To avoid FACA lawsuits, Musk to head Digital Service, renamed to DOGE. A feud over AI still simmers.
Musk Trashes Trump’s Pet AI Project
Politico reports Trump Staff ‘Furious’ after Musk trashes AI project.
Some of President Donald Trump’s key aides and allies are furious with Elon Musk for publicly trashing his $500 billion artificial intelligence mega-deal.
A White House official said Musk “very much” got over his skis when the tech tycoon launched a daylong screed against the AI project. One Trump ally said Musk abused his closeness to the president. Another Republican close to the White House went further, saying Trump’s staff is “furious” over Musk using his massive social media platform to pour cold water on the infrastructure deal that Trump called “tremendous” and “monumental” just a day prior.
“It’s clear he has abused the proximity to the president,” said the Trump ally. “The problem is the president doesn’t have any leverage over him and Elon gives zero f*cks.”
It is highly unusual for a senior adviser — Musk — to criticize a president’s initiatives in public, and his broadsides renewed speculation within GOP circles about whether he and Trump will eventually have a falling-out.
Musk, who owns his own AI startup, was not at Trump’s unveiling of “Stargate,” an effort to supercharge the country’s AI infrastructure featuring the tech giants OpenAI, Softbank and Oracle. Musk, who co-founded OpenAI, has long been critical of its CEO Sam Altman and spent much of Wednesday trolling him online. “They don’t actually have the money,” he said. Softbank, meanwhile, “has well under $10B secured. I have that on good authority.”
Musk even reposted a joke that suggested Altman and his team smoked crack “to come up with their $500 billion number for Stargate.”
United States Digital Service Renamed to DOGE
The New York Times comments Musk Plan for Retooling Government Takes Shape, but Big Questions Loom
The initial plan for retooling the federal government under President Trump started with three loyal billionaires: the banker Howard Lutnick, the tech leader Elon Musk and the entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy.
Now, it’s down to one.
The Musk-led project debuted this week with a bit of bureaucratic jujitsu: the takeover of an existing arm of the White House that, for the past decade, had focused on improving government technology. The office, the United States Digital Service, now renamed United States DOGE Service, was created in 2014 to fix failing computer systems that threatened the success of President Barack Obama’s health insurance overhaul.
Mr. Musk, who cut 80 percent of the jobs at Twitter after he bought the social media company two years ago, aims to conduct a review of at least some of the roughly 200 employees who work in the office before deciding whether to keep them in their jobs, according to two people familiar with his plan, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe internal plans.
But the decision to rebrand the former digital office into DOGE also signals the potential limits of the endeavor, budget experts said.
Mr. Trump initially said his government overhaul would “cut wasteful expenditures” and “slash excess regulations,” but those goals were not explicitly laid out in the order on Monday that created the new group.
In a post on X on Friday, DOGE said that hundreds of millions of dollars’ worth of current or impending federal contracts had been canceled. “Initial focus is mainly on DEI contracts and unoccupied buildings,” the post said, referring to diversity, equity and inclusion-related efforts. A spokeswoman for the office did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the particular programs that were affected.
Romina Boccia, the director of budget and entitlement policy at the libertarian Cato Institute, said focusing on modernizing government technology could help address issues like improper payments. But she said that would be likely to save only a couple hundred billion dollars at most, far less than Mr. Musk had promised.
“The cynic in me says that DOGE realized that they were perhaps too ambitious and it would be much more difficult to accomplish their initial goals of reducing spending by $2 trillion,” Ms. Boccia said. “They’re narrowing their scope to something more manageable.”
“If they choose to work on the everyday problems that impact all Americans, they could accomplish a lot,” said Ms. Hsiang, who was appointed to the role during the Biden administration. “If they work on programs that put them in a deeply adversarial position with agencies, I think they will be less likely to get important things done.”
The full extent of how DOGE works and what it does may end up shielded from the public. Mr. Musk hopes to join the administration as a special government employee, according to a person familiar with his plan, a designation intended to avoid triggering a transparency law requiring government panels that include private citizens to conduct their meetings in public and make their documents available. It remains to be seen whether many other DOGE staffers will also have that designation.
