We all knew this would fail. Any leader worth their salt would know massive reorganizations are failures even when they aren’t unconstitutional and worthy of the death penalty.
Systematic of so much clown techbro thought; idiots only see the obvious nicks and problems -- and even occasional absurdity -- in large institutions, and think they can come in fix everything.
It's just an extension of good ol' Chesterton's fence.
Perhaps because disrupting things was the actual goal, rather than saving money. DOGE was highly effective in harming the entities meant to oversee Musk's companies, stealing information about union organizing and labor complaints, reducing the government's ability to collect taxes, and destroying its regulatory capacity.
I don't think that's right - although of course we are speculating about what's happening inside the head of Musk.
Musk strikes me as an juvenile and naive man, precisely the kind of man that would take a hatchet to a complex system while believing he is competently reforming. His experience with taking over Twitter probably reinforced his belief that you can move fast and break organisations and, despite all the moaning from liberals, nothing bad will happen in the end.
So Musk is exactly the man to honestly believe in what he was doing, and he was immersed in a right wing echo chamber, which for 50 years has been talking about government waste.
Don't ascribe to malevolence what can be explained by incompetence.
I remember people citing the All-In podcast about "you can always cut 10% without affecting things negatively" or something silly like that. Or thinking that $1T/year of cuts is something that's possible without taking out social security and medicare and tons of defense spending.
I can not tell you how much respect I have lost for anybody involved with the All-In podcast. They sold out all credibility for political wins for wanna-be fascists.
These jokers all got lucky, obviously. They can not perform basic analysis of organizations, clearly. What a joke of a result!
> Elon Musk is a smart salesman but that's about it. He has little deep knowledge in a lot of what he does.
No, I think it's the opposite — he's extremely knowledgeable about engineering and science [1], but quite hopeless at social things. If he was ignorant of technical stuff then SpaceX and Tesla would not have succeeded, and conversely if he was a good salesman he would have foreseen how badly his political actions would hurt Twitter and Tesla.
It's quite foolish to think someone is stupid or ignorant just because you don't agree with their politics.
The intent was never savings. Hackers and Accountants are completely different specialties. If you send in hackers, the intent is obviously to hack, not conduct forensic accounting. (The inverse would also be true of course)
Because there wasn't that much to save, compared to the sheer size of the budget? Because it's much easier to destroy than to build, generally? Because it's always been more of an ideological exercise and a revenge vehicle than a real cost-saving venture?
> I predicted it would net cost money if you did a full accounting. May end up being true.
People don't appreciate the role of a working executive branch and government bureaucracy in keeping the nation working, stable and relatively free from unfair practices, no matter how inefficient they may seem. In most cases, they are inefficient and have other problems because they're understaffed.
If musk, Trump, or any of their allies had any interest in cutting spending, they wouldn't have passed budgets increasing the deficit every chance they've had.
Must got what he wanted: some minor disruption to agencies that regulate him personally, the fear of god put into thousands of federal employees, and ostensibly federal data to help him bust unions.
The side effect of disrupting thousands of normal hard working people's lives it's just icing on the cake for a miserable prick like him, even if he did have to hire most of them back.
But if they could destroy the regulatory state while ALSO doubling the deficit with federal spending on defense, space, and oil, i don't doubt for a second they would do so.
> Unless they thought appearing to be complete morons would distract from their actual mission of stealing all the Federal data they could.
That and the fact that many of the targeted organizations were regulating Musk's companies or even investigating them for serious violations. I don't think that I've seen such a blatant display of conflict of interest quite like this one.
Are you arguing there are no bullshit, make-work government jobs? What a strange thing to bring up, a bit of a slip.
Then again, of course there are good, hard working people in government. Lots of them. Does it need to be said?
Then again, of course there are 0% contribution parasites, evil Machiavellian scoundrels, and power mad bureaucrats in government. Lots of them. Does it need to be said?
"Government can do some good" is, in my opinion, grug philosophy. It assumes people in government are upstanding like they insist they are, have fine intentions and won't be bought or compromised, or have ethical standards that are same as ours.
