Elon Musk’s fast unscheduled disassembly of the US authorities

Nearly 250 years after the Declaration of Independence, America has gotten herself a brand new king. His title is Elon Musk.

“Wait a minute,” chances are you’ll be saying. “What about President Donald Trump?” Trump ran, a lot like Silvio Berlusconi before him, primarily to keep away from prosecutions. He has by no means preferred being president and he has already gotten what he needs. He’s not the ability heart. Musk is.

Consequently I can’t be bothering with no matter statements Katie Miller of DOGE and White Home Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt are placing out. All of us have eyes; we are able to see what’s going on. Musk has taken over the civilian government. This can be a billionaire pulling a heist on your entire nation.

Listed here are the issues Musk has installed his IT Renfields at:

All of us realized in 2022, with the weaponization of SWIFT, that technical techniques are a supply of energy. By controlling the infrastructure, Musk controls the nation. The 2 most clearly important businesses on that record are the Treasury, which controls the cash, and the Division of Vitality, which controls the nuclear secrets. Much less clearly important however equally troubling is the Normal Providers Administration, which is successfully the infrastructure of the government itself.

The GSA, an company most of us have by no means had to consider, is in command of buildings, positive. But in addition it runs an terrible lot of the technical infrastructure of the federal government — it’s principally the feds’ IT. If the US authorities had been a mind, the GSA is the mind stem, the half that manages heartbeats and respiratory so that they’re under the extent of ideas.

“That is the biggest information breach and the biggest IT safety breach in our nation’s historical past—not less than that’s publicly recognized,” a contractor who’s labored on classified systems at government agencies told The Atlantic.

Right here’s the threat intelligence team at the Treasury, as reported by Wired, simply to underline the seriousness of Musk’s entry: “We additional suggest that DOGE members be positioned underneath insider menace monitoring and alerting after their entry to fee techniques is revoked. Continued entry to any fee techniques by DOGE members, even ‘learn solely,’ seemingly poses the only biggest insider menace danger the Bureau of the Fiscal Service has ever confronted.” After The Washington Post inquired about that memo, the one who wrote it was ”eliminated” by contractor Booz Allen. However a second warning memo was additionally despatched by a Treasury insider, warning of dangers from DOGE.

Choose Paul Englemayer granted a temporary restraining order to 19 states in search of to halt Musk and crew’s entry to the Treasury techniques. Englemayer wrote that the states would expertise “irreparable hurt within the absence of injunctive reduction.” Why? “Each due to the chance that the brand new coverage presents of the disclosure of delicate and confidential data and the heightened danger that the techniques in query shall be extra weak than earlier than to hacking,” he wrote.

Incredible. That is an company that controls $5 trillion, and accommodates delicate private data for — amongst others — American spies overseas. It’s additionally, by the way in which, tax season. And now Trump says that “we have less debt than we thought of?” Boy, that feels like a enjoyable new method to default on a mortgage. It’s a terrifying prospect in case you are a finance-knower: US bonds are the most secure property on the planet, not less than for now, and making them dangerous shakes the inspiration of the worldwide monetary system. Then again, Trump may simply be saying shit once more.

Oh, positive, sure, there are those challenges in the courts to Musk’s entry to the Treasury, and to shutting down USAID, which can nicely have been illegal. Right here’s the factor: Musk doesn’t care about legal guidelines. Keep in mind when he was meant to receive a “Twitter sitter” after the time he pretended he needed to take Tesla non-public? The courts ordered one. It has by no means appeared. Or perhaps we should always speak in regards to the depositions he hasn’t shown up for. Or all the federal government requests to repair Tesla’s so-called Autopilot that he’s ignored. And given the mendacity in regards to the Treasury entry, I don’t suppose we are able to rule out the likelihood that Musk and co. merely lie underneath oath. He’s additionally acquired himself a cadre of elite lawyers, two of whom clerked for conservative Supreme Court docket justices, to argue for him in court docket.

