As Trump Seeks New Ways to Defund Harvard, Elon Musk Continues to Blow Shit Up
Yesterday, Trump moved to cut all remaining contracts with Harvard University via a letter from GSA instructing agencies to cancel or reassign $100 million in contracts the government has with the university.
The letter instructs agencies to respond by June 6 with a list of contract cancellations. Any contracts for services deemed critical would not be immediately canceled but would be transitioned to other vendors, according to the letter, signed by Josh Gruenbaum, commissioner of the G.S.A.’s federal acquisition service, which is responsible for procuring government goods and services.
Contracts with about nine agencies would be affected, according to the administration official.
Examples of contracts that would be affected, according to a federal database, include a $49,858 National Institutes of Health contract to investigate the effects of coffee drinking and a $25,800 Homeland Security Department contract for senior executive training. Some of the Harvard contracts under review may have already been subject to “stop work” orders.
“Going forward, we also encourage your agency to seek alternative vendors for future services where you had previously considered Harvard,” the letter said.
Meanwhile, SpaceX — among several Elon Musk companies that expect to get increased federal funding under Trump — experienced another failure. While his Starship didn’t blow to smithereens over the Caribbean in its latest launch, like it had on its previous two attempts, it lost control and hurtled to Earth.
The latest flight of SpaceX’s Starship, the largest and most powerful rocket ever built, got all the way up to space, but not all the way back down to Earth.
The upper-stage vehicle coasted through space on Tuesday, surpassing flights in January and March that ended in explosions and showers of debris over the Atlantic Ocean. But halfway through its journey, the spacecraft sprang a propellant leak. That caused it to start spinning out of control. The Starship vehicle used in the test flight was not able to survive the intense heat, breaking up as it fell back into the atmosphere.
By design, the debris fell into the Indian Ocean, far from areas inhabited by people.
I’m writing a longer post on the blasé way reporters are covering Trump’s all-out assault on Harvard, as if such a relentless and largely illegal attack on one of the longest standing bastions of civil society in the US would have no effect on democracy or American well-being.
I’ve been struggling to figure out a way to tell that story better.
The answer may be sitting right there: a comparison of Harvard with Elon Musk.
Which entity engages in more egregious antisemitic behavior, the pretext behind many of Trump’s attacks on Harvard?
The guy who made a Nazi symbol at Trump’s inauguration and welcomed Nazis back onto the platform that the government increasingly uses as an official messaging platform (and as such should be covered by Trump’s Executive Orders prohibiting spending federal dollars on antisemitism).
Which entity commands the more disproportionate profits, a complaint made about Harvard’s endowment in support of attacks on its non-profit tax status?
The guy being paid $46 billion by the failing Tesla, which rivals the size of Harvard’s entire $53 billion endowment.
Which entity engages in more obviously unethical behavior which, along with alleged antisemitism, was the basis GSA cited for canceling contracts with Harvard?
In light of this deeply troubling pattern each agency should consider its contracts with Harvard University and determine whether Harvard and its services efficiently promote the priorities of the agency Agencies should also of course consider various provisions of the Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR including without limitation provisions such as FAR 52.203-13(b ( (ii which requires contractors to otherwise promote an organizational culture that encourages ethical conduct and commitment to compliance with the law.
The guy firing regulators who had started investigations into $2.7 billion of alleged wrong-doing implicating Musk companies, the guy who bought a President for a quarter-billion dollars.
By Laura Loomer’s standards, Elon Musk has as many challenges with immigration as Harvard does, starting with the undocumented workers who helped build his plant in Texas, continuing to his alleged illegal discrimination against refugees, including his expanded reliance on H1B visas in recent years. And all that’s before you consider the evidence that Musk himself violated immigration law while on a student visa.
Viewed as a university, Harvard might be an easy target for Trump — the Wharton grad — to attack as elitist.
But compared as a partner of the Federal government, Harvard has provided far more benefit to the public than Elon Musk.
Harvard was on the path to curing cancer. Meanwhile, like Icarus, Elon spins out of control on his quest to Mars.
