Outside pressure

Let's break up the bromance at the White House.

Elon Musk is the richest man on the planet, and perhaps the most powerful person in Washington.

The billionaire’s position in the White House, where he is using his Department of Governmental Efficiency to slash the federal bureaucracy in the name of President Donald Trump, is only adding to the perception of him as a dangerous figure.

I detail Musk’s far right shift in OWNED (order now!) but even I wasn’t expecting this level of integration into the Republican power structure. Frankly, I don’t think Musk was either.

Two things about Musk and DOGE I wrote recently—

At IT Brew, I published a scooplet on how USAID workers were told that Google’s Gemini AI might be snooping on them.

Google’s Jose Castañeda said that the company’s contract with USAID predates the arrival of the new administration, but the timing of the roll out of the feature could have caused them to coincide. That might mean that the implementation of the AI wasn’t pointed, as the USAID staffers IT Brew talked to feared it might be, but rather a result of the chaos that’s overtaken the agency since the new administration took over.

Then, at MSNBC Opinion, I went in on Musk, his symbiotic relationship with the US federal state, and why it’s so necessary to remove him from power despite the difficulty involved.

Ironically, the same person who empowered Musk might also be more vulnerable to outside pressure than Musk himself. Trump is famously thin-skinned and hyperaware of his standing in the public eye. The question of just what would wind up pushing him and Musk apart has been at the forefront for months given the egos at play and the increasing unpopularity of what the billionaire is trying to do with DOGE. Add to that the potential of plummeting poll numbers as DOGE chaos hits the average American, and the possibility of turning the White House against the billionaire can’t be ignored.

Could be optimistic. The duo seemed to push back on attempts to drive them apart in an interview with Fox News sycophant Sean Hannity.

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• Did I show you all the video trailer Hachette made for the book?

• I went on Citations Needed to talk OWNED

• And on KPFA’s Upfront

• Also on Tech Won’t Save Us!