I’ve seen zero justification for turning over decision-making and control of our government to an unelected private individual. You cannot replace Congress or our co-equal branches of government balances this way. If Congress doesn’t act, I expect a lot of this will be challenged in court (not the best because it’s costly and slow).

What actual legal authority is there for our government to operate this way? Seems to be exactly what the founders sought to avoid (centralized power at the hands of the wealthy few).

Imagine if Biden had installed someone like George Soros inside the US government to start controlling everything. It would be completely unacceptable (and I suspect we’d hear that from GOP members of Congress).

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:So maga, if Hunter Biden had done exactly this, you would have cheered him on too? If his dad gave him access to all of your finances and cut off any gov funding he didn’t care for? You would have been like, “Sure, let’s give him a shot!”

Elon is a special government employee and has a ts, hunter is none of those things.

https://amp.cnn.com/cnn/2025/02/03/politics/musk-government-employee

Ooh, where’s the missing the point meme when you need it.

Anonymous wrote:So maga, if Hunter Biden had done exactly this, you would have cheered him on too? If his dad gave him access to all of your finances and cut off any gov funding he didn’t care for? You would have been like, “Sure, let’s give him a shot!”

Elon is a special government employee and has a ts, hunter is none of those things.

https://amp.cnn.com/cnn/2025/02/03/politics/musk-government-employee

Anonymous wrote:Hmm I think the impulse to trim down some agencies is a good one. The federal workforce is gigantic. I feel for the employees, but as organizations it'd probably be healthy to take a wrecking ball to them and rebuild. I have doubts about Musk. He has been given an aura of extreme competence by his fanboys for succeeding with Tesla and SpaceX. However, stories from engineers working at these places suggest Musk is a disruptor and incompetent hack in many ways, even if he does make some good decisions, particularly with personnel. I think he managed to surround himself with great and passionate talent given the nature of these ventures (EV/Rockets), and these companies have succeeded in spite of him. I doubt Musk will be as effective as democrats fear he will be in the long run and will likely eff something up sooner than later causing his efforts to stall. I think that's a shame really, as I'd rather prefer a more competent (and compassionate as possible) re-org.

Musk hosted a call on X last night and his next idea is to get rid of all federal regulations and then “see” which ones are necessary.

We need a surgeon and Trump has hired Wreck it Ralph.

Anonymous wrote:He's infiltrated OPM, the US treasury, has access to Social Security information, which means information on pretty much every worker in the United States.

Is this something you support? And if not, what do you plan to do about it? This is a Pandora box you opened.

I want access as well.

While the current administration is creating a chaos and confusion, I have 2 questions:
Are there any who voted for Trump think they did a mistake?
What are Kamala Harris and other Democrats doing about it? Has everyone quietly resigned to destiny?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We had a $1.83 trillion budget deficit last year. Unsustainable. Musk thinks he can cut a trillion in spending. Good, let’s see what he comes up with. His experience at Twitter showed him that three quarters of the people employed there were useless at best.

The largest deficits we've ever had relative to GDP were in 1942 and 2020. 2020 deficit was half of 1942. Both times the US was facing a major global peril. The 2024 deficit was just slightly larger than 1983, when Reagan was President, and followed Reagan's first tax cut. The deficit increased each year Trump was in office.

There are exactly 12 years since 1938 we have not had a deficit, and 8 of those years were under a Democrat president.

Thank you for posting this and I think it’s telling how it was ignored. Rs pretend (literally) that they are the fiscal conservatives who can manage and budget, but the facts tell a different story.

Anonymous wrote:Elon Musk is rich because he is a genius and he earned it. He deserves every penny.

I love my President Trump.

Oh, and by the way, I got mine.

- Signed a MAGA 65-year-old white man who couldn't care less about anyone or anything but myself

You don't get laid much, do you?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We had a $1.83 trillion budget deficit last year. Unsustainable. Musk thinks he can cut a trillion in spending. Good, let’s see what he comes up with. His experience at Twitter showed him that three quarters of the people employed there were useless at best.