“..:Wharton grad…”
According to James Norton, former Admissions Officer at UoP, Trump graduated with the bare minimum TO graduate – a “C” average.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/trump-who-often-boasts-of-his-wharton-degree-says-he-was-admitted-to-the-hardest-school-to-get-into-the-college-official-who-reviewed-his-application-recalls-it-differently/2019/07/08/0a4eb414-977a-11e9-830a-21b9b36b64ad_story.html
There is no evidence that Trump graduated in 1968 with ANY distinction or honor from Wharton. Trump is NOT listed in the Commencement Program listing honorees, contrary to Trump’s claim that he did.
Citation for above:
https://dparchives.library.upenn.edu/cgi-bin/pennsylvania?a=d&d=tdp19681025-01.2.27
“Professor [William] Kelley [marketing professor at Wharton] told me 100 times over three decades that ‘Donald Trump was the dumbest goddam student I ever had.’… Dr. Kelley told me this after Trump had become a celebrity but long before he was considered a political figure. Dr. Kelley often referred to Trump’s arrogance when he told of this — that Trump came to Wharton thinking he already knew everything. ”
Sourec: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2017/10/12/1705902/-Former-Wharton-Professor-Donald-Trump-Is-the-Dumbest-Goddam-Student-I-Ever-Had
I would bet most of his grades have been “gentleman’s Cs” – failing grades, for those of us who aren’t rich.
Wharton rears a boob.
Nice :)
[Welcome back to emptywheel. FOURTH AND FINAL REQUEST: Please use the SAME USERNAME and email address each time you comment so that community members get to know you. You attempted to publish this comment as “Jon Sands” which triggered moderation; I have edited it this once to match your last comment. Stick to the exact same username, check your browser’s cache and autofill. **You are at risk of banning.** /~Rayne]
Yesterday, several media outlets posted that Barron Trump was not admitted to Harvard after applying, but was rejected. This is why Trump gas been so aggressive towards Harvard.
However, the office of the First Lady issued a statement stating Barron never even applied.
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/melania-trump-slams-rumors-harvard-barron-b2759106.html
Most of us Jews do not appreciate being used as cover for this stuff. It just puts a bigger target on our backs.
Both Musk and Trump are antisemites. Full stop. In any case you don’t stop that hate the way the administration is (allegedly) trying to. Likewise I do not think Claudine Gay or the other University presidents at that hearing should’ve stepped aside, despite their utterly risible and idiotic responses.
A writer on another platform sadly and truthfully wrote
Most of the believers in christ are antisemites. Full stop. It is unclear if the Jewish People understand that they are between a rock and hard place with it’s two main off shoots of Judaism. I see the Jewish choice similar to the African American one, stay in the South where the racism is overt or move North where the racism was covert.
As an aside, I read Ken Klippenstein’s substack on the recent shooting in DC and that post lead me to a Rand study that was enlightening to me as it seems to be the basis for many of the moves Hegseth/Trump are making at the DOD with regards to Lawfare and the recent push for Golden Dome USA.
https://www.kenklippenstein.com/p/the-israel-embassy-shooter-manifesto
Rand Study for the US Army.
https://www.rand.org/pubs/research_reports/RR1888.html#document-details
What do you mean?
I think the …”two main off shoots of Judiasm” are Christianity and Islam.
“Most of the believers in christ”
Got a cite for that statement?
I won’t argue that many are – but they’re bigots in other ways, also.
The statement might be more accurate, if it referred to the institutions rather than believers. But it’s obvious nonetheless.
You might consider doing your own research, starting with the edicts of expulsion of Jews from England in 1290, and from Spain in 1492. Or the systemic State Dept and societal antisemitism that delayed American recognition of Hitler’s Holocaust for years and prevented most Jews from escaping to this country and most others. The early Church’s antisemitism is well-known, as was its various iterations during the Medieval era. See, the Cult of the Virgin Mary, which was closely tied to antisemitism.
Personal anecdote from my childhood: at the age of 8: a child neighbor of mine and schoolmate at elementary school, spontaneously confronted me one day with garbage his Catholic parents had obviously drilled into him about my family (Jewish): “You guys killed Jesus!”. I didn’t know what to make of that sudden outburst parroting his parents’ beliefs in a rather accusatory tone.
Also, I remember my father’s attitude toward Catholics at the time was pretty derisive – this was prior to Vatican II. After that, those attitudes eased up a bit.
