General Discussion

KPN

(16,589 posts) Sun Feb 9, 2025, 01:31 PM Feb 9

Who is helping Elon Musk gut the US government? The billionaire's cost-cutting 'Doge' staff includes

wealthy executives, far-right ideologues and young engineers.

To undertake this unprecedented and potentially illegal gutting of public funding, Musk has assembled loyalists who largely lack government experience and who range from tech elites to Maga diehards, according to a review of the people publicly associated with Doge.
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Doge has not released any detailed account of who is working at the unofficial agency, and Musk, along with other staff, is technically a “special government employee”, which allows him and others to evade ethics and financial disclosures that would normally apply to government workers. The Doge team has taken steps to avoid public scrutiny, including limiting their online footprints. A lawsuit filed by unions of federal workers alleges that Musk’s allies in Doge have held calls and interviews in which they have withheld their last names in an effort to escape media scrutiny. These interviewers have also allegedly refused to answer questions while talking to federal employees.
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Musk shared a letter on X sent to him from the Trump-appointed federal prosecutor for Washington DC that vowed to pursue “any and all legal action against anyone who impedes your work or threatens your people”, which includes identifying them.
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Several people at Doge come directly from Musk’s private companies, including the Boring Company, Tesla and xAI. One executive taking a lead role overseeing the effort, according to multiple outlets, is Musk’s longtime lieutenant Steve Davis. Allies of the world’s richest man have also been placed in key positions at the General Services Administration – which handles government real estate and federal IT structure – and the treasury department. The former Tesla engineer Thomas Shedd is now in charge of the GSA’s Technology Transformation Services, with 404 Media reporting that Shedd told workers he wants to implant artificial intelligence throughout government systems to write software and automate services. Musk himself has said he wants to deploy AI to review government payments for potential waste.
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Government watchdog groups have condemned the lack of transparency around Doge’s operations. “It’s inappropriate for the federal government to purposely hide the identities of senior officials who are shaping the policies and servicing the public,” said Scott Amey, the general counsel of the Project on Government Oversight. “These officials must be held accountable for their work, both by their colleagues and the public. It’s also crucial that these officials abide by ethics and transparency requirements to assure the public they are serving in the best interest of our communities.”

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/feb/08/elon-musk-doge-team-staff
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Much more than can be summarized here ... and more than a lot to be concerned about in this article. Downright frightening.

I hope there is someone or some organization that is actively creating a registry of who exactly are assisting in this outright dismantling of our federal government. It will be needed when the time comes that we the people can exact appropriate accountability and penalty from them for their crimes ; and that time will come eventually.