Elon Musk continues to speak about social safety.
Two weeks in the past, He called it a Ponzi diagram. This week, he steered that his authorities ministry of the federal government would examine the agency’s expenses. And he has repeatedly steered, with out proof, that social safety funds happen in direction of undocumented immigrants and useless.
The final signal of his curiosity within the company got here at present, when my colleagues Theodore Schleifer, Kate Conger and Ryan Mac reported This advisers closest to Musk had taken a stand.
The advisor is Antonio Gracias, a investor in funding that lent $ 1 million Musk {dollars} throughout Tesla’s beginnings and spent his holidays along with his household in locations like Jackson Gap, Wyo. Gracias, Gracias’ participation could possibly be the clearest signal to this point that Musk considers the company as a key precedence. He is without doubt one of the 9 members of the Authorities Ministry of Effectiveness Arrived there in latest days, my colleagues have written. Two others work within the Gracias funding firm.
We have no idea precisely what’s the function of Gracias. However a judicial Final week supplied an outline of the primary DOGE actions within the company. Within the file, that the Washington Post has covered in detailTiffany Flick, an official of the profession company who retired in mid-February, stated that group representatives appeared to hunt delicate info and information that fell into three classes: allegations regarding the companies paid to deceased individuals; considerations regarding a number of benefits ranging to a single social safety quantity; and funds to folks with out social safety quantity.
Flick stated all these considerations had been “invalid”. However they align themselves with the false allegations regarding the fraud that Musk and President Trump made in public – who Democrats say that Republicans intend to use it as a claim For a meticulous examination and cuts.
Trump and his allies have repeatedly denied that they meant to cut back social safety advantages, which the Republicans have lengthy averted doing for concern of political return.
“They won’t lower social safety. They won’t lower Medicare. They aren’t – it is simply to concern from the left, “stated Chris Lacivita, one among Trump’s marketing campaign administrators in 2024, in an interview with politico published This morning.
Lacivita didn’t say that Musk was not within the cuts of those packages. As an alternative, he argued that Musk was not as influential because the Democrats steered.
“He isn’t president, he isn’t president,” stated Lacivita, referring to Musk. “He can not make these selections.”
Company report
Musk goes to the NSA
It appears that evidently Musk was all over the place in Washington – however till yesterday, he was not identified to have visited a spy company.
In accordance with a spokesperson for the Nationwide Safety Company, Musk visited this agency on Wednesday. It is a notable go to, my colleague Julian Barnes, who covers intelligence, defined:
NSA is without doubt one of the two most vital intelligence companies. This includes getting into computer systems and telecommunications networks. Nobody is best on this space. Musk can have concepts on how he may do his job higher, or he may need to know extra about how they do what they do.
NSA is a bureaucratic impediment company, stated Julian, and there might be methods to function extra successfully. There are additionally conflicts of potential pursuits when Musk enters the company.
NSA has expertise and cyber instruments that will profit nearly all Musk corporations. NSA additionally has a few of the most delicate – and commonest – secrets and techniques that the federal government has collected. Nothing signifies but that Mr. Musk needs to entry this gear, however historically, the company has been reluctant to permit any individual with out impediment to its gear.
Extra on authorities companies
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American postal service agreed Work with the Division of Effectiveness of the Musk Authorities. The service plans to cut back 10,000 of its staff because of a voluntary retirement program.
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The American Federation of Authorities Staff, the biggest federal union of staff, continues the Department of Internal Security To stop the Trump administration from canceling its contract with transport safety employees.
Whereas ready on x
Musk shared, then deleted, a publish excuse of dictators
Musk makes use of his X account as a megaphone. My colleague Kate Conger listens rigorously and guides you thru her most vital messages.
Early at present, Musk shared an article written by an X consumer on the actions of three twentieth century dictators – then rapidly deleted it after scary a consoup.
The publish falsely stated that Joseph Staline, the communist chief of the Soviet Union till 1953; Adolf Hitler, the chief of the Nazi celebration in Germany; And Mao Zedong, the founding father of the Individuals’s Republic of China, didn’t have the demise of hundreds of thousands of individuals below their watch. As an alternative, stated the publish, their employees within the public sector did it.
Musk shared the message with out every other feedback. He deleted it shortly after X customers criticized the publish, saying that he was anti -Semitic and disdainful of the genocide. Historians have largely stated that hundreds of thousands of individuals died below Stalin within the Nineteen Fifties, that hundreds of thousands of Jews had been massacred below Hitler in the course of the Holocaust and that hundreds of thousands of Chinese language had been moved or killed in the course of the MAO cultural revolution.
It was Musk’s newest article to show into controversy. In 2023, musk Approved an anti -Semitic post on x As a “actual fact” of what the Jews did, encouraging advertisers to flee. And after an assassination try on Trump final yr, Musk wrote – then deleted – An article suggesting that it was strange That nobody had tried to kill the previous president Joe Biden or the previous vice-president Kamala Harris.
Musk lengthy appeared to advertise robust males and promoted fashionable proper leaders. He has repeatedly Used X to support politicians Like Javier Milei of Argentina, Jair Bolsonaro from Brazil and Narendra Modi in India, leaders in nations the place he additionally has business pursuits. Extra not too long ago, he Thrown Behind the choice lasts proper for Germany.
“It’s deeply disturbing and irresponsible for an individual with a big public platform to lift the kind of rhetoric which serves to undermine the severity of those issues,” the anti-diploma league stated in a press launch on the sharing of Musk of the publish.
Musk didn’t reply to a request for feedback.
– Kate Conger
All through the nation
Musk coverage heats up
Democrats predict a National series of town halls Whereas they search to attract consideration to the reluctance of Republicans to prepare such occasions. If they’re one thing just like the city corridor {that a} republican, the Chuck Edwards consultant of Caroline du Nord, held the title Musk final evening will come up so much. Here’s what my colleague Katie Grueck heard from voters there:
Democrats throughout the nation consider that speaking about musk may help them reconnect with voters who’re Tired to hear about Trump. And in Asheville, NC, a democratic bastion, I noticed proof that they could possibly be proper.
An especially liberal crowd has been thrilled in an auditorium of the neighborhood school to report his dissatisfaction with Edwards, a second time period republican who represents the west of North Carolina.
The folks current talked about Musk again and again, complaining of him particularly and criticizing the reductions of the federal workforce initiated by his Ministry of Authorities effectivity, even when Edwards defended the necessity to scale back pointless spending.
“You might be afraid of musk!” A participant shouted to the Congress Member. One other requested if Edwards can be keen to chop his personal workers.
Whereas Edwards tried to work the room, one other voter, Chris Boehme, 78, advised the legislator that he was deeply apprehensive by Cups directed by DOGE in the department of veterans fighters.
“It’s a must to arise for veterinarians,” stated Boehme, who wore a hat whereas studying “Previous Vet Grumpy”.
“You have got a superb hospital goes right here,” he stated. “He should be funded.”
– Katie Grueck
