Latest news with #governmentEfficiency
Daily Mail
a day ago
- Business
- Daily Mail
Dogecoin enthusiasts reveal biggest fear after Trump-Musk fallout
Employees of the Department of Government Efficiency are worried Elon Musk's infamous chainsaw to government waste may come for them after his falling out with Donald Trump. Musk and Trump's bromance showed signs of unraveling when the SpaceX boss departed the White House but their differences were made apparent publicly over the president's 'big, beautiful bill.' The ex-'First Buddy' has spent the days since torching the relationship, everything from publicly slamming Trump's spending bill to claiming the president is in The Epstein Files (which he quietly later deleted). Trump has also knifed a key Musk ally by pulling his nomination to become NASA administrator. That has many of those who remain at the Department of Government Efficiency worried that they may 'get DOGE'd' themselves, as group chats between employees have reportedly lit up wondering where their future in government lies. As former DOGE software engineer Sahil Lavingia (pictured left) said, he and many of the people attempting to streamline the government were already allies or employees of Musk. 'I worry with Elon gone, no one will join, and it will just slowly fade away,' Lavingia told the Wall Street Journal. Even if they remain, without Musk, the organization that claimed it has already cut $180 billion in government waste may never be the same. 'Working there felt like pushing a boulder up a mountain, and it'll just fall back down if the work doesn't continue,' Lavingia added. For now, the Trump White House remains proud of the department's work and looks for it to continue. 'Trump's success through DOGE is undisputed, and [the president's] work will continue to yield historic results,' spokesperson Harrison Fields said. However, sources told WSJ that many are worried that at the very least, DOGE will see massive staffing cuts without Musk's protection. Russell Vought, the head of the Office of Management and Budget, seemed to confirm that they are now at the mercy of whomever is in charge of the department that they were hired to cut waste from. 'Cabinet agencies that are in charge of the DOGE consultants that work for them are fundamentally in control of DOGE,' he told Congress earlier this week. The fallout between Trump and Musk - who were political allies for a little less than a year - started in recent weeks when the billionaire started resisting Republicans' 'Big, Beautiful Bill,' arguing that the spending wiped out DOGE's cost-cutting efforts. However, there were signs of the strain between the two on the day Musk left the White House, as Trump pulled the nomination for Jared Isaacman (pictured) to be the new NASA administrator despite reports he was a shoe-in for confirmation. Isaacman, 42, had his nomination pulled after a 'thorough review' of his 'prior associations,' Trump said. He believes the nomination was withdrawn to coincide with his friend Musk parting ways with the administration and was pushed for by Sergio Gor, an anti-Musk White House official. Then, on Thursday, when Trump was supposed to be hosting the new German Chancellor Friedrich Merz in the Oval Office, he was asked about Musk's recent criticism. From there the dam broke. 'Elon and I had a great relationship. I don't know if we will any more, I was surprised,' Trump told reporters. The president suggested that Musk was angry - not over the bill ballooning the deficit - but because the Trump administration has pulled back on electric vehicle mandates, which negatively impacted Tesla, and replaced the Musk-approved nominee to lead NASA, which could hinder SpaceX's government contracts. 'And you know, Elon's upset because we took the EV mandate, which was a lot of money for electric vehicles, and they're having a hard time the electric vehicles and they want us to pay billions of dollars in subsidy,' Trump said. 'I know that disturbed him.' Musk posted to X as Trump's Q&A with reporters was ongoing. 'Whatever,' the billionaire wrote. 'Keep the EV/solar incentive cuts in the bill, even though no oil & gas subsidies are touched (very unfair!!), but ditch the MOUNTAIN of DISGUSTING PORK in the bill,' he advised. 'In the entire history of civilization, there has never been legislation that [is] both big and beautiful. Everyone knows this!' Musk continued. 'Either you get a big and ugly bill or a slim and beautiful bill. Slim and beautiful is the way.' The spat quickly turned personal with Musk then posting that Trump would have lost the 2024 election had it not been for the world's richest man - him. Musk publicly endorsed Trump on the heels of the July 13th assassination attempt in Butler, Pennsylvania and poured around $290 million into the Republican's campaign. The billionaire also joined Trump on the campaign trail when he returned to the site of the Butler shooting in early October, a month before Election Day. After his meeting with Merz, Trump continued to throw punches online. He asserted that he had asked Musk to leave his administration and said he was 'CRAZY!' 