Two Lawsuits Against DOGE
DOGE has no power to do anything. It is operating as a federal advisory committee. That puts the initiative in violation of a law called the Federal Advisory Committee Act, or FACA, which regulates the functions and transparency of federal advisory committees, according to the group.
On January 20, I noted Musk Promises “Doge to Mars” But There’s Two Lawsuits Already
DOGE is hit with internal bickering between Musk and Ramaswamy. And two lawsuits claim DOGE violates FACA law.
FACA requires these groups to be “fairly balanced in terms of the points of view represented and the functions to be performed by the advisory committee,” the lawsuit states
How to Avoid Transparency Law
To avoid FACA, Musk is the new head of United States Digital Service, now renamed United States DOGE Service
DOGE can now avoid transparency and keep everything hush-hush.
But that changes nothing other than Musk’s ability to fire 200 people in a group with a mission to improve government technology.
How long will it be before Musk seeks more money to fund this operation?
Regardless, we’ve gone from three billionaires with conflicting goals to one billionaire who is openly trashing Trump’s pet AI project.
DOGE Overpromised and Will Underdeliver
December 29, 2024: Team Trump Accelerates Social Security Insolvency, Where’s DOGE?
Republicans expand Social Security at a cost of $196 billion. Guess who benefits.
December 27, 2024: Can DOGE Cut $2 Trillion Out of $1 Trillion? What About Revenue?
The answer to the first question is obvious. So let’s discuss what’s reasonable.
January 10, 2025: Elon Musk Admits DOGE Can’t Find $2 Trillion In Budget Cuts
Anyone with an ounce of common sense knew that wasn’t possible. He won’t find $1 trillion either.
Musk now has authority to fire 200 people while retaining authority to whisper sweet nothings in Trump’s ear.
Is this a step forward?
Despite my sarcasm, I wish Musk well. But all team DOGE has come up with are suggestions that Ron Paul, Rand Paul, and others made long ago.
Trump will still have to get those suggestions through Congress.
Meanwhile, DOGE can now come up with new ideas in secret, under guise of improving the digital infrastructure or whatever. But is government secrecy a good thing?
Secrecy sure would not have been welcome under Biden.
Send team DOGE to set up camp in sacramento and find those bnillions
Back in 1987 a little guy at Bloomington Minnesota TUSOA, invented a concept for software and technology for households. This was operating systems and hardware. He presented his developing plan to many groups between 1988 and 1994. The broader his horizons, the more he had gotten squelched. He was encouraged to rethink; and to not try and become like an “all things for all peoples” mentality. His own intellectual property counsel had thought he should pick one or two aspects aside from all of household dynamics in the big picture. What do we now see since then? Amazon, Microsoft, Oracle, OpenAI, so much more big tech attempts at becoming all things to all peoples. Later in 1999, the little guy discovered in his ipCop firewall logs, that 27 gigabytes of data transmitted slowly out of his home office development lab via Comcast. He was flushed out. He went quiet pretty much ever since. He went off grid during 2010. Now he lives on in revised new plans beginning back at his original square one. Using self modeled AI in our private homes to govern our lives toward vast reduction in the need for or purpose of anything out of any bureaucratic government. There, Elon Musk, are your trillions. How about you look me up. I am hard to find. America’s people are more talented than America’s subcontractor governments – municipal, state and federal. We have actual intelligence.
I searched my full name in gematria and it decodes exactly to Elon Reeve Musk on the first returns in all three base ciphers That’s using gematrix dot org for no cost. Fun. Cool. A passtime of mine.
AI is a nice dream but only that and computing has become a cult. The technos want to make their god/play god in the process. I think the web is becoming the tower of babel pretty much. Wayyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy too much computer crap. Think for yourself, now more than ever.
Easy fix:
and the list could go on….
Whatever happened to the Boring Company?
Secrecy sure would not have been welcome under Biden.
