Musk done with DOGE? Think again.
Elon Musk told shareholders during an earnings call after the company suffered major losses in Q1 that his time focusing on DOGE will "significantly" drop starting in May. But if you think that will be the end of the new Department of Government Efficiency, think again. MSNBC host of the 11th Hour Stephanie Ruhle breaks it down.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Yahoo
35 minutes ago
- Yahoo
Mass. Sen. Warren: DOGE accessed ‘sensitive' student loan data at Education Dept., calls for probe
U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren says she wants to know how the quasi-governmental Department of Government Efficiency gained access to 'sensitive' student loan information at the U.S. Department of Education. On Monday, Warren and U.S. Sen. Ed Markey, both Democrats, called for the agency's acting inspector general to find out how that breach happened. They were joined by Democratic senators from eight states, including U.S. Sen. Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut. Warren said lawmakers learned of the potential breach of systems at Federal Student Aid after DOGE, which was helmed until recently by tech titan Elon Musk, infiltrated the agency. In response, Education Department officials revealed that DOGE workers 'supported' a review of the FSA's contracts. As a part of that review, one employee was granted 'read-only' access to two internal systems that held sensitive personal information about borrowers. The agency said it had since revoked that access. But, according to Warren, it did not explain why that access had been revoked, or whether the employee had continued access to other databases. 'Because of the [Education] department's refusal to provide full and complete information, the full extent of DOGE's role and influence at ED remains unknown,' the lawmakers wrote in a June 8 letter to René L. Rocque, the agency's acting inspector general. That 'lack of clarity is not only frustrating for borrowers but also dangerous for the future of an agency that handles an extensive student loan portfolio and a range of federal aid programs for higher education,' the lawmakers continued. Warren, Markey and their colleagues have called on Roque's office to determine whether the department adhered to the Federal Privacy Act, which dictates how the government can collect and use personal information. They also asked Roque to 'determine the impact of DOGE's new plans to consolidate Americans' personal information across government databases.' 'It won't end well for Trump' if he does this amid LA protests, ex-GOP rep says All Ivy League schools are supporting Harvard lawsuit — except these 2 Embassies directed to resume processing Harvard University student visas Over 12,000 Harvard alums lend weight to court battle with Trump in new filing Markey: Trump using National Guard in LA to distract from big cuts in 'Big Beautiful Bill' Read the original article on MassLive.
Yahoo
35 minutes ago
- Yahoo
Trump neutered Justice Department watchdogs that were there to prevent politically motivated prosecutions
Donald Trump's DOGE-ification of the federal government added a key team at the Department of Justice to its list of victims in a pair of moves that greased the wheels for his adminsitration to use the agency to go after Democratic members of Congress. The Justice Department's public integrity section (PIN) underwent a series of key changes this year at the direction of Trump-appointed Attorney General Pam Bondi, who has overseen the agency as it charged a Democratic member of Congress, Monica McIver, with assault after she was repeatedly confronted by ICE agents during a legally permitted congressional oversight visit to a detention facility in Newark. McIver's charging is one of several instances where the Trump-led Department of Justice has brazenly defied the tradition of independence from the White House that agency officials typically follow. Under Bondi's leadership, the agency has quickly transitioned into an arm of the White House, focused on the president's priorities and willing to target his political enemies. Other targets of that trend have been a Milwaukee judge, arrested and charged with allegedly preventing immigration authorities from arresting a man outside of her courtroom by leading him out a back entrance after his hearing concluded, and Kilmar Abrego Garcia, a Maryland resident who was deported to a hellish prison in El Salvador in violation of a court ruling. Abrego Garcia was charged with trafficking migrants last week after the federal government relented in a weeks-long battle with the courts and returned him to the United States. A federal prosecutor in Tennessee, Ben Schrader, resigned over his concerns that the charges were filed for political reasons, according to ABC News. McIver's charging shortly followed the agency-wide suspension of a rule which previously required prosecutors to obtain approval from the PIN before members of Congress could be criminally charged — a safeguard previously in place to prevent targeting of the administration's political opponents on spurious charges, Reuters reported. McIver was charged with assault after being involved in a scuffle with ICE agents outside of a Newark detention facility; video shows her making physical contact