I know some of the people involved, and named in this article. So do many other people on HN. I pitched my startup to one of these zoomers just a few months ago. I can tell you that whatever this is, it isn't that kind of cronyism corruption. We can do better than such accusations, and that's what the person you are replying to is asking for.
Sunlight is the best disinfectant. Nothing these people are doing is transparent.
They're doing shady stuff in the shadows as fast as they can. Which is exactly the way you do things when they're not above board legally or ethically.
Whatever you think about Musk, he is a lot more transparent than other big donors and people who vie for influence in the USG. He is an idiot at times for sure, but he is an idiot publicly.
It's insane to me that people on the so called left are going to bat for the status quo, the status quo that protects bureaucrats and lobbyists and friends giving friends contracts and salaries.
Someone saying extremely stupid things in public, just making shit up and punishing those pointing that out, doesn't strike me as "honest", it strikes me as heavily disordered. And starting this stuff on a Friday night is the opposite of being transparent or welcoming scrutiny. Also:
> Thomas Shedd, a Musk-associate and now head of the General Services Administration’s Technology Transformation Services (TTS), told government tech workers in a meeting this week that the administration plans to widely deploy AI throughout the government. Shedd also said the administration would need help altering login.gov, a government login system, to further integrate with sensitive systems like social security “to further identify individuals and detect and prevent fraud,” which employees identified on the meeting as “an illegal task.”
Finally, batting against someone trying to make the status quo worse for his own gains isn't "batting for the status quo". If your house needs renovating, and I stop someone who tries to set it on fire, it doesn't mean I'm against renovation.
So you prefer corporate speak suits who don't make the mistake of embarrassing themselves in public? Because they don't ever speak in public? Are you honestly telling me you prefer un-named lobbyists having influence, because that has been the status quo. At least we can point the finger at Musk. And yes, I would posit doing and saying stupid shit in public IS more human than what we normally get. Its a pretty normal human behavior to make mistakes, embarrass yourself, lash out, etc. It's certainly more human like behavior than elected politicians engage in where they disclose absolutely nothing and hide behind PR speak approved by a team of 20.
I don't really know what your quote is about, seems like grinding a specific gear which I'm not particularly interesting in looking into.
But to your final point. The jury is still out on whether Musk acts _exclusively_ for his own gains. Sure he has an ego, but he was also instrumental in bringing EVs to the market (which many of his now opponents were quick to adopt), and at the very least has rekindled an interest in space exploration and so on.
I have many misgivings about the man, but at least we can see him. Which is better than the previous status-quo.
This is a False Dilemma fallacy. I'm not going to pretend the government is perfect but handing the keys of the kingdom to a Nazi will always be a bad idea. Let's do something else.
> So you prefer corporate speak suits who don't make the mistake of embarrassing themselves in public? Because they don't ever speak in public?
No, because they're not insane, have no clue what they're talking about, and don't call anyone who points that out a "radical leftist", or whatever their particular word for "unperson" would be.
> At least we can point the finger at Musk
And then you can get fired, like the Twitter engineer correcting his utter nonsense claims about how Twitter works. So he's an "idiot" (lies, smears people, and talks nonsense, too), but at least he's unable to hide it.
Because since we "can point our fingers at him" the pointed fingers get dismissed. Some people even said he can't have anything to hide because he posts so much on X. Okay, so so we know he's a terrible person and up to idiotic, destructive things, but that's a good thing, because other people could be worse because they're not posting every brain fart on a social media site they bought for that purpose. What?
> I would posit doing and saying stupid shit in public IS more human than what we normally get
All humans are human. One world you could use, just not for Musk, is "humane". To me he's very stuck up, pseudo-intellectual and pseudo-deep. He's not an adorable dork, he's a pushy, controlling, cowardly try hard. He wants desperately to be liked, or feared, or respected, but he doesn't genuinely love other people, and he isn't genuinely curious either, so it's all just a ghoulish, awkward, and completely dishonest show.
And people who don't tell people to "fuck their face" and such, or agree with neo-nazi conspiracy theories, or don't find outrage at their Hitler salute so funny they can't stop joking to the point even the ADL says something, etc. don't only refrain from these things because they have big PR team.
> Sure he has an ego, but he was also instrumental in bringing EVs to the market (which many of his now opponents were quick to adopt), and at the very least has rekindled an interest in space exploration and so on.
And if WWII hadn't happened, we wouldn't have computers right now. So? We would have had them 300 years later or whatever. This idea how progress, that humans constantly nibble at, that they cannot help but think about, could only have happened exactly how it happened is something I don't buy into. And without looking at the damage it's not a credible "calculation" anyway.
Do you think that there are security or data exfiltration risks with their approach, e.g. putting classified documents/emails into private company's LLMs to summarize information or identify certain ideological motivations? I don't see how they could begin to understand the scope of what they're working with without A.I. assistance.
