Elon Musk’s rapid unscheduled disassembly of the US government

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

“Wait a minute,” it’s possible you’ll be saying. “What about President Donald Trump?” Trump ran, very similar to Silvio Berlusconi earlier than him, primarily to keep away from prosecutions. He has by no means favored being president and he has already gotten what he desires. 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 will see what’s going on. Musk has taken over the civilian authorities. This can be a billionaire pulling a heist on all the nation.

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

All of us discovered 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 vital companies on that record are the Treasury, which controls the cash, and the Division of Vitality, which controls the nuclear secrets and techniques. Much less clearly vital however equally troubling is the Basic Companies Administration, which is successfully the infrastructure of the federal government itself.

The GSA, an company most of us have by no means had to consider, is accountable for buildings, certain. But additionally it runs an terrible lot of the technical infrastructure of the federal government — it’s mainly 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—a minimum of that’s publicly recognized,” a contractor who’s labored on labeled techniques at authorities companies instructed The Atlantic.

Right here’s the menace intelligence crew on the Treasury, as reported by Wired, simply to underline the seriousness of Musk’s entry: “We additional suggest that DOGE members be positioned beneath 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,’ possible poses the one best insider menace threat the Bureau of the Fiscal Service has ever confronted.” After The Washington Put up inquired about that memo, the one that 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 short lived restraining order to 19 states searching for 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 aid.” Why? “Each due to the chance that the brand new coverage presents of the disclosure of delicate and confidential data and the heightened threat that the techniques in query can be extra weak than earlier than to hacking,” he wrote.

Improbable. That is an company that controls $5 trillion, and comprises delicate private data for — amongst others — American spies overseas. It’s additionally, by the best way, tax season. And now Trump says that “we now have much less debt than we considered?” Boy, that seems like a enjoyable new approach to default on a mortgage. It’s a terrifying prospect in case you are a finance-knower: US bonds are the most secure belongings on the planet, a minimum of for now, and making them dangerous shakes the inspiration of the worldwide monetary system. However, Trump would possibly simply be saying shit once more.

Oh, certain, sure, there are these challenges within the courts to Musk’s entry to the Treasury, and to shutting down USAID, which can effectively have been unlawful. Right here’s the factor: Musk doesn’t care about legal guidelines. Keep in mind when he was meant to obtain a “Twitter sitter” after the time he pretended he wished to take Tesla personal? The courts ordered one. It has by no means appeared. Or perhaps we must always speak concerning the depositions he hasn’t proven up for. Or all the federal government requests to repair Tesla’s so-called Autopilot that he’s ignored. And given the mendacity concerning the Treasury entry, I don’t suppose we will rule out the likelihood that Musk and co. merely lie beneath oath. He’s additionally acquired himself a cadre of elite attorneys, two of whom clerked for conservative Supreme Court docket justices, to argue for him in courtroom.

So it’s no actual shock that he’s posting stuff on X that signifies he isn’t taking the courtroom order to again away from the Treasury severely. “Corrupt judges defending corruption,” Musk wrote of the courtroom 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 regulate the chief’s reliable energy.” Vance has all the time been within the operating to be Yale Legislation Faculty’s most embarrassing graduate, a aggressive endeavor; calling for a coup in violation of his oath of workplace and a primary understanding of the Structure just about cements him on the prime of the record.

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

No matter Musk’s private contempt for the regulation, there’s additionally the actual fact of the January sixth pardons, which despatched a transparent message: breaking the regulation 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 courtroom orders would possibly do is give cowl to staffers at these departments to disclaim Musk’s crew entry to the issues they need. In fact, we already know these staffers will 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 menace of a debt default or authorities shutdown. The Republicans… other than those vociferously approving of Musk usurping their management over the nation’s spending, they look like Milford Males. 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 ought to be reinstated. As of this writing, the reply was “sure.” Elez had learn and write entry to the Treasury’s techniques.

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

So now that Musk has management of the center of the federal government, let’s think about his terribly reckless historical past with funds and IT techniques. When Musk was operating the corporate that will change into PayPal, it had what his coworker and buddy Peter Thiel referred to as “a runaway fraud downside.” When Thiel considered writing a ebook concerning the expertise, he mentioned he’d title the Musk chapter “The Man Who Knew Nothing about Danger.”

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

No surprise they’re hiding from the common USDS workers.

This type of sloppiness is sensible for these of us who adopted Musk’s Twitter takeover. Musk has an actual curiosity in shifting quick and breaking issues, with an emphasis on breaking issues. For example, there’s the time a “bug” restored deleted tweets. Or that point personal tweets had been made public. Or the older photos that not 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 doable reply is a leak of our nuclear secrets and techniques — which is one thing we, as a nation, used to take so severely that we executed folks.

Oh certain, Secretary of Vitality Chris Wright says that the DOGE dorks don’t have entry to nuclear secrets and techniques however hey, bear in mind when the Treasury mentioned DOGE didn’t have write entry and that was not true in any respect?

Even discounting the potential of some catastrophic mistake, let’s take into consideration what success would seem like for King Elon. Judging by his fixed, unhinged posts on X, his hiring practices, and his assist of Germany’s far-right celebration, 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 might say or do something he desires with out consequence and to fireplace up his base of racists. In order that most likely means immigration cutoffs besides within the instances of H-1bs that now work like indentured servitude, and authorities strain on anybody who hires ladies, trans folks, 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 bizarre pronatalist factor.

Musk’s paramount aim, nonetheless, is all the time for Musk to accumulate extra money and energy. This often comes on the expense of actually everybody else.

So it’s not laborious to think about which means his AI endeavor will get 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 out of the blue each authorities official drives a Cybertruck. What occurs to the opposite tech giants? Nicely, seems they had been sucking as much as the mistaken man. Unhealthy 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 final wave of insurrectionists) instructed Musk that he’d start proceedings at Musk’s referral and anybody who has “damaged the regulation and even acted merely unethically” can anticipated to be chased “to the top of the Earth.” That is to say nothing of the potential 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’ll obtain a ton of delicate authorities information — not nice! — however they’ll’t run all of those companies without delay. And none of those folks has the 20 years’ expertise with COBOL that will be essential to take these things over rapidly. Leaving apart Musk’s propensity for fucking round and discovering out, his capacity to regulate all these techniques stays considerably restricted by his staffing. Possibly he can get Trump’s folks to assist him, however given Musk’s vanity, I think Musk will wish to hand-pick a crew; I’d guess he assumes Trump’s persons are idiots, given how simply he’s run via them.

However the extra techniques Musk has entry to, and the extra information he can futz round with, the extra possible 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, plainly the protection of residents’ personal information, labeled 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 begin looking on the Pentagon. Bannon is aware of that’s the place this all falls aside. The army has been suspiciously quiet about this direct menace to nationwide safety, 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 personal safety, there are much more folks in, say, the Military.

This strikes me as an all-or-nothing motion for Musk. If he wins, he guidelines essentially 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 type 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 anticipate him to combat tooth and nail to carry on to the ability he’s grabbed. The query is that if he’ll need to.