with an agent, but possibly by accident. The agency has not released an explanation for why agents engaged in a scuffle with McIver at the scene at all, given that the agency is, by law, prohibited from using its funding in any way to prevent members of Congress from conducting oversight visits. Newark's mayor, Ras Baraka, was arrested at the scene. The Independent reached out for comment regarding the suspension of the rule regarding criminal cases which involve members of Congress, and to inquire about any other reductions to the PIN division's responsibilities. As part of staff reductions across the whole of the federal government, the PIN team was also hit. The decision of federal prosecutors to drop an investigation into New York's Democratic mayor sparked a wave of resignations at the division, with departing attorneys having been asked to give the order to end the probe after federal prosecutors in New York refused. What followed was a gutting of the PIN section, which is now a fraction of its former size, according to multiple reports, and no longer handling cases directly. Just five prosecutors were directly assigned to the division by mid-March, down from 30. The suspension of the rule in May and the other reported erosions of PIN's authority marks a serious reduction in a key safeguard that the agency implemented in 1976 after the Watergate scandal. At the time, another Republican president leaned on the Justice Department to influence an investigation into a break-in at the Democratic Party's headquarters and the extent of the Oval Office's knowledge of the plot. Donald Trump, in an executive order, directed Bondi to review all DOJ teams with 'civil or criminal enforcement authority ' and identify whether individual divisions were, by Trump's standards, used for political purposes by the Biden administration. Biden officials have denied any weaponization of the DOJ, with prosecutions of the president's son Hunter and a Democratic senator from New Jersey as evidence to point to. The stated purpose of that executive action was to end the 'weaponization' of the Justice Department and other agencies. But over the course of six months, the DOJ's greatest tool for preventing that possibility has all but vanished. Sheldon Whitehouse, a Democratic senator from Rhode Island, wrote to Bondi in March about the dismantling of the PIN division, but his office has not released a statement on the matter since. The DoJ issued no public statement in response. 'Certain political appointees in this Department of Justice have already proven they put President Trump's political interests over their duties as prosecutors and as lawyers. Multiple Public Integrity Section attorneys resigned rather than endorse then-Acting Deputy Attorney General Emil Bove's unethical quid pro quo in dropping the case against New York City Mayor Eric Adams,' wrote the senator. He added: 'If the Trump administration's goal was to encourage corruption and abuse of office, it is hard to know what it would do differently.'
Yahoo
35 minutes ago
- Yahoo
Elon Musk, the Budget, and the Coming Labor Crisis
Other than the president himself, no one has had a greater impact on the first months of the new Trump administration than Elon Musk. Not only was Musks support critical in getting Donald Trump elected, but his empathy-free approach at the newly formed Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) made headlines that dominated news cycles while helping flood the zone with contentious and newsworthy actions designed to overwhelm an already exhausted public. Even after departing his government role, Muskcontinued - in rather spectacular fashion -exerting outsized influence on American politics. His incendiary opposition to the administrations "big beautiful" budget bill significantly complicates the path for congressional Republicans eager to prove their loyalty to the president. Until Musks spectacular split with the president, support for the worlds richest man broke almost entirely along partisan lines. For Republicans, he was lauded for a willingness to tackle the difficult and thankless task of taking on an entrenched bureaucracy. For Democrats, he was an oligarch looking to use his government role to enrich himself while callously demeaning civil servants. But there was always more nuance to what the worlds richest man was doing in Washington. While Elons DOGE efforts were often ham-handed, his opposition to the Republicans expensive budget bill reinforces the belief that he genuinely wants to help the government become more effective stewards of taxpayer dollars. Musks detractors have suggested his efforts were entirely self-serving, an attempt to curry favor with Trump to benefit all the companies in his orbit. Sen. Elizabeth Warren, for instance, recently released a report outlining as many as 130 instances where Musk "potentially" used his government role and proximity to Trump to enrich himself. But there was less to this critique than meets the eye. A close reading of Warrens report reveals that most of the items listed are related to things that might benefit Musk and his companies in the future. They were speculative benefits, in other words. Moreover, Musk swiftly eroded the goodwill he had accumulated with the president, likely eliminating those speculative benefits while