointment — can wind down an agency...

Which raises the question: What did USAID ever do to Elon Musk?...

USAID, it turns out, was important in bringing about the end of apartheid in South Africa. And, in an inversion of today’s anti-congressional coup, that work by the agency came about because Congress actually overrode former President Reagan’s veto of aid and asserted its leadership role in the making of U.S. law, in this case the Comprehensive Anti-Apartheid Act (CAAA)."

‘In a real sense, US democracy has died’: how Trump is emulating Hungary’s Orbán; The Guardian, February 7, 2025

David Smith in Washington, The Guardian; ‘In a real sense, US democracy has died’: how Trump is emulating Hungary’s Orbán

"pitiless crackdown on on illegal immigration. A hardline approach to law and order. A purge of “gender ideology” and “wokeness” from the nation’s schools. Erosions of academic freedom, judicial independence and the free press. An alliance with Christian nationalism. An assault on democratic institutions.

The “electoral autocracy” that is Viktor Orbán’s Hungary has been long revered by Donald Trump and his “Make America Great Again” (Maga) movement. Now admiration is turning into emulation. In the early weeks of Trump’s second term as US president, analysts say, there are alarming signs that the Orbánisation of America has begun.

With the tech billionaire Elon Musk at his side, Trump has moved with astonishing velocity to fire critics, punish media, reward allies, gut the federal government, exploit presidential immunity and test the limits of his authority. Many of their actions have been unconstitutional and illegal. With Congress impotent, only the federal courts have slowed them down."

Pay Attention to the FBI; The Atlantic, February 6, 2025

 Hanna Rosin, The Atlantic; Pay Attention to the FBI

"In this episode of Radio Atlantic, we discuss where Trump and Musk seem to be headed and the obstacles they are likely to encounter in the future. What happens when Trump starts to face challenges from courts? What happens when Musk goes after programs that Americans depend on, particularly those who voted for Trump? What new political alliances might emerge from the wreckage? We talk with staff writer Jonathan Chait, who covers politics. And we also talk with Shane Harris, who covers national security, about Trump’s campaign to purge the FBI of agents who worked on cases related to the insurrection at the Capitol.

“I think that will send a clear message to FBI personnel that there are whole categories of people and therefore potential criminal activity that they should not touch, because it gets into the president, his influence, his circle of friends,” Harris says. “I think that is just a potentially ruinous development for the rule of law in the United States.”"

Can Musk Be Stopped?: A high profile lawsuit by Public Citizen takes aim at the DOGE takeover at Treasury., Status Kuo, February 5, 2025

JAY KUO , The Status Kuo; Can Musk Be Stopped?: A high profile lawsuit by Public Citizen takes aim at the DOGE takeover at Treasury.

"There’s a lot of activity by both Trump and his co-president Elon Musk these days, and it can feel overwhelming. Every time we turn around, there’s some new horror. (Wait, Trump wants the U.S. to take over Gaza?!)

Our natural inclination when bombarded with so much is to curl up, cover our heads and hope it ends soon. Rather than give in to this impulse, however, I want to help chart a path through. To do that, we need to prioritize among the many assaults upon our system and understand clearly what is being done and how we can help.

I don’t want to sugarcoat this. To my mind, the greatest threat right now is this: Elon Musk and his goons have taken over critical payment systems at the Treasury Department. This is a DEFCON 1 moment for our government. An unaccountable private citizen, who is also the world’s richest man acting under authority of a would-be dictator, apparently has admin—not just read-only—access to the very lifeline of our Republic: the money.

With such access, Musk has effective control over trillions of dollars of payments each year, and he could terminate some or even all of these at the flip of a switch. This includes our entire social safety net of Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid and food stamps. This puts tens of millions of American who rely on government support at great risk. Already he is threatening to selectively determine which programs are “wasteful” and cut off the money to them.

Yes, this is illegal. Yes, someone needs to stop it. But how?

Many lawsuits have been filed against DOGE, but I’m watching one closely. It’s by Public Citizen, filed on behalf of three plaintiffs: the Alliance for Retired Americans, the American Federation of Government Employees and the Service Employees International Union. The suit alleges that the personal and private financial information of the plaintiffs’ members was illegally accessed by young Musketeer coders over the weekend.

The Public Citizen lawsuit names as defendants the Treasury, its Secretary, and the Bureau of Fiscal Services, which granted access and even admin rights to Musk’s team. This is smart. The lawsuit goes after these defendants in particular because, if ordered by a court, they are the ones that have the power to revoke the access they granted earlier to DOGE.

When I first heard about the lawsuit, the first question I had was, “What’s the legal hook?” By this I mean, what specific laws were broken, and under what statute or law would a court have the power to step in with an injunction?

That’s what I want to cover today. It’s important that we’re all on the same page about our rights as recipients of federal money and payers of federal taxes, and how Musk and DOGE have violated those rights and must be brought to heel."

Who Will Stop Elon Musk’s Coup?; The Nation, February 3, 2025

JEET HEER , The Nation; Who Will Stop Elon Musk’s Coup?

