Latest news with #DOGE-led
Yahoo
an hour ago
- Automotive
- Yahoo
Tesla Slides After Q1 Miss as Musk Vows to Cut DOGE Time
Tesla (TSLA, Financials) reported weak Q1 results Tuesday, with auto sales down 20% year over year and net income dropping 71%, as CEO Elon Musk said he plans to scale back his role in the Trump administration's government reform program, DOGE, starting in May. Warning! GuruFocus has detected 4 Warning Sign with MS. Revenue fell short of Wall Street expectations, and Tesla shares have now plunged over 40% year to date, according to CNBC. Musk, who created DOGE after backing Donald Trump's 2024 re-election bid with nearly $300 million, said during the earnings call he would reduce his time on federal restructuring from full-time to just a couple of days a week, though he plans to remain involved as long as needed. The company cited external challenges including heightened competition from Chinese EV makers, protests in the U.S. and Europe, and brand headwinds tied to Musk's political affiliations. Protestors have targeted Tesla for its perceived alignment with far-right politics, including Musk's support of Germany's AfD party. Musk claimed without evidence that many protesters were recipients of wasteful largesse. Tesla's auto division generated less revenue than the same quarter last year, while the company's overall market cap has shrunk by around $600 billion since DOGE's inception. Meanwhile, DOGE claims to have cut $160 billion in federal spendingfigures that have been disputed and partially retracted. The administration confirmed that Musk holds a special government employee designation, allowing reduced disclosure obligations. DOGE-led cuts have reportedly affected agencies that regulate Musk's companies, including the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Federal Aviation Administration. Investors will be watching for Tesla's next earnings and further clarification on Musk's future time allocation as he navigates federal duties and a shrinking EV market share. See Tesla's insider trades: This article first appeared on GuruFocus. Error in retrieving data Sign in to access your portfolio Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data
Business Insider
a day ago
- Business
- Business Insider
Axed $170 million contract shows how DOGE-led cuts came over US Navy objections
A US Navy contract to move sailors' server-stored records to a secure cloud system was recently torpedoed as part of DOGE-led cuts that show how top officials are under pressure to find large cost-savings even over the objections of their own organizations. An IT services provider named Pantheon received a $170 million contract last year to relocate the records threatened by flooding from a Tennessee data center to cloud storage. But a top Navy official ordered it to be cut, at the suggestion of Department of Government Efficiency newcomers, over the strenuous warnings of their own personnel officials. An internal memo reviewed by BI highlighted that the system that DOGE recommended reverting to has been plagued by delays, a bloated budget, and little to show for it all. Continued "delays have resulted in the Navy having to expend even more resources on legacy systems that are past end of life and do not meet the needs of the Service," the memo said. The Navy's Information Officer argued the contract was duplicative of legacy software, and justified the cancelation with the idea that government workers could do the same cloud migration contractors were then performing. But none of that is true, three sources familiar with the contract said, arguing this was hype from Navy leaders eager to offer up juicy cuts to DOGE officials to boost their own standing. The "decision, driven by demonstrably false and misleading claims, directly contradicts the Administration's goals of cutting waste, improving efficiency, and reforming failing IT programs," a second internal document says. If the archaic data center in Tennessee floods, as Navy HR officials fear, the impact to personnel would be excruciating, sources said, hampering salary payments, recruiting efforts, and stalling promotions. Without such data on hand, it would be impossible to know who is eligible to promote and when, or even how to readily assign qualified troops during a war. The location maintains records for the over 330,000 sailors on active-duty. "We were making good progress," said one Navy official familiar with the efforts, a tough chore considering that dozens of interconnected systems feed data throughout each other system for Pantheon's 500 data workers to map out. The Navy halted their work and canceled the contract earlier this month. first reported the contract's cancelation last week, and potential impacts to sailors' careers. The modernization efforts were led by the Navy's "N1," the military equivalent of a human resources section that oversees almost all Navy administrative matters, led by Vice Adm. Richard Cheeseman. Sources told BI that oversight passed only recently to the Navy's Chief Information Officer, Jane Rathburn. Internal documents reviewed by BI noted that the CIO's office told DOGE officials that the contract was duplicative, and that the government would be better served relying on old software known colloquially as "NP2." But the Pantheon contract was anything but duplicative, as the CIO claimed, and the company would have saved the Navy hundreds of millions, according to sources. What's more, the old NP2 system has its own problems. Sources said that by the time Pantheon arrived, the legacy software's price tag had ballooned to an eye-watering $1 billion over the last five years in Tennessee, with no real progress to show. One source estimated the actual cost to be closer to $5 billion. A source with knowledge of Pantheon's work, and who voiced support for DOGE goals of improved efficiency, noted that the NP2 program requires staffing and oversight from the Navy. He