—
Secrecy happens under every administration. Everyone keeps looking at the Biden admin for illegal immigration but even legal immigration went gangbusters. Americans lost jobs while those on every type of work visa and asylum visa all got citizens jobs. Big tech regained control of the labor market because of this. They are now really scared MAGA is going reverse everything and end all visa programs so they lined up behind Trump after the election and before inauguration. It is a terrible secret. There is a huge war coming between big tech and Bannon/Miller/Holman. Even Bernie Sanders is now on the side of MAGA. Trump is caught square in the middle will have to pick a side. Eventually I think he will pick MAGA.
If this news is true, look out below for all the expensive AI companies. Why fund billion dollar start ups when a true cheap open source model beats them. More importantly, I would not want to be heavily invested in NVidia if this proves true because most of their stock price is based on server farms needed for AI.
https://decrypt.co/302161/chinese-open-source-ai-deepseek-r1-openai-o1
At least Elon’s office will be far enough away from Trump’s that he can’t just burst in every time he gets an idea….. As a department it has potential. I suspect that Elon will eventually try to staff it with smarter people.
I’m building a hyper loop from there to the Oval Office, so I can get there quickly if I detect someone reprogramming him.
Some one with a six pointed flag, blue on white?
Hard to get excited about any of these folks given one wants to put probes in our brains while another expressed how much better behaved we the sheeple would be if we had AI surveillance watching out over us. Not a Luddite either, but there are times when I’d be a lot more comfortable with “Dumb” cities run competently than “Smart” cities on automatic pilot/Robocop.
This is what you voted for: The wealthy ruling over you with an iron fist. Get used to it.
The democrat party, whatever is left of it, has become the “transgender party”
I always thought it was for laughs on Monty Python’s Flying Circus a half century ago.
Yet Monty Python was British ole’ men ogling scantily clad women in a humorous way.
Trump to send 88K new IRS agents to guard border (or fire them).
Gotta love this president.
Just saw on news that first of 10,000 active duty troops have arrived at southern border.
The headline on Drudge is that Mexico refused a deportation flight that cost $852,000 for 80 people being deported. That would bring the cost of 20 million deportees to $283 billion or almost 1/3 of a trillion for nothing? Ironically, even if 20 million got booted, they’d be back under H1B or some type of visa and someone would pay to bring them back…..Lol.
“Drudge”. lol
Don’t get the “lol” on Drudge. You are aware that it’s just a news aggregator right? Not that different from Mishtalk quoting or linking articles.
Only X has truth. Everyone else lies.
We must destroy the village in order to save it.
We can rebuild it. We have the technology. Better, stronger, more instinctive, more questioning as a village. More reasoning. Less brain fog.
Vivek Ramaswamy quit. During Trump first administration his gov spent $8T to save the poor, the middle class and small businesses. During the last 4 years Biden spent trillions on 2024 election. In the next 4 years the gov will cut spending, transferring power to the private sector, foreign investors, the rich and the banks.
Guys (big guys) at the center of it all, found all sorts of ways to care less about what party, 38 pay grades lower, gets voted into office.
Wait! Is Digital Service now renamed United States DOGE Service, or is it the other way around?
In time, people would realize its actual name should instead have been JOKE. Or SCAM.
It’s a shell game. We all know my real title.
DOGE was a joke from the start. I agree with Mish spending will increase under Trump.
Let’s see trump’s first term he spend 8.9 trillion Biden spent 7 trillion see the difference so this time around he’s going to make the deficit bigger and more beautiful every stupid idea he comes up with is bigger and? More beautiful.
Now if somebody and millions of Americans would realize, all government created ‘money’ is supposed to issue directly to The Treasury of The United States of America on its ledger as credit… instead of being sent to other parties which demand repayment and charge interest as a liability upon America’s U.S. CITIZENS. Just like ‘for profit corporations’ are doing. See what’s wrong? Loy Brunson tells almost all.
As it does under every modern president.
And when, 4 years from now, assuming Trump is still breathing, people will try to rub his nose in his failure. And he will just laugh at them and think “SUCKER!”
Well, except the last one. Guy was holding out on me.
There is an excellent chance at 78 Trump will no longer be above ground in four years.