2nd law of thermodynamics is what makes destructiveness so costly. It is much easier and cheaper to destroy than to build or rebuild. The Trump administration is devaluing the United States at an alarming rate.
As I understand it, this is to wreck the government oversight on the conduct of the rich and the powerful. They really want to establish a full blown oligarchy. And they managed to convince the poor people that the government is bad for them too.
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[ 2.2 ms ] story [ 78.0 ms ] threadIt's just an extension of good ol' Chesterton's fence.
Musk strikes me as an juvenile and naive man, precisely the kind of man that would take a hatchet to a complex system while believing he is competently reforming. His experience with taking over Twitter probably reinforced his belief that you can move fast and break organisations and, despite all the moaning from liberals, nothing bad will happen in the end.
So Musk is exactly the man to honestly believe in what he was doing, and he was immersed in a right wing echo chamber, which for 50 years has been talking about government waste.
Don't ascribe to malevolence what can be explained by incompetence.
It surprises me if anyone thought anything different. I mean, how could you think anything else if yo know what group of cronies there people are?
It's like Americans forgot all about what was wrong with the Rockefeller-era oligarchy. Even the MAGA slogan is just a copy from back then.
maybe disrupting things badly is more preferable as that gets more attention, but ultimately the impact is good or bad doesn't matter at all.
I can not tell you how much respect I have lost for anybody involved with the All-In podcast. They sold out all credibility for political wins for wanna-be fascists.
These jokers all got lucky, obviously. They can not perform basic analysis of organizations, clearly. What a joke of a result!
The problem is that Elon Musk has power (in the form of money) and was able to buy his way into the government.
Elon Musk is a smart salesman but that's about it. He has little deep knowledge in a lot of what he does.
No, I think it's the opposite — he's extremely knowledgeable about engineering and science [1], but quite hopeless at social things. If he was ignorant of technical stuff then SpaceX and Tesla would not have succeeded, and conversely if he was a good salesman he would have foreseen how badly his political actions would hurt Twitter and Tesla.
It's quite foolish to think someone is stupid or ignorant just because you don't agree with their politics.
1. see these quotes: https://x.com/yatharthmaan/status/2001313180644266478
I predicted it would net cost money if you did a full accounting. May end up being true.
People don't appreciate the role of a working executive branch and government bureaucracy in keeping the nation working, stable and relatively free from unfair practices, no matter how inefficient they may seem. In most cases, they are inefficient and have other problems because they're understaffed.
Must got what he wanted: some minor disruption to agencies that regulate him personally, the fear of god put into thousands of federal employees, and ostensibly federal data to help him bust unions.
The side effect of disrupting thousands of normal hard working people's lives it's just icing on the cake for a miserable prick like him, even if he did have to hire most of them back.
But if they could destroy the regulatory state while ALSO doubling the deficit with federal spending on defense, space, and oil, i don't doubt for a second they would do so.
There was no plan, no thought process behind any of the cuts.
Unless they thought appearing to be complete morons would distract from their actual mission of stealing all the Federal data they could.
The whole operation of black hats need to be investigated.
That and the fact that many of the targeted organizations were regulating Musk's companies or even investigating them for serious violations. I don't think that I've seen such a blatant display of conflict of interest quite like this one.
Ah, the classic “let’s hurt others because we don’t understand them” routine.
Ever heard of Bullshit Jobs? It describes most of the private sector - maybe look inward rather than outward?
Then again, of course there are good, hard working people in government. Lots of them. Does it need to be said?
Then again, of course there are 0% contribution parasites, evil Machiavellian scoundrels, and power mad bureaucrats in government. Lots of them. Does it need to be said?
"Government can do some good" is, in my opinion, grug philosophy. It assumes people in government are upstanding like they insist they are, have fine intentions and won't be bought or compromised, or have ethical standards that are same as ours.
Anyone who knows how to use Excel understands that entitlements and defense are the biggest issue (60%) when it comes to government spending.