Elon musk

Vice President J.D. Vance took to the Conservative Political Action Committee stage moments ago for a sit-down interview with Mercedes Schlapp.   In his signature earnest-yet-easy style, Vance reiterated his boss’s main, shared goals one month into the new administration: secure the southern border and grow the economy by unleashing American energy. While casting plenty of blame on the Biden administration throughout his talk, Vance touted the Trump administration’s early accomplishments; border crossings are already down 90 percent, he said, and “we’re just getting started.” In response to a question about fixing the economy, Vance said the key is, “Drill, baby, drill.

Forget Trumpbucks and Bidenbucks: Americans could see Muskbucks (or DoGEbucks?) hitting their mailboxes if the world’s richest man has his way.This time, it wouldn’t be via payouts from X — it would be courtesy of the billions of dollars in savings that Musk claims have already come from the Department of Government Efficiency’s (DoGE) wide-ranging cuts. According to Musk, DoGE has already saved taxpayers $55 billion — and he would like to see payments sent back to taxpayers when his agency winds down ahead of America’s 250th birthday. The idea started — where else?

The current and former US secretaries of transportation are playing the blame game following a rise in aviation crashes since the beginning of the Trump administration. Pete Buttigieg, Joe Biden's transportation secretary, peppered X with questions Monday, asking, “The flying public needs answers. How many FAA personnel were just fired? What positions? And why?” Buttigieg's enquiries followed a string of plane crashes throughout the nation, beginning on January 29 when an American Airlines plane and a Black Hawk military helicopter collided above the Potomac River in Washington, DC, resulting in the death of sixty-seven people.

Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency noted on X their discovery that “federal employee retirements are processed using paper, by hand, in an old limestone mine in Pennsylvania” Tuesday. Apparently, the facility employs 700 people, over 200 feet underground, processing around 100,000 applications per year, which are then stored in boxes and brown envelopes. This processing can last many months, according to the intrepid boys at DoGE. The clear implication was that they had uncovered yet another absurd and archaic operation, needlessly long-winded and ripe for automation. I must confess this was not my reaction. I am generally sympathetic to the idea of lean, thrifty government.

The Trump administration’s Department of Government Efficiency (DoGE) has set its sights on the Pentagon. Defense secretary Pete Hegseth told Axios that he will welcome “the keen eye of DoGE” to scrutinize Department of Defense (DoD) spending “very soon.”Hegseth also said he’s already talked to DoGE head honcho Elon Musk about ways to make the Defense Department run more efficiently. Though in Hegseth’s view “efficiency” does not equate to funding cuts (he wants DoD spending to increase), one quick and easy way to curb waste right out the gate would be to abandon the F-35 fighter jet, fire every senior person involved in its commission and put in place systems to ensure that such horrors never happen again.

With Donald Trump moving so rapidly on so many fronts, it is hard to grasp the big picture. What are his overriding goals, politically and electorally? What has he already accomplished?  Here is a summary in case you are keeping score. Trump has done more in a few weeks than any president in history. He took office with a coherent, detailed program and control of Congress (though a very narrow majority in the House). He is acting swiftly before his political capital dissipates.  Trump hopes to sustain his winning electoral coalition beyond his time in office. That’s why he chose a young populist, J.D. Vance, as his vice president and presumptive successor.

Washington, DC has been struck with DoGE (Department of Government Efficiency) fever — just as everyone started getting over the bugs they all caught at from Trump’s inauguration. Elon Musk and his gang of twenty-something whiz kids are making their mark across the federal government, starting with USAID, which Musk has repeatedly criticized in strident terms as being the core of the corruption he’s seeking to root out.

Elon Musk claims that President Trump and DoGE are shutting down USAID.He made his claim on X Spaces last night following the administrative leave of two senior security officials at the US Agency for International Development (USAID) after they denied the newly established Department of Government Efficiency (DoGE) the ability to receive sensitive data from the agency, the Guardian reports.DoGE was created on Trump’s first day to “maximize governmental efficiency and productivity.” Headed by Musk, the department has already taken action to bring to light extensive federal spending and has been granted access to the US Treasury’s federal payment system.Musk said that USAID is beyond repair.

There were high hopes when Donald Trump announced plans for a Department of Government Efficiency (DoGE) in mid-November. Led by Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy, DoGE was portrayed as a gift to smaller, more efficient government advocates through fewer regulations and a restructured government. “It will become, potentially, the Manhattan Project of our time,” boasted Trump at the time. “Republican politicians have dreamed about the objectives of DoGE for a very long time.” Trump seemed to picture Musk and Ramaswamy as a two-headed monster, ripping to shreds bureaucracy through “advice and guidance” along with an “entrepreneurial approach to government.