'Elon was "wearing thin," I asked him to leave, I took away his EV Mandate that forced everyone to buy Electric Cars that nobody else wanted (that he knew for months I was going to do!), and he just went CRAZY!' Trump wrote. It was after that post that he then threatened to pull SpaceX and Tesla's government contracts. Musk then taunted Trump to act. 'This just gets better and better,' he wrote. 'Go ahead, make my day …' In a follow-up post, Musk said he would 'begin decommissioning its Dragon spacecraft immediately.' Trump continued his 'crazy' remarks on Friday when speaking with CNN Anchor and Chief Political Correspondent Dana Bash. He said: 'I'm not even thinking about Elon. He's got a problem. The poor guy's got a problem.' The tech billionaire also claimed Trump appeared in files relating to disgraced Jeffrey Epstein in a post on his social media platform X as the pair traded blows in a sensational public row. Musk gave no evidence for the claim, which has since been deleted, and the White House dismissed the allegation. On Sunday, Trump said his relationship with Musk was over and rejected the idea of repairing their relationship.
South China Morning Post
3 days ago
- Business
- South China Morning Post
China's officials scramble to comply with Xi's austerity rules as inspectors come knocking
As Elon Musk 's so-called Department of Government Efficiency was shaking up federal agencies in America with deep spending cuts, bureaucrats in China were also feeling the heat. Since mid-March, thousands of Chinese officials have been scrambling to comply with President Xi Jinping 's austerity orders – making sure their offices are modest, their meal receipts are in order and returning any lavish gifts – as inspectors carry out checks. The campaign has been running since 2012 and takes aim at overspending among Communist Party and government bodies. It covers spending and protocol in areas ranging from official events to buildings and travel, with the goals of improving the ruling party's image, stamping out corruption and cutting wasteful spending. Analysts say it also has to do with making sure 'every cent' is spent wisely so that China can prevail in its rivalry with the United States. It is also seen as a way to find promising cadres who follow the rules and show political loyalty, and could be candidates for promotion. But questions have been raised over the effectiveness of the campaign given the strict control over the media in China and with no independent watchdog, as well as the difficulty of enforcing its detailed rules on a vast scale.
Fast Company
3 days ago
- Business
- Fast Company
Trump got what he needed out of Elon Musk
In his role as head of the so-called Department of Government Efficiency, Elon Musk spent several months gleefully subjecting parts of the government he doesn't like to an array of metaphorical power tools. 'We spent the weekend feeding USAID [United States Agency for International Development] into the wood chipper,' he wrote on X in February, after pushing to illegally withhold billions of dollars appropriated by Congress to fight famine, care for sick people, and vaccinate children against deadly diseases. 'Could have gone to some great parties. Did that instead.' A few weeks later, Musk celebrated his accomplishments to date by taking the stage at the annual Conservative Political Action Conference while triumphantly waving a chainsaw overhead. 'This is the chainsaw for bureaucracy,' he yelped, just in case the reference was too subtle for anyone in attendance. 'CHAINSAW!' On the one hand, Musk's efforts set up some of his businesses to make a bunch of money, and delighted Republican politicians whose idea of 'wasteful' spending is anything that does not make hedge fund executives or car dealership owners wealthier. On the other hand, his White House tenure shaved billions of dollars off his net worth, made it genuinely embarrassing to own a Tesla, and transformed Musk into one of the most reviled political figures in the country. Now, as Musk leaves the Trump administration and returns to the private sector—and as the two men engage in oafish public meltdowns on their respective social media platforms—the question of whether DOGE was, on balance, 'worth it' for Musk sort of depends on what happens to his portfolio over the next quarter or so. Already, Musk has embarked on a miniature image rehabilitation tour, framing himself in time-honored reactionary tradition as a tragic victim of his own success. In a soft-lit interview with The Washington Post, he said that DOGE had become the 'whipping boy for everything,' and bemoaned the 'uphill battle' he faced for simply 'trying to improve things in D.C.' In an interview with Ars Technica, Musk admitted that he 'probably did spend a bit too much time on politics,' and expressed eagerness to get back to the business that really matters: presiding over failed SpaceX launches. As a result, many retrospectives on Musk's time at DOGE read like obituaries, both for the organization and the movement it represents. In a recent Reuters profile, for example, a