I took medieval history in college – it’s something of a hobby. The reason Jews ended up in banking was that it was portable and they didn’t need to own property. Same for doctors, and other kinds of merchants. (Some of my relatives have Jewish ancestors. You learn a lot – but I already knew about some of the pogroms in western Europe.)
Replying to your 2nd comment:
They were not allowed to own property and in many places were not allowed to practice any of the professions like medicine or law. So yes, it had to be portable / itinerant: fiddlers, shoemakers, tailors, peddlers (dry goods and wet ones: fruits / vegetables), and of course “money lending”. One of my great grandfathers peddled dry goods, my father’s father was a shoemaker.
drhester
Sis-in-law’s great-great grandfather was, we think from Belarus (Russia, then). He came to the US, was a peddler for a bit, then moved his family to California, where he became a manufacturer of wine, brandy, and non-opiate patent medicines (hence the wine and brandy).
Nephew-in-law is a lawyer; his father was in insurance, and farther back than that, brewers (St Louis/KC) and doctors (in Europe). Some were in the US in the 1880s or earlier.
I do know that they couldn’t own anything they couldn’t move, and I apologize for that egregious error.
I read a couple of weeks ago that a bill meant to “combat antisemitism” had to be amended to preserve the right of Christians to claim that Jews killed Jesus. (MSNBC was just one of the outlets running the story: https://www.msnbc.com/opinion/msnbc-opinion/antisemitism-awareness-act-bill-cassidy-rcna203896)
I Was Hillel President [at Harvard]. Trump Claims His Funding Cuts Help Jews — He’s Wrong.
https://www.thecrimson.com/article/2025/4/1/miller-harvard-trump-funding-review-antisemitism/
Of course. It will likely make things worse for any Jews there.
According to the United Nations, Palestinians are Semitic people.
I don’t understand how the white nationalist Trump Admin can claim that the protesters of the genocide of the Palestinian people in Gaza by the Israeli government, can be construed as anti-Semitic – given that BOTH GROUPS are Semitic people.
It’s seems what the Trump Admin is doing is intellectually dishonest
https://www.un.org/unispal/document/auto-insert-206581/#:~:text=Thus%20it%20can%20be%20seen,small%20numbers%20of%20Semitic%20Jews.B
They do it by redefining antisemitism as “opposing the COUNTRY of Israel”.
Antisemitism in it’s original sense meant ‘prejudice against Jews.’ As far as I know Arabs weren’t involved. Anyone who tries to make it ‘opposition to Israel’ should be clobbered with phrases like ‘unable to make fine distinctions’ and ‘Do you understand the difference between a religion and a nation?’ Etc.
For all of the MAGAts that I ever come across, I find that nuance is not their forte in life.
6 New Members Elected to Harvard Board of Overseers [The Crimson]
“Harvard alumni elected six new members to the Board of Overseers, the University’s second-highest governing body, Harvard announced Tuesday morning.
The newly-elected Overseers include Upstream USA Chief Executive Officer Mark A. Edwards ’82; Center for Climate and Energy Solutions president Nathaniel O. Keohane; former Tufts Medical School dean and pharmaceutical executive Michael Rosenblatt; Tubi CEO Anjali Sud; actor and SAG-AFTRA Foundation president Courtney B. Vance ’82; and NPR All Things Considered podcast co-host Mary Louise Kelly ’93, a former Crimson News editor. …
All five of the candidates that the Coalition for Diverse Harvard — an alumni group focused on promoting diversity and inclusion at Harvard — endorsed were elected to the Board of Overseers. Rosenblatt did not score an endorsement from the Coalition, who recommended that alumni only vote for their five chosen candidates rather than cast a sixth ballot.
Of the three candidates the 1636 Forum, an alumni group created by former Facebook executive Samuel W. Lessin ’05, endorsed, two — Rosenblatt and Keohane — won their races. …”
https://www.thecrimson.com/article/2025/5/27/overseers-2025-elections/
So, the 1636 Forum, which, under the guise of calling for academic excellence and student safety, represents Trumpism and Likud within the Harvard community, scored 1/3 of the seats up for grabs. I’m not sure even Harvard can survive simultaneous attacks from without and within.
Context: that’s two seats out of thirty-one. https://www.harvard.edu/about/leadership-and-governance/board-of-overseers/
And one of those two candidates was *also* endorsed by the Coalition for Diverse Harvard.
