Summary
The White House confirmed that Elon Musk is working as a “special government employee” under Trump, granting him significant authority to cut federal spending.
Musk has a government email, office space, and access to sensitive Treasury systems. His team abruptly shut down USAID headquarters on Monday.
Musk is consolidating unchecked power, raising legal and ethical concerns, particularly given his federal contracts.
Musk is unpaid and may not be required to disclose financial interests.
But he’s autistic guys! We’re all misunderstanding, there is no Nazi coup going on.
So is there no conflict of interest with the companies he runs getting federal contracts? Don’t politicians need to put their companies into some type of trust where they can’t run it and make decisions that would be in their favour? I mean I know it doesn’t work like that with stick trading (cough cough Pelosi).
I brought up the conflict of interest to a trump coworker and he deadass said, “I get the conflict of interest, but I just don’t care.” The mask is fully off.
Edit: not that I’m surprised, just depressed and somewhat bewildered
Trump did away with the trust thing. And they let him because it wasn’t a law, it was just something that was understood to be done. No talk of him doing it this time either.
Company he runs? You really think he has time to run 5 companies while jerking off on twitter and now is spending his time jerking off in the treasury. The man just does what ever he feels. None of it is remotely called “work” he’s basically a walking jerk off
It’s still a massive conflict of interest.
Fair point, I can’t disagree.
Well, isn’t that ‘special’.
Trump hires immigrant on welfare.
Also “special” sometimes used as a slur for the neurodivergent, so he’s also a DEI hire.
If you want to get cancelled call him >!cishet!<
But not an actual employee??
Well, he’s an illegal immigrant, so no not an actual employee.
Thought I’d update the image
Perfection
Where’s all the “But…but…Jack Smith wasn’t legally appointed” people at?
I imagine that as a formality Musk’s recommendations go past Trump, then to Russell Vought who is head of the OBM (office of management and business), and the actual official in charge of funding allocations.
I think congress is the actual official in charge of funding allocations.
Is that Trump-speak for “minister without portfolio”?
glad someone said it: thats the actual historical term this headline reminded me of immediately
Employees get paid. He’s a special government intern. Violating internship guidelines to prevent abuse of power using unpaid interns in a ‘special’ way. Also these asshats were up in arms about ‘Special Counsel’ investigations being illegal like 2 weeks ago. We good with those again, or no?
He is public enemy #1
He failed background check.
Oh he’s special, alright.
He looks pretty special in the photo.
Not good enough.
Just because Trump declares him special doesn’t mean he is, or that he should have special privileges, anymore than his moronic cabinet picks can start moving their shit into their office before being confirmed by the Senate.
As long as we the people continue to allow it, he is indeed whatever they say he is.
And being special doesn’t excuse him from being a nazi.
He’s only special in the short bus sense of special.
Let’s be careful to not throw our differently abled friends under the bus by comparing them to Musk.
After all, most of them are kinder and have more sympathy than Musk.
*empathy
Oh no, this is one of those really fun powers we gave presidents a while back and forgot about. Presidents have a wide ranging authority to temporarily hire people and skip most of the ethics and oversight stuff that comes with normal federal hiring. The limitation is that it’s only good for certain positions, which DOGE, (formerly USDS) is a part of.
What if donvict says “I HEREBY declare fElon as special” on his own stupid social media platform? Is that super duper Constitutional enough for everyone?
I have to admit, president musk was not on my bingo card.
It’s been on my Bingo card since I realized that he basically bankrolled Trump’s campaign by himself. He set up a PAC just to win the election.
Aww, who’s the specialist little boy in the government? Who is? Who is?