"This is a remarkable power grab on Musk’s part, because he’s a private citizen who is still overseeing his vast fortune even as he claims authority to unilaterally slash government funding. Further, Musk is doing this on behalf of DOGE, which The New York Times accurately describes as “the so-called Department of Government Efficiency.” In fact, DOGE is not a real department authorized by Congress but merely the fiat creation of an executive order signed by Trump. DOGE is an advisory group that is usurping power the Constitution grants to Congress alone. Last week, Trump issued a memo to freeze federal funding for government programs such as Medicaid and SNAP, only to retreat in the face of both popular protest and an adverse court decision. Under the Constitution, Congress alone has the power of the purse, while the president is obligated to “faithfully execute the laws.” Trump’s attempt to arrogate the power to not spend money already allocated by Congress thus constitutes “impoundment”—a practice forbidden by long-standing practices and court decisions.

Waleed Shahid, a Democratic Party strategist and member of The Nation’s editorial board, distilled with bracing clarity the breathtaking scope of Musk’s power grab:

Not with tanks in the streets or militias at government buildings, but with spreadsheets, executive orders, and a network of loyalists embedded in the federal bureaucracy. In just the past few days, Musk’s hand-picked agents have seized control of Treasury’s 6 trillion payment system, the Office of Personnel Management (OPM), and the General Services Administration (GSA)—institutions that, together, function as the central nervous system of the U.S. government…. In any other country, experts would call it state capture, a textbook coup. 

Because Musk and his DOGE minions have strong-armed their way into the offices of the Treasury, OPM, GSA, and USAID, they have access to an astonishing body of public data. Musk can, for example, find the Social Security number of any American citizen and also what funds (if any) they receive from the government.

Musk is currently targeting mainstream Protestant churches involved in immigration resettlement. On X, the social media site he owns, Musk went after Mariann Budde, the Episcopal bishop of Washington, DC, who delivered a sermon calling for compassion to immigrants at a service Trump attended. Musk retweeted a claim that Episcopal Migration Ministries received $53 million for immigration resettlement and said, “She’s on the take.” There is a strong element of political theater in this smearing of Budde, as in Musk’s attack on the Lutheran church. Government funding of social programs run by religious organizations is a long-standing practice and already a matter of public record. But Musk is trying to create the illusion that he’s uncovered a deeply buried government secret.

What’s scandalous is Musk’s nebulous status as both a private citizen and presidential crony, which has allowed him access to data that that can easily be abused. Coming from Silicon Valley, Musk knows that data is power. Now, he has access to the full data set of the federal government, which he is both hoarding to himself and preventing the public from seeing (many government websites have already been shuttered, allegedly as a temporary measure during the Trump/Musk riorganizzazione, including those with public health information and Census data).

Most disturbingly, Musk and his DOGE team have no proper congressional authorization." 

Elon Musk’s Power Grab Is Lawless, Dangerous, and—Yes—a Coup; Slate, February 4, 2025

DAHLIA LITHWICK AND MARK JOSEPH STERN, Slate;  Elon Musk’s Power Grab Is Lawless, Dangerous, and—Yes—a Coup

"The federal government is currently under relentless and unlawful assault by a man no one elected to lead it. With Donald Trump’s blessing and enabling, Elon Musk and his confederates have laid siege to the executive branch in an onslaught whose appalling and far-reaching consequences have barely begun to be reported, much less understood. Musk’s team is tearing through federal agencies at a shocking clip, gaining access to classified material, private personal information, and payment systems that distribute trillions of dollars every year, all in alleged breach of the law. The richest person in the world, who works for no recognizable government entity and answers to nobody, apparently believes he has unilateral authority to withhold duly appropriated funds, violate basic security protocols protecting state secrets, and abolish a global agency in direct contravention of Congress’ explicit command. He is reportedly leading a purge of the federal workforce, persecuting life-saving charities, and pushing outprincipled civil servants who stand in the way of his rampage."

MUSK, TRUMP PROSECUTOR TARGETING PEOPLE WHO DIVULGE IDENTITIES OF DOGE STAFF; Rolling Stone, February 3, 2025

MILES KLEE , Rolling Stone; MUSK, TRUMP PROSECUTOR TARGETING PEOPLE WHO DIVULGE IDENTITIES OF DOGE STAFF

"As a cabal of Elon Musk flunkies works around the clock to infiltrate and sabotage various federal agencies on behalf of President Donald Trump, the world’s richest man — just named a special government employee — is warning along with Washington allies that the consequences for publicly naming these staffers may be severe.

On Sunday, with Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) seizing control of the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) and the billionaire vowing to eliminate it altogether, Wired reported the identities of six software engineers with jobs in his wrecking crew. They span in age from 19 to their mid-twenties and have minimal government experience (if any), though most have connections to either Musk or his onetime PayPal colleague Peter Thiel, another right-wing Silicon Valley billionaire whose data analytics firm Palantir holds valuable U.S. defense contracts. They are Akash Bobba, Edward Coristine, Luke Farritor, Gautier Cole Killian, Gavin Kliger, and Ethan Shaotran.

These young men have been involved in Musk’s sweeping efforts to gain access to the communication systems, personnel files, and other sensitive information at agencies including USAID, the Treasury Department, the Office of Personnel Management, the General Services Administration, and the Small Business Administration, in certain cases freezing employees out of their work accounts and putting others on leave... 

Musk, who professes to champion free speech but has typically clamped down on content shared via his social media platform X if he doesn’t want it publicly disseminated, has already moved to silence those who share the names of DOGE team members carrying out his orders to wrest control of the levers of federal spending."