former DOGE staffer predicted that it would 'fizzle out' without Musk, and analogized the remaining employees to 'kids joining a startup that will go out of business in four months.' But talking about DOGE in the past tense is wrong for several reasons. First, Musk's actions will continue to inflict pain and suffering long after Trump has left the White House. One expert estimates that Musk's cuts to USAID have already resulted in about 300,00 preventable deaths, most of them children. Even if the $180 billion that DOGE says it has cut is a generous overestimate, people still died because Elon Musk decided it would be fun to cosplay as the president for a few weeks. Second, Musk's efforts to pillage the federal government will not end the moment he leaves town. A recent Washington Post analysis estimated that Musk's companies are propped up by $38 billion in government funding. Although Trump has threatened to stop doing business with Musk during their ongoing posting war—much, much more on that below—SpaceX in particular is integral to the modern U.S. space program, parts of which would grind to a halt without the (non-exploding versions of) Musk's rockets. Reluctant though Trump may be to keep paying out on these contracts, it would presumably be even more embarrassing for him to leave NASA without a viable in-house method of retrieving astronauts from space. Finally, DOGE was not and was never going to be a one-off effort to, as the conservative activist Grover Norquist once put it, make the government small enough to 'drag it into the bathroom and drown it in the bathtub.' For decades, Republicans, at the behest of their corporate donors, have pushed the idea that government should be run like a business, and insisted that the legitimacy of any government expenditure depends on the associated return on investment. Only if elected officials do something about the scourges of wasteful spending, inefficient regulation, and dastardly bureaucracy, the argument goes, can America ever hope to reach its full potential. But Republicans face the same basic challenge every time they try to follow through on this promise: Although voters theoretically support the idea of making government more efficient, the real-world cuts Republicans would make to effectuate that goal are wildly unpopular. Normal people don't want to gut the National Park Service or the U.S. Postal Service, for example. They don't support making it easier for big banks to rip off consumers, and they definitely don't like GOP politicians threatening to take Sesame Street off the air. By outsourcing much of this unseemly work to Musk and DOGE, Republican lawmakers found a possible solution to their vexing PR problem: a method of speed-running some of the more controversial aspects of their policy agenda, but without having to cast costly votes to implement it. Now Musk is learning the hard way that although he was using the Republican Party to enrich himself, the Republican Party was using him, too. Republican lawmakers are attempting to pass Trump's 'Big Beautiful Bill,' a budget reconciliation bill that would result in some 10.9 million fewer people with access to health insurance by 2034, according to the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office. Although the bill would cut some $1.3 trillion in federal spending over a decade, it's still projected to add an additional $2.4 trillion to the national debt over that same period, thanks to a cool $3.7 trillion in tax cuts. Musk at first described himself as 'disappointed' by the bill's price tag, which he said 'undermines the work that the DOGE team is doing.' When his opinion failed to persuade the White House (or Republican leadership on Capitol Hill) to change course, Musk began lashing out, calling the 'Big Ugly Bill' a 'disgusting abomination,' and vowing to help 'fire all politicians who betrayed the American people' by voting for it. He then went on to call for Trump's impeachment, threaten to start a new political party, link Trump to the late Jeffrey Epstein, and otherwise mock the president as a hypocritical, spineless ingrate who would have lost the 2024 election in humiliating fashion if not for Musk's generous infusions of cash. As it turns out, when you just spent four months torpedoing your brand in pursuit of a shared ideological goal, watching your purported allies immediately abandon it can be a frustrating experience. In one sense, this constitutes a 'split' with Trump, in that Musk is indeed trashing the signature policy initiative of a president whose candidacy he supported to the tune of more than a quarter-billion dollars. But it is also evidence that Musk never fully grasped the nature of his relationship with Trump in the first place: While he was out there taking the (well-deserved) reputational hits for doing all the slashing and burning that Republicans wanted to see, GOP lawmakers were preparing to do what they always do: abandon this fiscal responsibility song and dance at their earliest convenience, and enact more tax cuts that will disproportionately benefit the wealthy at the expense of everyone else. When he took the gig at DOGE, Musk imagined himself as a revolutionary, uniquely positioned to identify and cut 'wasteful' spending by virtue of the power in the Republican Party that he believed he'd rightfully purchased. But Musk believed so strongly in his abilities that he forgot that the GOP does not care about saving public resources, but about redirecting that money to its political allies instead. Even if this iteration of DOGE 'fizzles out,' there will be another DOGE before long, because Republicans will never stop looking for ways to slash programs that help vulnerable people, and there will always be someone like Musk who is willing do their dirty work in exchange for the chance to line his pockets.