suggested that rendering NP2 obsolete — in part by through contracts like Pantheon's — could mark some government offices and jobs for elimination. The debacle began to unfold just before Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth directed the DoD to curb IT contracts, and instead "in-source more expertise and harness the unparalleled talent of our existing experts," according to a memo released this week. Navy leaders underscored to DOGE officials that government employees could instead tackle the cloud migration efforts. But internal memos decried such a move, noting that government personnel have not performed any of the hundreds of previous migrations, and calling such an idea "not financially responsible." Navy spokesperson Ferry Gene Baylon told Business Insider that the contract was canceled based on recommendations from DOGE. "The Navy is focused on the wellbeing of the men and women who serve as we look to optimize resources essential to Navy personnel systems, pay management, and operational readiness," Baylon wrote in an email, adding that "it would be premature to comment on the details of future contracts." She did not comment on internal memos. Sources told BI that Pantheon has already received $30 million of the $170 million total due. Now, it's unclear what will happen next to fix sailors' data, and who will be in charge. That the data in Tennessee will continue to be at-risk rather than proceeding with Pantheon will inevitably hurt sailors, the Navy official said, adding that amid years of recruiting challenges, the service's ability to retain its force depends on paychecks. "If you can't pay them or promote them correctly, you're not going to keep people," the official said. "They're going to leave, rightly so, because they're not being treated the way they deserve to be treated."
Axios
2 days ago
- Politics
- Axios
The great undoing: Trump's presidency reeled in by courts
No modern president has done more in his first 130 days than President Trump — only to have much of it undone, at least temporarily, by the courts. The big picture: Trump is testing the limits of presidential power at every turn, and the courts are just about the only thing standing in his way. The inevitable showdowns between Trump and the judiciary are only going to get more intense. Judges have issued dozens of orders blocking Trump from doing something he wants to do, and the flood seems to grow every day. The headlines are constant: Judge blocks X; Judge freezes Y; Court allows Z to continue. This week's ruling against Trump's tariffs — handed down by the usually sleepy Court of International Trade — was one of the biggest shockwaves yet, striking at the centerpiece of his economic agenda and efforts to exert leverage on the world stage. That ruling was quickly put on ice, temporarily, by an appeals court. But there will be more tariff litigation, and more litigation on just about everything else. On education, a federal judge in Boston this week said Trump could not stop Harvard from enrolling international students, at least for now. A separate Boston-based judge last week froze Trump's plans to largely eliminate the Department of Education. That added to an absolute mountain of litigation over Trump's various efforts to gut the federal bureaucracy. Courts have stopped or slowed some DOGE-led cuts across the government, the firing of people who serve on independent boards, and the laying off of other government workers. Immigration has been the most explosive flashpoint of all. Every court that's considered Trump's executive order redefining the rules of American citizenship has ruled against it. The administration has pointedly refused to bring back the man it wrongly deported to El Salvador, despite even the Supreme Court telling it to "facilitate" his return. Judges in lower courts have blocked similar deportations or ordered the government to provide some sort of hearing before deporting people. Between the lines: To some extent, this is the system working the same way it always works. The big things presidents do, at least in the modern era, end up in court. Obamacare was a big thing, done by both the president and Congress. It's been before the Supreme Court no less than three times. Forgiving student loans and trying to impose COVID vaccine mandates were, for better or worse, big things President Biden attempted. The Supreme Court said both were too big. Trump has made no bones about wanting to go as big as possible, all the time, on everything — and to do it mostly through executive action. Everyone knew before this administration began that myriad legal challenges were inevitable. And, well, they were. Unlike previous presidents, Trump and his allies have relentlessly attacked judges whose rulings block parts of his agenda. As these battles progress, Trump will win some and lose some. Every single person Trump has tried to fire may not end up fired. But if and when all of those one-off challenges coalesce into a real, big-picture Supreme Court referendum on the president's power to fire federal workers, the smart money says that's a fight Trump will most likely win. On the other hand, eliminating birthright citizenship is a long shot. The Justice Department is trying to persuade the Supreme Court that it's been misinterpreting the Constitution for 100 years. That is (a) obviously going to end up in court; and (b) a hard sell. What's next: Almost none of this — on any issue — has reached the point yet where judges are actually striking down or upholding Trump's policies. This is why the headlines you see all use words like "block" or "freeze" or "temporarily." For now, what's being decided is mainly whether Trump can go ahead and enact X or Y policy while the courts figure out whether that policy is legal. As explosive as these legal battles already are, we haven't even touched the highest-stakes chapters in the ongoing saga of Trump vs. the courts.