Since you know the people in question, do you have any ideas? I am honestly mystified myself and hopeful someone who knows the people in question can shed some light.
Do you have specific questions? I really don’t think it is complicated. They’re doing what they say they are doing: instrumenting up the government to see what it is doing, and reorganizing it from the ground up to be more efficient. So far all their actions are in line with this.
It’s like a creditor-initiated bankruptcy proceeding. An agent comes in and stops all transactions, audits the assets and liabilities, and comes up with a plan. That’s what they are working on right now.
I’m trying to be objective in my description. I’ve personally worked for the government before and I think they are being hopelessly naïve in thinking that the government can fixed in this way, and also appear to be dangerously ignorant of the law (or counting on executive pardons). But I do t think there is any intentional malice or corrupt intentions here.
They know absolutely nothing about running the government or administering these programs, and these idiots are pushing to prod in a system that controls 1/5th of the US economy.
>Do you have specific questions? I really don’t think it is complicated. They’re doing what they say they are doing: instrumenting up the government to see what it is doing, and reorganizing it from the ground up to be more efficient. So far all their actions are in line with this.
I think this is pretty much correct. The media, however, is taking full advantage of creating as much panic as possible.
I am curious though - what do you think about Curtis Yarvin being invited to the Coronation Ball in DC? It's things like that that make these theories spread. Why are they friends with a guy who openly calls for the fall of democracy and even invited him to high-level events?
Gotcha. The reason I was mystified is that the budget is written by Congress, so I would guess a phone call to a leader in Congress with a desired budget number would do the job. Given that this doesn't seem to be the plan, I couldn't tell if maybe they had some other goal. I hope that explains how someone could be mystified.
It is not the budget that is the issue to them, except maybe in the total size. I'm sure they think it can be done cheaper. Rather it is how the money is spent that they are looking at. That's within the executive branch's authority, not Congress.
No, you are absolutely wrong about that. The whole point of the Revolutionary War was we didn't want an executive who decided how to spend our tax money.
Congress doesn't just give the executive branch a slush fund they can use to implement whatever political agenda the administration has. The money is for specific things, and the president has to spend it on them. He also can't just not spend it. His just is to make the money go from A to B, not to decide whether or not it gets to B.
Yes, the executive can set a policy agenda, and they have powers within the executive branch to administer the agencies, but one of those power is not the ability to spend or hold up congressionally appointed funds. The president's job is to spend that money on our priorities, not his. Many times his priorities will align with the voters, but at the end of the day he is the president for everyone, not just Republicans. This is the whole system of representation we have been living under for 200+ years.
We pay those taxes, we vote for our representatives, they allocate spending, the president makes sure the funds are lawfully spent. That is the system. You seem to be suggesting some other system where the president gets to decide how the money is spent. That's not how the system works.
Have you worked in government? I have. I helped manage a program that was an actual line item on the national budget. I'm quite familiar with how it works.
There is a lot of executive leeway in interpreting how to spend money allocated in congressional authorizations. As I said, I was managing a program that was in the 10's of millions of dollars and a line item on my agency's budget. The actual wording of the authorization was quite short, and there was a lot of executive agency in deciding how to structure it.
But most of your comment doesn't seem to be addressing what my comment was saying, and is politically charged enough that I don't think it would be fruitful for us to continue this conversation. I wish you the best.
As an employee of the government responsible for these items, you are beholden to follow the law. If you break the law you are prosecuted. You have to go through background checks, get training on what you're legally allowed to do, receive training for security clearances and how to handle sensitive data, go through that whole vetting process. You must preserve documents, be free of conflicts of interest, your work is auditable, and your department must respond to FOIA requests. The bar is high for you because the public puts our trust in you to spend our money.
None of this is true for Musk. He's not treating any of this with care, and we can see this in real time as USAID food/medicine is held up and rotting at borders. How is that not wasteful?
If you were to make those kind of capricious decisions as a government employee leading to people going hungry and staying sick or worse dying... Congress would rightfully be demanding answers and your resignation.
I think it should be obvious to everyone we are not dealing with an instance of a regular employee exercising routine and precedented discretion here, when Congress is up in arms, agency employees are up in arms, class action lawsuits are being filed. How often does a response of this scale happen when you make a decision?
Why would I assume otherwise? They aren't neutral observers from a trusted third party. Neither Musk nor Trump has a track record of honesty, and both have used their power for personal gain. A recent example is Musk moving NTSB announcements to Twitter.
From what I can tell, the apparent purpose of DoGE is to benefit Trump and his allies financially, weaponize funding against opponents, and dismantle parts of the government they oppose. Musk’s preference for young engineers may stem from the same logic the military uses with young soldiers — they tend to be more obedient and less likely to push back.