But wait, there’s more!
Prominent Conservative Lawyer Kannon Shanmugam To Join Harvard Corporation [Harvard Crimson]
“Kannon K. Shanmugam ’98, a prominent appellate attorney with strong Republican ties, will join the Harvard Corporation on July 1, the University announced on Thursday. …
Shanmugam, a former member of the Office of the Solicitor General in the George W. Bush administration’s Department of Justice, is currently a partner at Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison. [LOL] …
Shanmugam is a frequent speaker at events held by the Federalist Society, a national conservative law organization. He also clerked for the late Justice Antonin Scalia of the Supreme Court, a prominent originalist and mainstay of the court’s conservative wing.
Harvard President Alan M. Garber ’76 and Corporation Senior Fellow Penny S. Pritzker ’81 wrote in a press release that Shanmugam would provide “fresh perspectives and valuable insights” to the Corporation. …”
The arc of the bending the knee is long, but it bends toward bending the knee.
https://www.thecrimson.com/article/2025/5/30/kannon-shanmugam-harvard-corporation/
This is the type of post that can be simplified even further for access by low-info voters. One that provides contrast and opportunity for their capacities to connect and catalyze curiosity.
Very simply, there has not been a message presented by anyone that accessibly describes the situation(s) at hand as well as Trump does. He presents and relates at a visceral and incomprehensible level. The place where words are meaningless and instinct prompts. I was at his final rally in Grand Rapids, MI the night of the election. Talk about simple, understandable, relatable.
And know, if this upsets you, you weren’t the intended audience.
I believe EW provides a needed perspective and has been an asset for my own understanding and growth. Many of you would agree. But we create our own bubble. One created with specialized language and social constructs that are not part of the middle of the bell curve milieu.
Sorry for the wake-up call but this blog is not for the middle of the bell curve. But this post is.
Insurance companies are not your friends, that’s why they use cartoonish characters to present their products (over & over) to the middle of the bell curve. It works. Who wants to argue with Progressive when you are friends with “Flo”. Again, if this is illogical to you, you are not the audience.
And it works. People come to believe what they feel, not what they should or would be in their own interest.
Maybe some of the billion dollars Dems and supporters freely spent before the election might find a compatriot cause or message post election. The battle begins in between Wheel of Fortune and Jeopardy and continues in the daily micro-venues of individual attention.
I wish it was here. I love this micro-venue. With insights like these, truth and logic should have already risen to the middle of the landscape for everyone to consider. Alas, it has not…yet. But it is always a good read and helps me bridge the gaps in my understanding while becoming a resource for the many who will never glance at EW.
Thank you Marcy and the EW team.
[Welcome back to emptywheel. Please use the SAME USERNAME and email address each time you comment so that community members get to know you. You attempted to publish this comment as “Fell Cadwallader” triggering auto-moderation; it has been edited to reflect your established site policy-compliant username. Please check your browser’s cache and autofill; future comments may not publish if username does not match. /~Rayne]
“This is the type of post that can be simplified even further for access by low-info voters.”
You’ve been commenting here for five years. By now you know this site isn’t for low information voters. The content here makes it easier for those whose audiences are low-info voters to get the facts straight and note other contextual details shaping those facts.
You’re mistaking what is done at this site with what is supposed to have been done by mainstream corporate media. Aim your concerns about accessing low-info voters there.
Characterizing this medium as a “micro-venue” is neither endearing nor accurate. Thanks very much.
Marcy, let’s not leave out Musk’s active campaigning for the Alternativ für Deutschland, Germany’s far-right, Nazi-curious political party, in Germany’s last election.
Germans specifically and Europeans more generally have not forgotten this, as Tesla’s European sales figures make clear. From that noted, not-at-all-lefty outfit, CNBC, with emphasis added:
Selling half as many electric vehicles as you did last year, even as the overall EV sales grew by over a third? That’s a neat trick! No wonder Tesla’s board rained billions in compensation on Musk for the heckuva job he’s doing for them.
France24 did some digging into Musk’s political activities, too:
Let’s face it honestly: Musk wants to blow up the whole damn West.