So it’s no actual shock that he’s posting stuff on X that signifies he isn’t taking the court docket order to again away from the Treasury severely. “Corrupt judges defending corruption,” Musk wrote of the court order. Congressman Darrell Issa wrote that he was “instantly introducing laws subsequent week to cease these rogue judges,” which Musk quoted with American flag emoji. Vice President JD Vance, the nation’s highest-ranking kiss-ass, wrote on X, “Judges aren’t allowed to manage the manager’s legit energy.” Vance has all the time been within the working to be Yale Legislation College’s most embarrassing graduate, a aggressive endeavor; calling for a coup in violation of his oath of workplace and a fundamental understanding of the Structure just about cements him on the high of the record.

Are we nonetheless a nation of legal guidelines? Is anybody checking to see if the court docket order shall be adopted? About the one issues Musk hasn’t taken over are the navy and legislation enforcement. What occurs if he clearly ignores a court docket order, and the court docket points a warrant for his arrest? Does home legislation enforcement facet with the court docket or with Musk?

No matter Musk’s private contempt for the legislation, there’s additionally the very fact of the January sixth pardons, which despatched a transparent message: breaking the legislation is okay, so long as Trump thinks it’s okay. And since Trump is successfully Musk’s puppet, Musk has carte blanche. Essentially the most these court docket orders may do is give cowl to staffers at these departments to disclaim Musk’s crew entry to the issues they need. After all, we already know these staffers might be fired and changed.

What has our Congress been as much as whereas this hostile takeover of our authorities has been occurring in plain sight? Nicely, the Democrats are nonetheless writing strongly worded letters, and exhibiting up at protests, and permitting glorified mall cops to show them away from the departments Musk has already conquered. The closest they’ve come to motion is Senator Cory Booker’s threat of a debt default or authorities shutdown. The Republicans… other than those vociferously approving of Musk usurping their control over the nation’s spending, they appear to be Milford Men. They’re able to make a horse a consul.

Musk is now flexing his energy. After his staffer Marko Elez resigned for saying he “was racist earlier than it was cool,” Musk put up a ballot on X, the go-to groyper platform, asking if Elez needs to be reinstated. As of this writing, the reply was “sure.” Elez had read and write access to the Treasury’s techniques.

Ought to Elez come again? Native lapdog Vance thinks so! (Positive feels like Vance is taking orders from Musk fairly than the opposite manner round.) Musk then posted that Elez “shall be introduced again.” That does fairly make it clear who’s in cost, doesn’t it?

So now that Musk has management of the heart of the federal government, let’s take into account his terribly reckless historical past with funds and IT techniques. When Musk was working the corporate that may turn out to be PayPal, it had what his coworker and buddy Peter Thiel known as “a runaway fraud downside.” When Thiel thought about writing a book about the experience, he stated he’d title the Musk chapter “The Man Who Knew Nothing about Danger.”

This may occasionally clarify why Musk has employed Edward Coristine, who was fired from a cybersecurity firm for “leaking inner data to the opponents,” in accordance with an inner message reported by Bloomberg. Oh, and in addition he’s on a watch record for federal cybercrime enforcement, and labored at a startup with convicted hackers. Now, in fact, he’s acquired entry to our authorities’s inner techniques. Neat! Additionally there’s Gavin Kliger, who seems to have his own interest in white supremacy. It’s unclear what he does on the Workplace of Personnel Administration, however he in all probability shouldn’t be in that constructing in any respect.

No marvel they’re hiding from the regular USDS employees.

This sort of sloppiness is sensible for these of us who followed Musk’s Twitter takeover. Musk has an actual curiosity in transferring quick and breaking issues, with an emphasis on breaking issues. For example, there’s the time a “bug” restored deleted tweets. Or that point private tweets were made public. Or the older photographs that no longer displayed.

Now, think about this on the Treasury, with a bunch of youngsters who don’t know COBOL toying with the techniques. Even a slight bug can fuck up trillions of {dollars} — throughout tax season. I don’t wish to take into consideration what occurs with a bug within the code at DoE, as a result of one potential reply is a leak of our nuclear secrets — which is one thing we, as a nation, used to take so severely that we executed people.