CNN
4 days ago
- Business
- CNN
DOGE just got a green light to access your Social Security data. Here's what that means
When people think of Social Security, they typically think of monthly benefits — for the roughly 69 million retirees, disabled workers, dependents and survivors who receive them today. But efforts by the Department of Government Efficiency this year to access the Social Security Administration's data systems should conjure up thoughts of data on hundreds of millions of people. Why? Because the SSA's multiple data systems contain an extensive trove of personal information on most people living in the United States today — as well as those who have died. While a lower federal court had blocked DOGE's efforts to access such data — which it argued it needs in order to curtail waste, fraud and abuse — the Supreme Court lifted that order on Friday, allowing DOGE to access the data for now. The three liberal justices — Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson — dissented. In her opinion, Jackson wrote, 'The government wants to give DOGE unfettered access to this personal, non-anonymized information right now — before the courts have time to assess whether DOGE's access is lawful,' she added. The personal data the Social Security Adminstration has on most Americans runs 'from cradle to grave,' said Kathleen Romig, who used to work at the SSA, first as a retirement policy analyst and more recently as a senior adviser in the Office of the Commissioner. DOGE was created unilaterally by President Donald Trump with the goal of 'modernizing Federal technology and software to maximize governmental efficiency and productivity,' according to his executive order. To date, the group has caused chaos and intimidation at a number of federal agencies where it has sought to take control and shut down various types of spending. It is also the subject of various lawsuits questioning its legal right to access wholesale the personal data of Americans on highly restricted government IT systems and to fire groups of federal workers in the manner it has. Here's just a partial list of the data the SSA systems likely have about you: your name, Social Security number, date and place of birth, gender, addresses, marital and parental status, your parents' names, lifetime earnings, bank account information, immigration and work authorization status, health conditions if you apply for disability benefits, and use of Medicare after a certain age, which the SSA may periodically check to ascertain whether you're still alive. Other types of personal information also may be obtained or matched through the SSA's data-sharing agreements with the IRS and the Department of Health and Human Services. Information on your assets and living arrangements also may be gathered if you apply for Supplemental Security Income (SSI), which is meant to help those with very limited income. As with the IRS data systems to which DOGE has also sought access, the SSA systems are old, complex, interconnected and run on programming language developed decades ago. If you make a change in one system, it could trip up another if you don't know what you're doing, said Romig, who now is director of Social Security and disability policy at the liberal Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. And, just as at the IRS, there are concerns that if DOGE team members get access to the SSA systems and seek to make changes directly or through an SSA employee, they could cause technical errors or base their decisions on incorrect understandings of the data. For example, multibillionaire CEO Elon Musk, a driving force at DOGE, had incorrectly claimed that SSA is making payments to millions of dead people. His claim appeared to be based on the so-called Numident list, which is a limited collection of personal data, Romig said. The list includes names, Social Security numbers, and a person's birth and death dates. But the Numident list does not reflect the death dates for 18.9 million people who were born in 1920 or earlier. That's a known problem, which the Social Security inspector general in a 2023 report already recommended the agency correct. That same report, however, also noted that 'almost none of the 18.9 million number holders currently receive SSA payments.' And making any decisions based on mistaken interpretations could create real-world problems for individuals. For