Summary

The White House confirmed that Elon Musk is working as a “special government employee” under Trump, granting him significant authority to cut federal spending.

Musk has a government email, office space, and access to sensitive Treasury systems. His team abruptly shut down USAID headquarters on Monday.

Musk is consolidating unchecked power, raising legal and ethical concerns, particularly given his federal contracts.

Musk is unpaid and may not be required to disclose financial interests.

    • chuckleslord@lemmy.world
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      19 hours ago

      As Jon Stewart said “it has been done within the confines of our legal system, therefore it’s not fascist”

    • PlantDadManGuy@lemmy.world
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      19 hours ago

      No no, violence is not the answer. Someone really needs to send him to Guantanamo Bay, outside of US jurisdiction, and introduce him to all the immigrants he’s illegally detained. They can each take a piece of him.

      • RangerJosey@lemmy.ml
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        19 hours ago

        Violence is the only answer. It’s the only thing that has ever worked. I know we like that myth here in the US. After all it’s a myth that is propagandized into us from the moment we’re capable of retaining it. But it’s not real. It never was. Much like American Exceptionalism and laissez-faire economics. They are a fiction that was never in your best interests. Meant to control and defang you while your betters treat you like a slave.

        • absGeekNZ@lemmy.nz
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          18 hours ago

          Violence is the last recourse of the failure to properly manage a situation.

          Violence has never been the only answer. Human civilization works only because of this fact, if violence was the only answer we would never have risen beyond a baboon troop size.

          Literally billions of low level conflicts are solved daily without violence.

          In saying the above, “violence is never the answer” is categorically wrong. It has in fact been used throughout history to great effect, but also to terrible effect. We have to be very careful where we apply violence, it tends to make things much worse before they get better (if they do at all).

          • RangerJosey@lemmy.ml
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            17 hours ago

            You’re naive. Where do you think the authority to negotiate comes from? It’s violence. The threat of force.

            When you don’t have that. You get the US. Where tens of millions protesting nation wide is flatly ignored if not actively stomped out by the government like so often happens here by police forces.

            • absGeekNZ@lemmy.nz
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              17 hours ago

              This is a cultural difference. American culture is steeped in violence, you venerate it in almost all of your stories.

              Violence is like fire, properly harnessed, it is a tool for progress. Otherwise it is wildfire and destroys everything around it.

              If those same millions of people who can organize to protest, had instead just decided to strike. I would predict that more would happen, but that requires a collectivist culture, America has been pushing itself along the individualistic line for so long, I’m not sure you have it in you to work together enough.

          • Glitterbomb@lemmy.world
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            17 hours ago

            I was about to ask what kind of fantasy land you live in, but it appears to be right there in your username. Cheers, must be nice over there

            • absGeekNZ@lemmy.nz
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              17 hours ago

              We have our own issues, but the culture of violence is not one of them. Sure we have violent people, but our culture is not the same.

        • GaMEChld@lemmy.world
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          18 hours ago

          It’s amazing how many guns we have, how pro 2A we are, how much pride we carry over things like the American Revolution, and we say dumb shit like violence is never the answer.

          • nomy@lemmy.zip
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            16 hours ago

            I’ve been telling people to prepare to resist for a bit now. The amount of “no the other team is the gun team!” is absurd. Most of these people will be useless and will happily rat out their gay neighbor when the time comes.

  • jballs@sh.itjust.works
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    1 day ago

    “Elon can’t do and won’t do anything without our approval,” Trump told reporters in the Oval Office on Monday.

    Any bets on how long it will be until Elon does something so unpopular that there’s blowback on Trump and it becomes “Elon acted on this alone and I had nothing to do with it.”

    • w3dd1e@lemm.ee
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      1 day ago

      I insist on only calling him President Musk because I know when he takes enough attention and credit from Trump, Trump will get mad and tell Elon to fuck off.

        • w3dd1e@lemm.ee
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          20 hours ago

          We can only hope. This morning, I saw multiple news articles with “President Musk” in the title. I suspect it’s intentional for that reason. But at minimum, I hope it’s starting.

  • xzot746@sh.itjust.works
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    1 day ago

    So is there no conflict of interest with the companies he runs getting federal contracts? Don’t politicians need to put their companies into some type of trust where they can’t run it and make decisions that would be in their favour? I mean I know it doesn’t work like that with stick trading (cough cough Pelosi).

    • IhaveCrabs111@lemmy.world
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      1 day ago

      Company he runs? You really think he has time to run 5 companies while jerking off on twitter and now is spending his time jerking off in the treasury. The man just does what ever he feels. None of it is remotely called “work” he’s basically a walking jerk off

    • hydroxycotton@lemmy.world
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      1 day ago

      I brought up the conflict of interest to a trump coworker and he deadass said, “I get the conflict of interest, but I just don’t care.” The mask is fully off.

      Edit: not that I’m surprised, just depressed and somewhat bewildered

    • T00l_shed@lemmy.world
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      1 day ago

      Trump did away with the trust thing. And they let him because it wasn’t a law, it was just something that was understood to be done. No talk of him doing it this time either.

  • Randomgal@lemmy.ca
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    2 days ago

    But he’s autistic guys! We’re all misunderstanding, there is no Nazi coup going on.

    • Nastybutler@lemmy.world
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      2 days ago

      I know you are joking, but he’s literally brought in sofa beds to his offices so he and his young minions can live there while they dismantle the government

      • CharlesDarwin@lemmy.world
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        1 day ago

        If he’s living there, I wonder if he’s still doing illegal drugs. Would be hilarious to have some DEA agents show up unannounced.

  • frustrated_phagocytosis@fedia.io
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    2 days ago

    Employees get paid. He’s a special government intern. Violating internship guidelines to prevent abuse of power using unpaid interns in a ‘special’ way. Also these asshats were up in arms about ‘Special Counsel’ investigations being illegal like 2 weeks ago. We good with those again, or no?

  • CosmoNova@lemmy.world
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    2 days ago

    The richest man on the planet who once joked about ending world hunger is cutting federal spending of the richest and most powerful nation on the planet. Let that sink in for a moment.