Summary
Elon Musk’s DOGE faces mounting pressure to show achievements amid criticism. Staffers, under pressure from Trump administration officials, seek public relations wins to counter negative headlines.
Cuts to federal offices led to mass layoffs, and efforts to modernize government services have been chaotic. DOGE prioritizes speed over security and protecting sensitive information.
Trump has distanced himself, stating agency chiefs, not Musk, control department cuts, preferring a “scalpel” over a “hatchet” approach. Public opinion has turned against DOGE, with 48% disapproving versus 34% approving, according to a Washington Post-Ipsos poll.
With limited time before their tenure ends, DOGE officials are desperate to show results.
In the end, DOGE financial waste will be bigger than any “savings” they produced, but the real costs of their action will be much, much bigger in the end.
Just think of the people who will get killed by hurricanes without a warning because they dismantle NOAA.
Defunding the nation, and undermining its function, is the win they wanted, and they’re getting it.
People forget the point is to hand things over to corporate America. Hence this article is out of touch, and based on the author’s feelings about Musk’s feeling…
…whilst completely being ignorant of the plan. The plan is corporate run libertarian fifedoms. Corporate mini-states.
The plan is corporate run libertarian fifedoms. Corporate mini-states.
Or as we used to call them back when we were still a geopolitical enemy of Russia, “oligarchs.”
Part of me wonders whether the whole thing is just a set up so Trump can look good for shutting them down…
No, that would require planning and forethought.
DOGE was always just an excuse to fire a bunch of government workers, cancel contracts (except for Musk), and run the government into the ground. If trump did fire Musk for overreach it would be afger the damage is done and trump will just proclaim mission accomplished.
You’re giving too much forethought for a plan, but Trump thinks that way about everyone. He’s not just a bully but a toxic boss who always has someone lined up to be the fall guy.
The goal was always to fire a bunch of workers and replace them with sycophants: people actually trying to do their job inhibited the damage in trumps first term, so nope the priority is sycophants. Sycophants. everywhere. But every action needs a fall guy
They’ll make something up. If they actually care about corruption, and I don’t believe they do, that shit takes a lot of time to uncover. You need subject matter experts, forensic accountants and a bunch of lawyers, not a handful of 20 year old tech bros
With limited time before their tenure ends, DOGE officials are desperate to show results.
Uh first I’m hearing of this
There’s still time to die a hero Elon. All you have to do is commit hari-kari and I will build you a statue.
Will the statue look like this?
Will the statue be a dual flush model?
I will make sure it’s very attractive to pigeons. It’s what Elon would have wanted RIP
Those MAGA idiots
Find the student loan records and erase them!
I mean to say… "Don’t find the student loans records and don’t erase them! Migrants hate that soon much! "
And the trans. Definitely…the trans would haaaaaate that.
More trans people should come out as loan repayment lovers. It would be such a shame to just erase those loans away. And migrant families love paying the loans. Imagine if they had no loans to repay! What would their purpose in life be then with so much money just hanging around all the time.
I mean… If it’s about efficiency, wouldn’t the military be the first place to audit?
This is a common misconception. The military isn’t designed to be efficient on the back end. It’s designed to win wars efficiently, which is an entirely different thing. The last time they tried to be “efficient” with the military the 101st ended up doing the world’s fastest ground and air assault on rations because they didn’t have enough food and water. And entire battalions got extremely sick from using local water when they absolutely had to.
When was the last time the US won a war?
Iraq
The last time they tried to be “efficient”
Thus sounds like a cherry picked example.
It also happens to be the last time we actually fought on a full scale level. We haven’t done anything like 2003 since.
I’m not sure what that proves except that whoever tried it last time sounds like a moron.
George W Bush in 2003. And no, it wasn’t just that he was a moron. There were very smart logistics officers working on the problem. It’s an inherent problem. The military normally would much rather over supply an area and write it off after the fighting. Because that means there’s always a pallet of whatever you need and a plane or helicopter to transport it. Trying to meet the exact needs means that when something gets blown up, it’s replacement isn’t even in the right region of the planet.
So to be efficient at blowing shit up you have to accept inefficiency in the back end.
That’s how we know it was never about auditing or waste.
We have generals from the military asking for less equipment , and then congress ignores them and rubber stamps the contracts of their doners in the Military Industrial Complex.
https://apnews.com/united-states-government-united-states-congress-4416606e329b4c8baa755aad333d73db
If we want to go after real waste in our spending we need to start forcing the rich to make concessions. This becomes more true every year we allow wealth inequality to continue growing.
The funny thing is that Elon Musk is the wealthiest man ever and enough hecklers chanting “no one likes Elon” in a sing song manner would bring him to tears
Seems like a waste of funds to me
What’s all the BS they’ve been doing all this time? Is it not winning to crash about like a bull in a china shop wrecking things? What sort of “win” are they looking for? Are they looking for a Death Star shot where the entire country says, “as if millions of voices suddenly cried out in terror and were suddenly silenced.”
These idiots are so drunk on their own Kool aid that everyone in government is useless and corrupt and not actually working and that it’s all a “waste.”
Also that zillions of people are on government support that should not be, nevermind that its people, exactly like Musk, who have run their shitty corpos in such a way that people can’t afford to exist anymore without government assistance.
I mean, technically he is right, there are a ton of people who should not be on government programs, that are, because profit profit profit companies have made life miserable and those people don’t have a choice.
Musk is on government support. He has scores of billions in contracts, loans, subsidies, and incentives.
I thought a cool online name like Big Balls was win enough.
What a get.
I’d say it’s predictable … Had it been a success I think Trump would be shouting “One of my master moves, this is the mother of all my moves” Now we get to read “Trump has distanced himself” meaning it’s failing and Musk is gonna be sacrificed without a thought “I don’t know what Musk did, he acted like a loose cannon but I fired him for his incompetence”
The people Trump fired this way in the past didn’t pay for his campaign.
Trump works for Musk, not the other way around.
If you think Trump cares if people did things for him, even Musk, maybe you should talk to one of the dozens of contractors Trump has stiffed over the years.
True, but what does musk have left to give to trump? If he’s no longer useful, trump will have no problem dumping him and moving on. As soon as he thinks it’s more beneficial to turn on musk than it is to suck his dick, he will. Loyalty is one way for him.
I think its a game of “who owns the zeitgeist?” Its why “Rumble” exists; why fascists sought their own media ecosystems; its why Elon bought twitter.
There is some threshold where another billion buys you no more power, or at least, significantly less than your last billion. Hence buying a the worlds largest microphone, twitter, for what seemed like an overpriced market value.
So if Elon controls Trumps access; or even more threateningly, if Elon captures the zeitgeist, and Trump is no longer in control of narratives, or Elon is able to create and inject his own, thats a real material threat.
Trump is going to die soon; whoever inherits this cult is the real threat.
Do cults inherit well?
The leadership of the DPRK transitioned across generations, but there was plenty of institutional alignment and wheel greasing.
Trump will be trying to negotiate with the reaper for six months after he’s dead. I can’t imagine he considers his mortality, let alone in the context of anything that has to survive after his departure. There will be a free for all to grab his mantle.
Elon has said he will spend the money to drive out any Republican that votes against Trump. Elon controls Congress.
I read that somewhere, both Elon and Trump are in a codependent relationship financially and socially.
I’m pretty sure musk is still the richest man in the world (at least on paper, who knows what people like Putin have hidden away). Until that changes there is a .00001% chance of trump and musk’s relationship deteriorating
Oh, one can dream.
Seriously, Musk is fit… Fit for a short tour of the inside of a whicker basket.
Switch that to the wicker man, and I’m listening…