example, Romig said, there are different types of Social Security numbers assigned — eg, for US citizens, for noncitizens with work authorization and for people on student visas who do not have work authorization. But a person's status can change over time. For example, someone on a student visa may eventually get work authorization. But it's up to the individual to update the SSA on their status. If they don't do so immediately or maybe not even for years, the lists on SSA systems may not be fully up to date. So it's easy to see how a new entity like DOGE, unfamiliar with the complexity of Social Security's processes, might make a quick decision affecting a particular group of people on a list that itself may not be current. Charles Blahous, a senior research strategist at the Mercatus Center at George Mason University, has been a leading proponent of addressing Social Security's long-term funding shortfall. And he is all for rooting out waste, fraud and abuse. But, Blahous noted, 'best estimates of improper payments in Social Security are less than 1% of the program's outlays. I've been concerned that this particular conversation is fueling profound misimpressions about Social Security and the policy challenges surrounding it.' SSA's data systems are housed in locked rooms, and permission to view — never mind alter — information on them has always been highly restricted, Romig said, noting that she was fingerprinted and had to pass a background check before being allowed to view data for her research while at the agency — and it could only be data that had no personally identifiable information. Given the variety of personal data available, there are also a number of federal privacy and other laws limiting the use and dissemination of such information. Such laws are intended to prevent not only improper use or leaks of the data by individuals, but abuse of power by government, according to the Center on Democracy and Technology. DOGE's arrival at the SSA resulted in a number of seasoned employees leaving the agency, including Michelle King, a long-time career service executive who briefly served as acting commissioner from January 20 until February 16. She resigned after DOGE staffers attempted to access sensitive government records. In her place, SSA employee Lee Dudek was named acting director. Dudek put out a statement on SSA's 'Commitment to Agency Transparency and Protecting Benefits and Information' when he came on. In it, he noted that DOGE personnel: a) 'cannot make changes to agency systems, benefit payments, or other information'; b) 'only have read access' to data; c) 'do not have access to data related to a court ordered temporary restraining order, current or future'; and d) 'must follow the law and if they violate the law they will be referred to the Department of Justice for possible prosecution.' CNN's Alayna Treene and John Fritze contributed to this report.
CNN
4 days ago
- Business
- CNN
DOGE just got a green light to access your Social Security data. Here's what that means
When people think of Social Security, they typically think of monthly benefits — for the roughly 69 million retirees, disabled workers, dependents and survivors who receive them today. But efforts by the Department of Government Efficiency this year to access the Social Security Administration's data systems should conjure up thoughts of data on hundreds of millions of people. Why? Because the SSA's multiple data systems contain an extensive trove of personal information on most people living in the United States today — as well as those who have died. While a lower federal court had blocked DOGE's efforts to access such data — which it argued it needs in order to curtail waste, fraud and abuse — the Supreme Court lifted that order on Friday, allowing DOGE to access the data for now. The three liberal justices — Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson — dissented. In her opinion, Jackson wrote, 'The government wants to give DOGE unfettered access to this personal, non-anonymized information right now — before the courts have time to assess whether DOGE's access is lawful,' she added. The personal data the Social Security Adminstration has on most Americans runs 'from cradle to grave,' said Kathleen Romig, who used to work at the SSA, first as a retirement policy analyst and more recently as a senior adviser in the Office of the Commissioner. DOGE was created unilaterally by President Donald Trump with the goal of 'modernizing Federal technology and software to maximize governmental efficiency and productivity,' according to his executive order. To date, the group has caused chaos and intimidation at a number of federal agencies where it has sought to take control and shut down various types of spending. It is also the subject of various lawsuits questioning its legal right to access wholesale the personal data of Americans on highly restricted government IT systems and to fire groups of federal workers in the manner it has. Here's just a partial list of the data the SSA systems likely have about you: your name, Social Security number, date