Some Kimberly Goguen podcasts for her own so-called Global Intelligence Agency. Where from her helm as it’s self-appointed Ground Command, she claims the Donald of today is a near replica to the original already somehow expired in the physical sense several years back. Obviously open to interpretation or speculation, eh?
What is the Einstein visa? And how did Melania Trump get one?hmmm I wonder https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-43256318
Too funny! I demand a Congressional investigation!!
Oops. That isn’t going to work…
BBC is best at covering the likes of the Duke and Duchess of Sussex.
I appreciate any savings that ANYONE can come up with. I expect a lot of savings from Federal Employees who won’t come to work in person. No salary or benefits.
Politico! Are you kidding me?
See: Ex-Politico reporters reveal editors quashed, slow-walked negative Biden stories ‘with no explanation
Trump’s cabinet picks are sailing through Congress contrary to what the “smart insiders” thought and now these same people are writing articles in the usual newspapers and journals saying that DOGE is finished before it even started. He has been in office a total of five days so they are jumping the gun by a large amount. I understand. They have to work their “anonymous sources” before they are fired or removed, which probably will happen soon enough.
We still have several more key controversial nominees coming, fingers crossed..
Patel and Gabbard are the real battle. Who cares about Hegseth?
Take the quote from the Haitian: “I’m not going back to Haiti!” GROWL.
Now, applying that phrase to Boomers: “I’m not going back to being a Walmart Greeter!”
Boomers would never trade teen years in 70s and twenties in 80s for the current abomination.
Wall Street: Rotation from AI to small cap and the regional banks.
IWM is backing up under Nov 2021 (H) @244, inside July/Aug trading range. Ilan might send IWM to the Anti May 12/17 2022, or below.
A very useful dept for figuring out where all the money is going AND what all the government is doing with that money. Of course the Ollie North and General Secord type monies will be hard to uncover. Nonetheless highly useful as I’m sure Obama found as well. In order to go thru all of the secret government operations I’m not sure how everything they do could be public.
Trump’s solution is to replace 90-95% of government employees with Stargate.I say go for it. It can only improve overall effectiveness, without working from home..
LOL. The whole Stargate thing is a scam and we will find ourselves ANOTHER 500B in the hole because of it.
Very profitable for me.
First 125 million will get us off govt dependency by a DIY home version. Oh gawd, stop that guy!!! Right?
Calling it ‘StarGate’ helps totally obscure the previous thing called Stargate found in the middle east several years ago — some kind of alien-like teleporter. What ever happened with all that? Was it merely sci-fi? Oh, I forget.
Take anything that fake-news politico and the NYT say with a BIG grain of salt. More than likely, everything they say is a lie. I didn’t read the above, but they don’t deserve to be read (or quoted).
Also, DOGE has already been proven extremely influential and useful during the recent budget negotiations. If all they do is expose the deep state’s under-the-table negotiations, they will be extremely successful.
Just consider how much money have they saved the US (back in December even before Trump officially took over) by bringing to everyone’s attention the disastrous budget stop gap legislation that the deep state was trying sneak by.
Finally, if DOGE were truly useless (as many with TDS try to portray), the democrats would not be launching one frivolous lawsuit after another.
Many things just don’t add up in this story. The TDS is obviously getting worse.
The oligarchs are the deep state.
And he voted for us!
The deep state is deeper than the oligarchs, because if it wasn’t then the US would be an oligarchy.
Someone has to be pulling the strings. How far down it goes from there, doesn’t matter.
Don’t worry yourself about any of that. Just keep your head down and pay your tax increase.
There is a big fight between the oligarchs over AI. Their reasoning is that whoever controls AI, will control the world. And Musk, Zuck, Altman, Ellison, etc all want to be that person. And they are all in a pissing match to outmaneuver each other. In the western world, it isn’t going to be governments controlling AI. It will be the oligarchs. Musk doesn’t care about DOGE. He is just trying to curry favor with Trump in order to outmaneuver his AI opponents. And he is pissed off, that they just outmaneuvered him.
“…whoever controls AI, will control the world.”