Oh positive, Secretary of Energy Chris Wright says that the DOGE dorks don’t have entry to nuclear secrets and techniques however hey, bear in mind when the Treasury stated DOGE didn’t have write entry and that was not true at all?

Even discounting the opportunity of some catastrophic mistake, let’s take into consideration what success would appear like for King Elon. Judging by his fixed, unhinged posts on X, his hiring practices, and his support of Germany’s far-right party, it looks like he’s down with white supremacy. That additionally clears up any query about his let’s-argue-about-whether-it’s-a-Nazi-salute “gesture” on the inauguration; it was meant each to sign he may say or do something he needs with out consequence and to fireside up his base of racists. In order that in all probability means immigration cutoffs besides within the circumstances of H-1bs that now work like indentured servitude, and authorities stress on anybody who hires ladies, trans individuals, or non-white males. The non-prosecution of hate crimes, clearly. I’m not assured in continued protections for abortion and even contraception, due to Musk’s weird pronatalist thing.

Musk’s paramount objective, nevertheless, is all the time for Musk to acquire more money and power. This normally comes on the expense of actually everybody else.

So it’s not onerous to think about meaning his AI endeavor gets embedded within the authorities, X turns into the primary platform for all authorities communications (and perhaps additionally the primary fee supplier, similar to WeChat, as a result of that’s the type of factor you are able to do in an authoritarian authorities), Starlink turns into the de facto web supplier, and instantly each authorities official drives a Cybertruck. What occurs to the opposite tech giants? Nicely, seems they had been sucking as much as the improper man. Dangerous information for Blue Origin and OpenAI: King Elon holds a grudge.

Anybody who objects will get shipped to Guantanamo, or higher but, El Salvador. In any case, Musk already has a pet prosecutor, Ed Martin, who (whereas not advocating for the last wave of insurrectionists) informed Musk that he’d begin proceedings at Musk’s referral and anybody who has “damaged the legislation and even acted merely unethically” can anticipated to be chased “to the top of the Earth.” That is to say nothing of the opportunity of stochastic violence from white supremacists, spurred by posts on X.

The one factor all of us actually have going for us is that Musk has a tiny crew. Positive, they will obtain a ton of delicate authorities information — not nice! — however they will’t run all of those businesses directly. And none of those individuals has the 20 years’ expertise with COBOL that may be essential to take these items over shortly. Leaving apart Musk’s propensity for fucking round and discovering out, his means to manage all these techniques stays considerably restricted by his staffing. Possibly he can get Trump’s individuals to assist him, however given Musk’s conceitedness, I believe Musk will wish to hand-pick a crew; I’d guess he assumes Trump’s individuals are idiots, given how simply he’s run by means of them.

However the extra techniques Musk has entry to, and the extra information he can futz round with, the extra seemingly it turns into that one thing catastrophic occurs. As a result of it appears Congress received’t act, and Musk can ignore the courts at will, it appears that evidently the protection of residents’ non-public information, categorised data, and all authorities funds falls on authorities staffers and their unions alone.

There’s a motive Musk-hater Steve Bannon has been daring him to start out having a look on the Pentagon. Bannon is aware of that’s the place this all falls aside. The navy has been suspiciously quiet about this direct threat to national security, and there’s no telling how the spies really feel. Given how a lot of the federal government Musk has taken over, an anti-Musk junta isn’t past the pale — and whereas Musk presumably has non-public safety, there are much more individuals in, say, the Military.

This strikes me as an all-or-nothing motion for Musk. If he wins, he guidelines probably the most highly effective nation on Earth. If he loses, he’s going to have authorized complications for the remainder of his life, perhaps even the kind that land him in jail. X continues to hemorrhage cash, Tesla’s declining gross sales meet up with the corporate, and perhaps worst for him, he’s publicly humiliated — having gone from King Musk to nothing in any respect. I count on him to struggle tooth and nail to carry on to the ability he’s grabbed. The query is that if he’ll should.