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Business Standard
2 days ago
- Business
- Business Standard
Appeals court keeps block on Trump admin's downsizing of federal workforce
An appeals court on Friday refused to freeze a California judge's order halting the Trump administration from downsizing the federal workforce, which means that DOGE-led cuts remain on pause for now. The Republican administration had sought an emergency stay of an injunction issued by US Judge Susan Illston of San Francisco in a lawsuit brought by labour unions and cities, including San Francisco and Chicago. The judge's order questioned whether Trump's administration was acting lawfully in trying to pare the federal workforce. Trump has repeatedly said voters gave him a mandate to remake the federal government, and he tapped billionaire Elon Musk to lead the charge through the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE). Tens of thousands of federal workers have been fired, have left their jobs via deferred resignation programmes or have been placed on leave. There is no official figure for the job cuts, but at least 75,000 federal employees took deferred resignation, and thousands of probationary workers have already been let go. Illston's order directs numerous federal agencies to halt acting on the president's workforce executive order signed in February and a subsequent memo issued by DOGE and the Office of Personnel Management. Illston, who was nominated to the bench by former president Bill Clinton, a Democrat, wrote in her ruling that presidents can make large-scale overhauls of federal agencies, but only with the cooperation of Congress. Lawyers for the government say that the executive order and memo calling for large-scale personnel reductions and reorganization plans provided only general principles that agencies should follow in exercising their own decision-making process. (Only the headline and picture of this report may have been reworked by the Business Standard staff; the rest of the content is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Winnipeg Free Press
2 days ago
- Business
- Winnipeg Free Press
Appeals court keeps block on Trump administration's downsizing of the federal workforce
SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — An appeals court on Friday refused to freeze a California judge's order halting the Trump administration from downsizing the federal workforce, which means that DOGE-led cuts remain on pause for now. The Republican administration had sought an emergency stay of an injunction issued by U.S. Judge Susan Illston of San Francisco in a lawsuit brought by labor unions and cities, including San Francisco and Chicago. The judge's order questioned whether Trump's administration was acting lawfully in trying to pare the federal workforce. Trump has repeatedly said voters gave him a mandate to remake the federal government, and he tapped billionaire Elon Musk to lead the charge through the Department of Government Efficiency. Tens of thousands of federal workers have been fired, have left their jobs via deferred resignation programs or have been placed on leave. There is no official figure for the job cuts, but at least 75,000 federal employees took deferred resignation, and thousands of probationary workers have already been let go. Illston's order directs numerous federal agencies to halt acting on the president's workforce executive order signed in February and a subsequent memo issued by DOGE and the Office of Personnel Management. Monday Mornings The latest local business news and a lookahead to the coming week. Illston, who was nominated to the bench by former President Bill Clinton, a Democrat, wrote in her ruling that presidents can make large-scale overhauls of federal agencies, but only with the cooperation of Congress. Lawyers for the government say that the executive order and memo calling for large-scale personnel reductions and reorganization plans provided only general principles that agencies should follow in exercising their own decision-making process.