Agree about our deficit, but Twitter/X is a disaster... not a great example of building value.

100 percent. Elon, who by many reports is a drug user with extensive foreign contacts and supports far right causes not to mention that he broke our immigration laws by overstaying his visa, is not the person for this job.

Elon Musk is rich because he is a genius and he earned it. He deserves every penny.

I love my President Trump.

Oh, and by the way, I got mine.

- Signed a MAGA 65-year-old white man who couldn't care less about anyone or anything but myself

So maga, if Hunter Biden had done exactly this, you would have cheered him on too? If his dad gave him access to all of your finances and cut off any gov funding he didn’t care for? You would have been like, “Sure, let’s give him a shot!”

Power rends to corrupts. Absolutely power corrupts absolutely

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:At this point it ai beyond obvious that structures and process have been used to entrench the status quo. Congress nor the American voter have the stomach to make needed changes.

An American citizen (immigrant!) is working to improve serious problems. *If* somehow he manages to deliver, it will be one of the greatest gifts ever received by our country. Entrenched interests have had decades to fix these problems. They’ve failed. Might as well try this. Just give him and his team a blanket pardon before Trump leaves office.

Do you think maybe that Musk himself might have some entrenched interests of his own? Or do you think he’s doing this out of the goodness of his heart?

Of course the potential exists that he has his own entrenched interests. But I’m told time and time again that government employees are not the enemy, but rather noble civil servants seeking to serve the public good. Perhaps Musk can be given the same deference?

Again, does this particularly bother me? I don’t think so (this doesn’t mean I’m a fan of it, either). If he can actually slow down the spending after decades of drunken spending by Congress on both sides, the outcome might be worth the pain. I just know that I don’t trust anybody in Congress to actually be able to deliver on meaningful, impactful government reform.

Less than 100 years ago the British Empire was the mightiest the world had ever seen. Today they are on an apparent irreversible path to irrelevance and inability to care for their own people. I fear the same fate awaits us absent drastic change that cannot be delivered from within the system.

If it’s all going to sh*t anyways, might as well try something unconventional.

Sure. But he would need to do so by applying for a government job and going through an interview process, background check, reference check, etc. and then, after proving himself trustworthy, undergo a security clearance before having any sort of access to this information. Same for “Bigballs” and the rest of his teenage friends.

Hmm I think the impulse to trim down some agencies is a good one. The federal workforce is gigantic. I feel for the employees, but as organizations it'd probably be healthy to take a wrecking ball to them and rebuild. I have doubts about Musk. He has been given an aura of extreme competence by his fanboys for succeeding with Tesla and SpaceX. However, stories from engineers working at these places suggest Musk is a disruptor and incompetent hack in many ways, even if he does make some good decisions, particularly with personnel. I think he managed to surround himself with great and passionate talent given the nature of these ventures (EV/Rockets), and these companies have succeeded in spite of him. I doubt Musk will be as effective as democrats fear he will be in the long run and will likely eff something up sooner than later causing his efforts to stall. I think that's a shame really, as I'd rather prefer a more competent (and compassionate as possible) re-org.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We had a $1.83 trillion budget deficit last year. Unsustainable. Musk thinks he can cut a trillion in spending. Good, let’s see what he comes up with. His experience at Twitter showed him that three quarters of the people employed there were useless at best.

So the budget cut only make liberal suffer, liberal only, only…
And Twitter drop 80% its value since he took over, he just turned that platform into conspirator cesspoll.
It is simple, but just if it is too hard for you to understand, all the cut is for them (ultra rich) to pocket, and to satisfy their ego.
You support them because you wish or you think one day you will become one of them billionaires.

The problem is you cannot criticize the dear leader. Cult members cannot find fault with their leader ever, which is why they deem non-believers “the enemy.” It’s cult practices 101.