simultaneously reinforcing the view that his approach to DOGE was principled, regardless of its effectiveness. In raw dollar terms, no one has sacrificed more financially to serve in the U.S. government. From the time of Trumps inauguration to April 22, the date Elon Musk announced in a Tesla analyst call that he would be returning to the automaker, Tesla stock fell by more than 45%. In the process, it erased more than $80 billion from Musks net worth - an amount that, by some analysts estimates, exceeds the net savings from the DOGE efforts. Yes, a few of Musks other businesses may have benefited from his government service, but the magnitude of any such gains is far less than the loss he suffered on Tesla stock. While more than half of those paper losses have been recovered since Musk signaled a return to his company, its not clear Teslas fortunes in the auto business will ever rebound. Teslas impact on Musks net worth is, however, a less relevant issue than what the company is signaling about the direction of American life. Despite single-handedly transforming the automobile industry, Teslas dominance in the electric vehicle space is now gone. So, why does the company still command a trillion-dollar valuation in the equity markets? A simple analysis of its stock suggests its value is not about its car business. That realization is a window into the future. As of the end of May, Teslas market capitalization exceeded $1.1 trillion - more than the value of the next nine auto companies combined. This is despite the fact that Tesla sells fewer cars than all but three of those companies. With a brand in free fall, declining sales and profitability, and rising competition from Chinese manufacturer BYD, it would be hard to argue that Teslas auto business should trade at a premium to other manufacturers. Assuming Teslas auto business is worth roughly the same amount as Mercedes Benz, General Motors, or BMW (all companies with unit sales at least 30% greater than Teslas and lacking Teslas significant brand issues), the selling of cars would account for a paltry 5% of Teslas implied value. Solar City, on the other hand, could be worth as much as twice its rival First Solar, given its relative size. Assuming thats correct, another $30 billion or 3% of Teslas valuation is explained by the worth of Teslas solar power and energy storage division. Even adding in the $24 billion of net cash Tesla has on its balance sheet, we have a company worth between $100 and $110 billion - one-tenth of what the market says Tesla is worth. So, why has the market rewarded Tesla with a valuation thats roughly 10 times the sum of its operating businesses? What do investors see in Tesla that they dont see in other similar companies? The answer would seem to be Musks investment in future technologies, most notably humanoid robots (Musk says hes going to sell a million devices at $30,000 a piece by 2030 and is positing a future where there is one humanoid robot for every person on the planet) - not to mention self-driving vehicles. In short, 90% of Teslas valuation is about one thing - eliminating jobs currently held by Americans. This isnt a future entirely inspired by Musks vision alone. Dozens of major companies are charting a course in this direction. In some ways, its a natural evolution of a number of technological advances in material science, artificial intelligence, energy storage and management, and sensors and perception. So, while Musk has been a lightning rod for all sorts of criticism and approbation, our leaders would be wise to examine what his company is telling us about the future - and legislate appropriately. From a policy standpoint, the questions that need to be answered are obvious. How will Americans feed themselves and their families when the job they depend upon is being done by a machine? How will the job destruction from these technological advances affect tax receipts, which are overly dependent on income taxes? How will Americans find fulfillment in life without work? How can we best share the benefits of this fourth industrial revolution to ensure they arent overly concentrated in a few hands? Policymakers failed to realize the impact of early automation and offshoring on average Americans, leading to significant income and wealth concentration. They cant make the same mistake again. Our leaders ushered in an era of globalization, during which imports as a percentage of GDP increased by three times from 1970 to the present. We now have $4 trillion of imports flooding our shelves, giving Americans access to low-cost electronics, clothing, and other consumer goods. While average Americans benefited from these price reductions, as a country, we largely overlooked those Americans who lost their jobs as a result of these import gains. In fact, weve never spent more than a billion dollars annually on trade adjustment assistance, 4,000 times less than the imports we have coming on shore every year. Compounding the mistakes of globalization by neglecting the implications of whats about to come will lead to an even more alienated and divided electorate. America wont survive the outcome of that policy failure. Greg Orman is a Kansas entrepreneur, author of 'A Declaration of Independents,' and a former independent candidate for governor and senator of his state. His website is