Lol! Not if we can stop Skynet from ever forming.
Yep. That’s how the oligarchs look at it.
But where is AI getting all of its information? From the Internet? Are we saying the Internet is now a treasure trove of useful info?
It’s not just the internet. It’s all data from all sources. Public data sets, crowdsourcing, synthetic data generation, customer data, user generated content, television, radio, the natural world, etc
Combine all that data with machine learning and neural networks. Then make decisions and perform tasks.
Just one example: Think of Musk’s vision of self driving that comes from video cameras on cars looking at the world, and making decisions.
Others are using multiple inputs including LIDAR etc.
All the info in the universe resides in the quantum world. All the AI’s need to do is extract from there.
Skynet came from the USA in the movie. It could just as well originate in Russia or China. What’s you plan for that possibility?
Honestly I don’t believe we’re anywhere near a Skynet or super intelligence. LLMs can’t reason. It’s all an illusion at this point. Perhaps in another hundred years. We’re short a few big breakthroughs.
So you don’t have a plan. Or you just thought it would be cool to bash the USA.
Neither we, Russia or China are close to ASI. But ELIZA easily beats the intelligence of some people on this blog.
Doesn’t matter. AI alone is going to control the world.
Humans not sent to the Soylent Green tanks will become pets of the AI’s.
Probably.
Since none of the oligarchs, except Musk, have anything to do with industrial processes, their version of AI must be about data harvesting and selling personal data.
Sure. Whatever you say.
I gave engineering a shot, and now we have the fabulous Cybertruck! Unfortunately, they aren’t selling well… probably because of the Radical Left.
So I’m changing strategy. It’s not about selling anything now. My profits already come from subsidies and carbon credits, which are essentially NFTs that nobody bothered to make a blockchain for.
We’re going to be more efficient from here on out, and transfer the cash directly from the treasury to my crypto account, just as soon as the bonds are issued.
That 275 billion the presidency cost will yield over a Trillion, and my goose steppers will love me even more!
You see what I said, guys? 80% of Federal spending is in WILDLY popular programs that will never be cut (Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, Defense, Interest, VA programs). And the longer they keep providing press coverage for this “cut Federal spending/DOGE” nonsense, the more people will start to realize the problem is a REVENUE problem, not a spending problem. That tax cuts for people like Musk starts to look like the real problem, and the Repubs dont want people to start looking at it that way. The solution is ALWAYS SPENDING CUTS, no matter how nonsensical. So they get rid of “DOGE” all by itself and start merging the term with other terms. More carnival laughs.
The more revenue grows, the more spending grows. The problem is an irresponsible Congress. Hang one in 10 and the problem is fixed.
You didnt read a word I said.
They don’t want to believe that, so they won’t.
Well, if the revenue isn’t enough, as has been the case for a long time, and it will never be enough for the amount of spending they continue to do (how are they going to get more revenue?), then it is a spending problem. The way it has been dealt with, printing money and suppressing rates, has already been shown to not work, as it causes bad inflation, leading to collapsed home sales, leading to people not having insurance when their home is destroyed because it is wildly overvalued. And people begin to cut discretionary spending in fear of more inflation. Spending will be either cut by the govt to save or consumers because they can’t afford things due to inflation, or both. There’s no way around it.
Medicare and Medicaid can be cut by 90% just by enforcing the existing laws and Supreme Court rulings on collusion and price fixing to cut the medical-insurance complex from 20% of GDP back to under 4%. A reform like that will mean most recipients of government spending on healthcare will be able to pay for it themselves. That will also flow on through to the VA and to all employers paying for workers healthcare insurance and to the part of workers comp premiums that cover medical expenses. With the savings to employers there will be higher profits which will boost the government tax receipts as well as the ability to hire more employees which results in less welfare and more income tax.
But will either party do that what with Big Pharma being a major donor?
Only 2 ways to go, either pay granny less SS and Medicare, or raise taxes. Or do a little of both. All the other stuff is window dressing.
To clarify, that’s in the short term. In the longer term our demographic problem means we have to do a lot more taxing or SS cutting, or else get ourselves more citizens who are working age.
