THE SET-UP: Elon Musk’s act is starting to wear a little thin. That’s my takeaway from a new Quinnipiac poll that found 53% of respondents unhappy with Musk “playing a prominent role in the Trump administration.” Just 39 percent like his omnipresence in Trump’s White House. And yes, there is a predictable partisan divide. Seventy-three percent of Republicans are happy to have him co-piloting the Zeppelin of State. That’s solid, but lagging. Far more foreboding is the meager 39 percent of Independents who haven’t had enough of his antics … yet.
Not that I think it matters to him.
There’s little evidence that he cares about public opinion. To the contrary, he seems to relish in trolling and I think he sees himself as a sort of techno-Übermensch. His goal is to marshal the resources of his adopted nation and to fulfill his mission. For Elon, its Mars or bust. And it seems he’s willing to bust the US Government if that what it takes to turn himself into a one-man industrial complex.
Not coincidentally, Todd Seavey recently noted that “Nazi/NASA rocket scientist Wernher von Braun” wrote a “book-length technical description of hypothetical Mars colonization” in which the red planet is ruled by an elected leader called “The Elon.”
Also not coincidentally, Musk’s dad “claimed in an interview that .. he was well aware of the Von Braun character when he named his son Elon.” In addition to appearing in Von Braun’s book, “Elon” was also the middle name of Errol Musk’s grandfather. More presciently, though, Von Braun was the inspiration for Peter Sellers’ Nazi-saluting scientist in Dr. Strangelove. Go figure. - jp
TITLE: Elon Musk Is Running the Twitter Playbook on the Federal Government
https://www.wired.com/story/elon-musk-twitter-playbook-federal-government/
EXCERPTS: Just like Musk did when he took over the social media platform, Trump’s team is attempting to drastically reduce the number of government staffers and ensure those who remain are loyal to the president’s agenda.
On Tuesday, federal employees received an email that mirrors the “Fork in the Road” missive sent to Twitter (now X) staff shortly after Musk bought the company in 2022. The email asks federal workers to resign by February 6 if they do not wish to return to the office five days a week and commit to a culture of excellence. Those who choose to resign will continue to get pay and benefits until September, according to the memo.
The news comes as Musk’s minions take over the US Office of Personnel Management, which acts as a human resources department for the federal workforce.
Musk and his advisors, including Trump’s newly appointed AI and crypto czar David Sacks, used a remarkably similar strategy at Twitter. About a week after the acquisition was complete, Musk laid off half the workforce. Sacks helped advise him on which teams and people would be cut.
About two weeks later, remaining employees received an email with the subject line “A Fork in the Road.” Musk said that they would need to be “extremely hardcore” in order to realize his vision for Twitter 2.0. This meant “working long hours at high intensity.” He noted that "only exceptional performance” would receive “a passing grade." Employees were asked to opt into this vision via a web form. Anyone who failed to do so by the following day would receive three months severance, Musk said. Thousands of Twitter employees would later sue, arguing that they were not paid their full severance. Musk ultimately was able to get the suit dismissed.
In the wake of Musk’s ultimatum at Twitter, hundreds of employees resigned—many more than Musk had expected, according to sources with knowledge of the situation. The move caused widespread chaos inside the company as Musk’s lieutenants scrambled to figure out who simply hadn’t filled out the form yet and who was actually leaving the company. In some cases, Twitter employees who had quit were later called and asked to reconsider staying.
The latest email from the Office of Personnel Management stresses that federal employees must return to the office five days a week, though some may be asked to move to new locations due to “meaningful consolidation and divestitures” of existing buildings. Musk has spoken repeatedly about his distaste for working from home—a practice he has called “morally wrong.” At Twitter, he told workers during an all hands meeting shortly after buying the company that if they could physically make it to an office and chose not to show up, their “resignation” would be accepted. Under former Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey, employees had been told they could work remotely forever.
On Monday, the US Office of Management and Budget (which encompasses Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE) sent a memo abruptly freezing all grants and loans disbursed by the federal government. “Federal agencies must temporarily pause all activities related to obligation or disbursement of all Federal financial assistance, and other relevant agency activities that may be implicated by the executive orders, including, but not limited to, financial assistance for foreign aid, nongovernmental organizations, DEI, woke gender ideology, and the green new deal,” the memo read, according to NBC News.
This approach to spending—where a budget starts at zero, and employees have to justify every expense—is called “zero based budgeting,” and it too is a popular Musk tactic.
On Tuesday, a subreddit for federal employees was inundated with comments from people discussing the email. “Don’t trust this email, there is no guarantee they will pay you, and they most likely won’t!” wrote one user. “Look at what happened to Twitter employees.”
TITLE: Trump has given Elon Musk's DOGE access to a trove of unclassified data
https://fortune.com/2025/01/27/donald-trump-elon-musk-doge-access-unclassified-data/
EXCERPTS: Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) has been granted access to most unclassified data held by U.S. government agencies.
In an executive order formally establishing Musk’s cost-cutting initiative, President Donald Trump created DOGE by reorganizing an existing Obama-era entity, the U.S. Digital Service.
This move grants Musk and his DOGE colleagues access to a trove of federal data with minimal transparency requirements.
Under the executive order, U.S. government agencies must set up DOGE teams to implement the “DOGE agenda” and grant them “full and prompt access to all unclassified agency records, software systems, and IT systems.”
By repurposing an existing government organization, Trump has effectively given DOGE access to a vast amount of government data while sidestepping these transparency requirements.