and place of birth, gender, addresses, marital and parental status, your parents' names, lifetime earnings, bank account information, immigration and work authorization status, health conditions if you apply for disability benefits, and use of Medicare after a certain age, which the SSA may periodically check to ascertain whether you're still alive. Other types of personal information also may be obtained or matched through the SSA's data-sharing agreements with the IRS and the Department of Health and Human Services. Information on your assets and living arrangements also may be gathered if you apply for Supplemental Security Income (SSI), which is meant to help those with very limited income. As with the IRS data systems to which DOGE has also sought access, the SSA systems are old, complex, interconnected and run on programming language developed decades ago. If you make a change in one system, it could trip up another if you don't know what you're doing, said Romig, who now is director of Social Security and disability policy at the liberal Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. And, just as at the IRS, there are concerns that if DOGE team members get access to the SSA systems and seek to make changes directly or through an SSA employee, they could cause technical errors or base their decisions on incorrect understandings of the data. For example, multibillionaire CEO Elon Musk, a driving force at DOGE, had incorrectly claimed that SSA is making payments to millions of dead people. His claim appeared to be based on the so-called Numident list, which is a limited collection of personal data, Romig said. The list includes names, Social Security numbers, and a person's birth and death dates. But the Numident list does not reflect the death dates for 18.9 million people who were born in 1920 or earlier. That's a known problem, which the Social Security inspector general in a 2023 report already recommended the agency correct. That same report, however, also noted that 'almost none of the 18.9 million number holders currently receive SSA payments.' And making any decisions based on mistaken interpretations could create real-world problems for individuals. For example, Romig said, there are different types of Social Security numbers assigned — eg, for US citizens, for noncitizens with work authorization and for people on student visas who do not have work authorization. But a person's status can change over time. For example, someone on a student visa may eventually get work authorization. But it's up to the individual to update the SSA on their status. If they don't do so immediately or maybe not even for years, the lists on SSA systems may not be fully up to date. So it's easy to see how a new entity like DOGE, unfamiliar with the complexity of Social Security's processes, might make a quick decision affecting a particular group of people on a list that itself may not be current. Charles Blahous, a senior research strategist at the Mercatus Center at George Mason University, has been a leading proponent of addressing Social Security's long-term funding shortfall. And he is all for rooting out waste, fraud and abuse. But, Blahous noted, 'best estimates of improper payments in Social Security are less than 1% of the program's outlays. I've been concerned that this particular conversation is fueling profound misimpressions about Social Security and the policy challenges surrounding it.' SSA's data systems are housed in locked rooms, and permission to view — never mind alter — information on them has always been highly restricted, Romig said, noting that she was fingerprinted and had to pass a background check before being allowed to view data for her research while at the agency — and it could only be data that had no personally identifiable information. Given the variety of personal data available, there are also a number of federal privacy and other laws limiting the use and dissemination of such information. Such laws are intended to prevent not only improper use or leaks of the data by individuals, but abuse of power by government, according to the Center on Democracy and Technology. DOGE's arrival at the SSA resulted in a number of seasoned employees leaving the agency, including Michelle King, a long-time career service executive who briefly served as acting commissioner from January 20 until February 16. She resigned after DOGE staffers attempted to access sensitive government records. In her place, SSA employee Lee Dudek was named acting director. Dudek put out a statement on SSA's 'Commitment to Agency Transparency and Protecting Benefits and Information' when he came on. In it, he noted that DOGE personnel: a) 'cannot make changes to agency systems, benefit payments, or other information'; b) 'only have read access' to data; c) 'do not have access to data related to a court ordered temporary restraining order, current or future'; and d) 'must follow the law and if they violate the law they will be referred to the Department of Justice for possible prosecution.' CNN's Alayna Treene and John Fritze contributed to this report.