So Generation Y exceeding the population of the Boomers doesn’t fit into your equation not to mention Generation X and the succeeding generations of the Millennials.
https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2020/04/28/millennials-overtake-baby-boomers-as-americas-largest-generation/
The solutions are easy mathematically to fix regarding Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid. It is the the political will that is lacking in the GOP that has as a party at the time of the inception of the social safety net in FDR’s and LBJ’s administrations were against implementing it or expanding it. And since Reagan the GOP has stymied or attempted to gut various methods via reductions in COLA, restricting enrollments, increasing the retirement age, raising FICA taxes on the middle class and employers, raising taxes on the middle class and small businesses, etc., pro rata while also on a pro rata basis reducing taxes on those at the upper end of the economic spectrum. The Democratic Party since Carter has also had a hand it particularly Clinton and his successors.
Rinse and repeat.
Perhaps if the US hadn’t exported jobs, provided tax cuts to the uber-wealthy, fought the Vietnam War, Iraq, Libya, Syria, Ukraine, interceded in Latin America, Africa, Asia, E. Europe in CIA and DOD sponsored wars either covertly or overtly not previously mentioned, conducted periodical audits at the Federal Reserve, the Pentagon, Medicaid and Medicare vendors, there would be more money in the kitty.
Not necessary. Means testing does the job nicely.
Yes, that’s one way to pay out less to granny.
It would mean less to rich grannies. Even in Canada, where the Old Age Pension has been means tested since about 1997, poor and middle income retirees continue to get their benefits (and cost of living increases), which are phased out for high income retirees.
Means testing is a proven strategy to stigmatize those that are working class and the poor… In short, those that are less fortunate.
The biggest cause of bankruptcy is lack of access to healthcare which can lead to homelessness, malnutrition, foster care for children, drug and alcohol addiction, etc.
So, more money for wars and more cat food for granny instead of real food, eh?!
Unfortunately, that is the case for those who don’t have adequate savings. Next time you are thinking of spending $250 or $500 on a ticket to see some celebrity sing for a couple of hours, think again.
I think the country made a big mistake launching the Vietnam war, the Middle East wars and stirring up trouble in Ukraine, which led to the Russia-Ukraine war. I feel sorry for the people of Ukraine, but I did not vote for Obama or Biden. However, I did vote.
While there could be some fools who waste money like that, the vast majority of people in financial trouble that I have come across, do not even have the time to watch news headlines on TV, running as they are between multiple jobs.
You can’t explain away more than 60 percent of the people not being able to afford a $500 emergency by talking about concert tickets etc. The problem is more systemic.
Oh Stu…
Aren’t we already divided enough without putting a stigma on public pensions, public health insurance, etc.?
.
Or maybe we should just take it out of your 401k? What many here seem to miss is that SS (not counting Medicaid), is NOT a welfare program. People were forced to pay into this program (instead of being able to put more into their 401k).
Requiring all 401ks to have 40-50% in Federal bonds would certainly help the Federal Debt problem.
You sound like another taker in need of a math lesson.
First, SS won’t have enough funds to ‘fully fund’ its promises in less than a decade. Therefore, by definition the average SS recipient, including Boomers, are getting more than they pain in, thus the deficit.
Second, of course it’s a redistributive (WELFARE) insurance system, as currently set up. If I make 3X your salary, I essentially pay in 3X as much in SS taxes while working. But I won’t receive nearly 3x as much in SS payments each month upon retirement. So yes, most SS recipients are getting more than they paid in. and you’re welcome.
So you better hope Trump and Project 2025 doesn’t go for everyone-pays-their-own-way, or most of you will take a large SS cut
I wasn’t covered by SS for long being a government employee. My first year SS payments, while relatively low, exceeded what I had paid in during my covered years. Now with the new incoming law I will get to pull off my wifes SS that is considerably higher than mine. So it sounds like SS has plenty of money to spend to me
Granny can cut lawns for the effete suburban libs after their hired hands migrate south. Figure $25 / hour, cash only.
I vote to raise YOUR taxes.