Musk's Actions

Last night before sleep, I started reading about a recent move by Elon Musk. It kept me awake for quite a while.

Below is where I first learned about— what some are calling —a coup by Musk. Below, Richardson references an article in Wired, which details that six young men, between the ages of 19 and 24, breached federal infrastructure computers to take control of financial systems. Wired reports that Musk, as part of his role leading DOGE, the Department of Governement Efficiency, says he is doing this to make USAID more efficient. DOGE is not an official government agency, and Musk is not an elected official. The six young men are purportedly working in some capacity at DOGE, their names are Akash Bobba, Edward Coristine, Luke Farritor, Gautier Cole Killian, Gavin Kliger, and Ethan Shaotran, and they have little to no experience in government.

“What we're seeing is unprecedented in that you have these actors who are not really public officials gaining access to the most sensitive data in government,” says Don Moynihan, a professor of public policy at the University of Michigan. “We really have very little eyes on what's going on. Congress has no ability to really intervene and monitor what's happening because these aren't really accountable public officials. So this feels like a hostile takeover of the machinery of governments by the richest man in the world.”

After Musk’s team breached the USAID computers, cybersecurity specialist Matthew Garrett posted: “Random computers being plugged into federal networks is obviously terrifying in terms of what data they're deliberately accessing, but it's also terrifying because it implies controls are being disabled—unmanaged systems should never have access to this data. Who else has access to those systems?”

Early this morning, the NY Times reported that Elizabeth Warren sent a letter to Treasury Secretary Scott Besent, asking for answers as to why the so-called Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) has granted access to the federal payments system, giving Elon Musk and his team a powerful tool that could be used to track and potentially limit government spending.

“It is extraordinarily dangerous to meddle with the critical systems that process trillions of dollars of transactions each year, are essential to preventing a default on federal debt, and ensure that tens of millions of Americans receive their Social Security checks, tax refunds and Medicare benefits,” wrote Ms. Warren, the top Democrat on the Senate Banking Committee.

USAID receives advice from the State Department, so it must be assumed now that our international intelligence is not secure.

The way our government works, as I understand it, is Congress passes laws and the President enforces them. If Congress passes legislation for money to be disbursed, such as in USAID, it is up to the President to disburse it. He cannot pick and chose what to disburse, nor can a private citizen (Musk) whom he selects, do so either. So taking over control of the financial workings of USAID is not contitutional.

Trump will most likely be impeached, as he should be. But that takes time (the GOP will delay it as much as they can) and we know from experience it might make little difference (that’s a sad state of affairs). Richardson suggests we also speak out on social media and try to tell anyone we know who voted for Trump what is going on. In a non-partisan way, not acusatorially. She points out that Musk’s behavior is not being reported on FOX news, let along right wing podcasts and radio shows, so MAGA and other Republicans don’t know it’s happening. We also could call our representatives daily.

This morning the stock market went way down because of Trump’s announcement over the weekend of high tariffs against Mexico and Canada. It is wrong that one man can affect the lives of so many people, here and abroad. Just now, Trump has agreed to pause the new tariffs against Mexico for one month. He is meeting with Trudeau today, let’s see what happens. This is one man’s desire to demonstrate his power against others, our allies and friends, and it is despicable.

Protests against Trump are happening around the country, and are not being reported by the mainstream news.

Thanks for being here, see you later if there’s more news, or tomorrow.