US presidential candidate Donald Trump said he would appoint Elon Musk to head a government efficiency commission if he is elected to office in November.
“At the suggestion of Elon Musk, who has given me his complete and total endorsement… I will create a government efficiency commission tasked with conducting a complete financial and performance audit of the entire federal government and making recommendations for drastic reforms,” Trump told the Economic Club of New York.
Trump doesn’t understand that Musk made up the title for the acronym
Christ, what an absolutely terrible idea. Of course the magachuds would be stroking off to such an idea…
There are parts of the federal government that are wildly inefficient. So it isn’t entirely misguided to want to improve that. Appointing Musk to redesign the government’s operations is a terrible idea (based on Tesla operations).
At the federal level most of the perceived inefficiencies are really just bloated budgets to ensure funds are available when needed, like for the military. The perception of inefficiency usually comes from the public not accepting the need for redundancy or that a lot of regulatory work is time consuming and expensive.
When conservstives talk about efficiency they mean fire people and slash budgets they oppose existing, like the NOAA. They don’t actually mean efficiency.
Translation: “I got an endorsement and a lot of money from Elon Musk, so I’m giving him a government job as a kickback where he can “regulate” his own businesses to enrich himself even further at the expense of literally every other American.”
Oh man, I can’t see a conflict of interest at all. Nope, no siree.
He is maintaining his record of putting the worst possible person he can find in positions of power.
Betsy Devos but worse
If you don’t like it, vote.
Vote for Harris *
Any vote not to Harris be it third party or otherwise is a vote for Trump. A third party cannot win in our current First Past the Poll system
I hate that it’s the reality. Fptp is so anti democratic.
Then organize a ballot measure for RCV or your preferred alternate system. Too late for this November but you can do something for future elections at least at the state level.
Not a yank, but yes. Electoral reform was promised, but never happened. I’m pissed.
e: FairVote Action, a non-partisan group working towards election reform.
Join to help them grow and give this issue a larger voice, and don’t wait until autumn 2027 (which is often what happens and which is too late). This needs a sustained and noisy effort so those in charge are made to start listening.
I’ve started name checking them in threads such as this one for visibility. I’d like to see this problem addressed as soon as possible, and it ain’t fixing itself.
It seriously baffles me that there are still people that don’t understood very simple and easy to understand fact. Especially when it’s been explained to them ad nauseam.
I’m beginning to think it’s willful ignorance on their part.
They’re either Trump supporters, have foreign interests, or are so fucking brainwashed they’d rather throw the whole country away than admit they don’t understand American civics
Unfortunately as long as we have FPTP and the electoral college we aren’t a democracy
Imagine if the people in charge of our country took it seriously instead of whatever this clown show is.
Can’t wait to vote Kamala, and least she won’t make things worse.
Dear Donald J. Numbskull: the fact that Elon never sleeps and kisses your ass does not mean he’s efficient, or even understands the concept.
Trump has never cared about hiring people who are efficient. He hires them if they pay him. His administration was filled with industry representatives, who were in positions where they decided regulation of their own businesses. Corruption all the way down.
Didn’t Trump fill that roll by just not filling a huge portion of the government?
He just wants to be able to shut down the FAA, who keeps enforcing rules he doesn’t like (and SpaceX keeps breaking)
God could you imagine.
Vote.
I had to scroll up to see if it was The Onion.
I’ve been saying for a few years now that I don’t blame anyone anymore for biting the onion. It is FAR TOO HARD to figure out what is life being absurd, and what is an absurd satire headline.
The lines aren’t blurred anymore. There are no lines. The lines have ceased to exist at this point.
I don’t understand life anymore, and I’d like to go back to politics being boring instead of being a circus.
And that’s assuming the headline you’re reading even has any bearing on the actual article, or that the article itself is factual, both of which are increasingly more common worries now.
I’m getting really sick of the “conventional wisdom” that government is inefficient and wasteful when compared to private industry. Medicare for example can provide more healthcare per dollar than any private insurer despite subsidizing that industry.
Profit and marketing are inefficiencies because they add cost but no value.
Yep, exactly. Also, look at how the USPS works.
Republican chuds: “Big Guvmit can’t do anything right, it’s the worst, they are hurting my freedom, argle bargle!”
Also Republican chuds: “Back the blue (unless they break up a terrorist action called in by our former failed president) and our military is the bestest and shiniest in the whole wide WURLD!”
Government is inefficient if you elect people who believe it is and set out to prove it.
People who say “run things like a business” don’t know shit. Every job I’ve worked at has had tremendous waste, but no one was looking closely because it’s private.
Like, right wing nut jobs would lose their shit if they learned a government office was buying fresh fruits for workers but most of it was going bad and being thrown out. But that happened every day for a while.
There’s also been a lot of “why is this machine still running? How much are we paying AWS for this??”
There’s also been a lot of "we don’t need to do accessibility on our website because most of our customers don’t care, and no one’s making us ".
The guy who lost $35B in a year and destroyed the business model - that guy?
the guy that lead the Cyber Truck project? that guy?
I mean, depending on what your goals are, that could very well be described as efficient.
Like, if your goal is to destroy the American government, could anyone do it more efficiently than Elmo?
Fits nicely with Trump’s reputation
So, he basically bought himself a job in our government. I kinda want to say that’s illegal, but this is the circus we live in now. Complaining about the clowns is probably a waste of time at this point
Musk is CEO of 3 companies and has the time for a Government job?
Being CEO is a part time job.
Isn’t it at least 5?
SpaceX
Tesla
Twitter
Neuralink
Boring Company
Now tell me that being a CEO is such a hard and stressful job that one man could be in charge of five companies.
People like that consider being on the phone working. Flying on a plane, working.
Golfing? Working.
Shitposting on Twitter? Working.
Doing rails of ketamine? Working
Having sex with underaged sex workers, believe it or not, working
Someone did a study on this and found that ceos typically count their working hours as anything that is related to work including commuting. Picking up dry cleaning, even lunches since you have them with clients or are allowed to eat at your desk.
If we counted our hours the same way, then we would count things like preparing lunch and doing laundry.
Yelling at Taylor Swift? Still count as work hours.
You know what would happen if I did my job for five different companies?
I’d get fired.