Elon Musk's Demolition Crew

Elez, the guy who pushed the changes the devs were not allowed to review to the production payment system, is the guy that has just resigned because of hyper racist comments he made in the past that have come to light.

If in doubt, I recommend checking them out because they're incredibly awful, to the extent that it makes you wonder if the payment system he pushed to had ethnic information attached to it.

Expect a lot more fake stories about fraud and other nefarious doings from these guys to justify their crimes. The exact something happened with twitter.

"Demolition Crew"? That's a very kind euphemism for a collection of sycophant clowns that have no experience in government. Indeed I could not find a single one that had any experience.

Honest question for Americans.

What do you think the federal government is doing to make you "poorer" that deserves dismantling the government.

US income tax is generally lower than other advanced economies. Housing and medical insurance is mainly a state issue.

Apparently, DOGE is also meddling with FAA's air traffic control system. I wonder what could go wrong here? https://x.com/elonmusk/status/1887233566263967812

I want to believe these changes can be positive, but the people in charge of enacting them have done nothing but disabuse me of trust and good faith.

More discussion:

The young, inexperienced engineers aiding DOGE

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42910910

What we're seeing happen in the downsizing area is mostly from the Project 2025 policy manual.[1] The just-confirmed head of the Office of Management and Budget, Russell Vought, was one of the major authors of Project 2025. It's worth reading that, at least the key sections. Trump has insisted that Project 2025 is not his policy, but what's happening is close to the manual.

The Project 2025 people couldn't agree on tariffs. So there are two contradictory sections by different authors, "Free Trade" and "Fair Trade". Trump seems to have picked the "Fair Trade" plan.

Trump's initiatives in Canada, Panama, Greenland, and Gaza were not part of the plan.

[1] https://www.project2025.org/policy/

As an outsider trying to make sense of all this.

Is America taking the hammer down on all types of spending because America is desperate to bring down debt from 120% of GDP?

Copem.All those criticising doge team haven't created anything worthwhile. All these people secretly wanted twitter to fail post elons take over. Bigballz is much better than all those who are criticizing you. I have seen detrimental effects of usaid creating social havoc in other countries.

Would like to point out that "finding corruption" -- as Trump today stated was the purpose of King Elon' efforts (which is odd because I thought it was to cut "waste") is _exactly_ the way that Xi Jinping was able to get rid of all opposition in China after being chosen as Premier, to where he is now completely unopposed in anything he may want to do. (Was living in China during those years.)

Beware.

That some here are still blinded to the disastrous effects this will have on their country is baffling. How could you ever believe that giving all powers to egomaniacal billionaires would benefit you or anyone you know? Can't you see their best interests are 100% antagonistic to yours? What would it take for you to admit "ok that's too far"?

What’s even crazier is that the uniparty is like 2 issues away from restoring their kleptocratic stanglehold on the country.

Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) could be an implementation of Retire All Government Employees (RAGE), an idea that is part of the Dark Enlightenment movement.

Another inspiration could be the Ministry of Deregulation and State Transformation of Argentina. Over there they call it "the chainsaw".

It’s difficult to have any serious political conversation on the internet these days. All of the places tend to be slanted so much in one direction.

Ironically the popularity of downvoting and algorithmic display of content is part of why people are always so surprised about such things, including trumps win.

People frequently take the most uncharitable interpretation, and suffer from attribution bias greatly.

> On his personal Substack, he wrote an essay titled “Why I gave up a seven-figure salary to save America,” according to press reports, and described failed U.S. attorney general nominee Matt Gaetz, who withdrew from Congress amid allegations of sexual misconduct, as a “victim” of the deep state.

The fact that nobody is stopping these people is the clearest evidence anyone needs that there's no such thing as "the deep state". But they're actively trying to create one.

I'm incredibly depressed and disillusioned to see fellow software engineers drinking the Kool-aid so deeply while they dismantle the US federal government.

I've learned the hard way that many people in this country do NOT actually care about democracy. At all. I used to believe that most everyone agreed that democracy was good, and we just disagreed on policy. I no longer believe that.

execs Steve Davis and Brad Smith running things

Implementing new government-wide email systems (Riccardo Biasini)

It's a technocratic coup in broad daylight. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dark_Enlightenment

Arrogant Silicon Valley CEOs think the world belongs to them. They want liberal democracy to fail and transition to a "tech monarchy".

Quite frankly, I don't think the 2026 and 2028 elections will happen.

Look up Peter Thiel, Curtis Yarvin, Nick Land, Steve Bannon, Marc Andreessen, and other figures involved with the "Neo-Reactionary accelerationist" Dark Enlightenment movement. One of Elon's little DOGE lackeys (Edward Coristine) has "there are cathedrals everywhere for those with eyes to see" as his twitter bio. "Cathedral" is Curtis Yarvin's word for the "cultural hegemony" of universities and the government, hence why he wants to destroy the federal Department of Education especially as well as any federal agency and the federal government from the inside.

It turned out that the whole American experiment of tech-capitalism out of Silicon Valley was a huge failure and a existential threat to decency, stability, and order in the Western world.

Even Paul Graham will lightly chastise Elon Musk on twitter, but is largely fine with what Musk is doing.

Somehow I‘m disappointed that George Hotz is not on the list.

Always interesting to remember how they came, in a big way, for aid recipients and transgender people first, probably the most vulnerable. While also cancelling anything DEI, Meals on Wheels, you mention it.

This presidency so far has some real “First They Came…” vibes.

smelly Musk thinks his sledgehammer method at head count reduction at the federal level makes any real significant is a fool's errand without a deep working knowledge of government. what about all the monies incurred from inept procurement deals and revolving door policy. Ask about federal fiscal spending when our enemies see no one is manning the gate. “We are being led by weak and feckless leadership who only serve to enrich themselves.”

Vought, the new head of OMB -- the agency which no one has heard of but which actually is extremely influential in terms of government agencies -- is one of the major authors of Project 2025. Let that sink in a bit.

So yeah, Trump was lying about Project 2025 (but what else is new?)

DOGE is what you get when you take the performance management culture of big tech and apply it to government. Make big changes with 0 testing then no matter the outcome brag loudly about it. Move fast and break things indeed

Empire maintenance is hard. USAID was a form of soft power that prevented the necessary use of blunt force.

Given the rhetoric against China, the consolidation of power and rise of nationalistic fervor. I suppose we’re just a few years from war with China. Presumably under a false flag operation ala Gulf of Tonkin style.

Fascism is capitalisms iron fist.

How did you Americans allow any of this?

If this was happening under Obama’s tenure the headline would read something like “whip-smart youths revitalizing government by removing calcified waste!”