One former employee of Obama’s U.S. Digital Service agency told Wired that Trump’s choice to reorganize USDS into DOGE was an “A+ bureaucratic jiu-jitsu move.” However, they expressed concern about DOGE’s access to sensitive information.
“Is this technical talent going to be pointed toward using data from the federal government to track down opponents?” they said. “To track down particular populations of interest to this administration for the purposes of either targeting them or singling them out or whatever it might end up being?”
One person familiar with the situation told NextGov there was a fear among USDS staff that they were being assessed for their loyalty to the newly reinstated President Trump.
ALSO: See this from the New Republic:
Donald Trump’s administration has been hit with a lawsuit over allegedly collecting federal employee information and directing it to an employee of Elon Musk.
The lawsuit, filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia Monday, alleges that employee data is going to Amanda Scales, who, according to LinkedIn, works for xAI, a private corporation of which Musk is the CEO. This would violate federal laws on transparency and put the sensitive information of federal employees into the hands of a private corporation.
The lawsuit states that Trump administration officials created an email address, hr-at-opm-.gov, and directed federal employees, through the Office of Personnel Management, to treat it as legitimate. OPM is the agency tasked with managing the federal workforce and could be described as Human Resources for federal employees.
TITLE: Is Elon Musk plotting the mother of all blockchains?
https://cointelegraph.com/news/elon-musk-plotting-blockchains-doge
EXCERPTS: Elon Musk, the world’s richest person, is said to believe blockchain technology can boost government efficiency. Last week, he reportedly met with representatives of public blockchains to explore the use of distributed digital ledgers in his new Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), Bloomberg claims, though nothing has been announced publicly.
Still, if Musk does successfully apply blockchain technology to some part of the US government — whether DOGE or some other agency — what would it mean for the global blockchain industry?
Assuming one were to put the accounts of one or several US agencies or departments on publicly accessible, immutable digital ledgers, would that even make a difference in terms of government efficiency?
Boris Bohrer-Bilowitzki, CEO of layer-1 blockchain Concordium, told Cointelegraph:
“The right chain could certainly help streamline internal networks, revolutionize the government contracting process, and open a pathway to improved international payments and trade finance without going down the route of a central bank digital currency.”
He added that the efficiency gains could be significant because new processes and structures could be built upon the technology, “allowing for new savings down the line that aren’t really possible with current databases.”
“Blockchain technology exists that could allow government agencies to record their spending on an immutable digital ledger. It’s more than feasible,” John Deaton, managing partner at the Deaton Law Firm, told Cointelegraph. He said it should not only save money but would “reduce rumors, speculation, conspiracy theories and untruths while restoring public confidence and reducing corruption.”
Musk’s recent blockchain discussions were wide-ranging, according to Bloomberg, envisioning multiple use cases for the technology, including:
· Tracking federal spending
· Securing data
· Making payments
· Managing buildings
The report also acknowledged that applying blockchain to an enterprise as vast as the federal government was “an untested concept.”
Where might be a few good places to begin? Deaton pointed to the US Department of Defense, which has numerous departments within it that he says could benefit from blockchain technology, particularly for supply chain tracking, which would help prevent fraud and misuse.
The Internal Revenue Service could utilize it for tax collection, he added. Medicare and Medicaid spending would benefit too, along with other entitlement disbursements such as welfare, Social Security, military retirement payments, federal pensions, disability payments, etc.
Moreover, automated payments via smart contracts could be implemented, “reducing human error and improving efficiency,” Deaton continued, adding:
“Imagine real-time tracking of foreign aid by utilizing smart contracts for automatic release of funds when certain conditions have been met.”
A blockchain can provide proof and verification at each step in the funding and spending process, bringing “a higher level of accountability into the procurement process — literally tracking every single dollar — and making it easier to link spend to results,” said [Paul Brody, principal and global blockchain leader at Ernst & Young].
More education will probably be needed before blockchain can actually improve transparency, efficiency and trust in US government operations, Naseem Naqvi, founder and president of the British Blockchain Association, told Cointelegraph. Citing the US Congressional Blockchain Caucus (2023), he claimed that fewer than 20% of Congress members engage in blockchain-related policymaking.
“For the USA, the first challenge — and opportunity — lies in informed education of policymakers on blockchain’s transformative impact,” Naqvi added.
The stakes could be enormous. “The lack of transparency in public spending results in an estimated 2%–5% of the world’s GDP — approximately $1.5 trillion to $2.6 trillion — being lost annually,” the British Blockchain Association leader said.
The US, in fact, has been a relative latecomer in exploring the benefits of blockchains in a government setting.
More than a dozen countries — including the UK, China, India, Estonia, the United Arab Emirates and Germany — have already put forward national blockchain roadmaps, Naqvi continued. “The UAE’s Smart Dubai project is saving the government $3 billion annually, eliminating 25 million man-hours and 411 million kilometers of travel processing every year.”
Still, the whole world seems to be closely watching each move the latest Trump administration is making.
“If the US government were to do this, it would be a powerful message that would spark similar actions around the world,” EY’s Brody predicted.
“There’s no doubt in my mind that eventually, almost all government spending will be on an immutable distributed ledger technology,” added Deaton. But will it happen in 10 years or 50 years? Only the timing is in doubt in his mind.
“If the US truly wants to lead the global economic race, blockchain must be at its core — not just for financial systems, but for the entire socioeconomic fabric,” concluded Naqvi.
Fascinating tidbit about "The Elon"