Fraudulent Trump University paid $25 million settlement to victims he scammed. No surprise he is attacking Harvard University of higher education. The man is constantly in attack mode thriving on conflict, bonded in hate and drunk on power. He said in February 2016, “I love the poorly educated.” Yes, the dumbing down of America.
About trying to figure out how to talk about these two things- I know the analogy has been made before of the mother and father. The Dems/Liberal/Progressive as mother and the Repubs/Conservatives as father. But there’s more nuance to that. What I’ve been reminded of over and over lately is something from own family- two of my nephews were raised by just their mothers, their fathers were around but not in meaningful ways. Their mothers struggled as single parents, the fathers seemed to breezed in when they wanted to. When the boys turned 18 they both became very critical of their upbringings and since their fathers were on the periphery that means their criticism fell on their mothers. And their fathers were eager to join in and tell their sons lies basically about their mother and their history together in order to gain sympathy and allegiance from their sons. It worked. Both nephews turned against their mothers with intense anger and resentment and blamed their mothers for what they saw as lacking in their lives and what they saw as harder road for their future. In both cases my mother, their grandmother, sat each nephew down and told them the hard, naked truth about their fathers and their personalities and behaviors that necessitated them being raised by their mothers. This gave the nephews a counter to what the fathers were saying but it wasn’t until the fathers did things to the sons personally that they fully accepted what my mother had told them. I don’t know if this helps with how to talk about what happening today but it does seem the truth telling and the personal experience are starting to meet and will continue to do so.
Very apt, thank you. Getting only parts of the story, especicially when you are too young to know better, is a real problem. The college I attended touted the virtues of a liberal education–reading all points of view, all history, comparing and contrasting, to enable us to make good decisions in our own lives. That approach would probably be considered heresy to many these days.
And bless your mother for doing what she did.
According to SpaceX Elon’s toy didn’t explode; it experienced a “rapid unscheduled disassembly.”
LMAO! Feeling that MAGA BDE!
MAGA small-d energy There is a reason why they drive around in big trucks hiked-up in the air with a Trump flag in the back. Only the insecure with something to prove, do that. It’s aka “compensating” for something they lack.
The title to this post at one point used RUD.
But then spouse told me, just fucking used the blow shit up.
LOL, I almost used RUD in my poem, too.
Ashli Babbitt wasn’t killed; she experienced a Rapid Unscheduled Departure.
It’s not the biggest lie he’s ever told, but one Trump whopper drives me crazy and it’s unknowingly perpetuated by thousands, including commenters on this post. Donald Trump does NOT have an MBA from the Wharton School of Business, the elite graduate school at the University of Pennsylvania or any other graduate degree. Trump has a bachelor’s degree from the Wharton School of Finance, the UNDERGRADUATE business program at Penn. But naturally Trump is happy to let people assume he was awarded the far more prestigious Wharton MBA because of his business “genius.” Given all the witness accounts of his academic incompetence, he’d never have qualified for admission to the graduate school, no matter how much money his father donated, and he’d never have been able to earn a degree there. The only thing Donald Trump really excels at is lying, but it doesn’t mean we have to help him.
He says he graduated from Wharton, which is true, as far as it goes, and lets the listeners assume the rest.
He also leaves out that he was admitted as a favor to a friend of his brother, and otherwise wouldn’t have gotten in at all.
Gimcrack
Which fascist is a Nazi
and which fascist is a thug,
Which fascist is a mobster
and which mobster loves to mug?
Which mug is in the White House
and which one wears a rug,
And which one in the White House
is in charge without a plug?
Which DOGE(sic) is a Nazi
and which one has bad blood,
Which DOGE(sic) is a robber
and which one is such a crud?
Which crud was in the White House
and which one’s name is mud,
And which one left the White House
and has landed with a thud?
Which Justice is a fascist
and which fascist is a quack,
Which fascist is a Nazi
and which Nazi has whose back?
Which Justice owes a mobster
and which one is a hack,
As the ones who owe a mobster
do work that’s all gimcrack.
Do like the poem, made me laugh, thank you
Elon is giving “Everyone hates me. Woe is me” interviews about how no one in DC likes him now, the Big, Beautiful Bill didn’t include DOGE’s reductions, etc. The Washington Post had a puff piece on Musk on May 27th with him back in Space City to watch his rocket unravel. He said DOGE just realized how antiquated the government’s technology is and will start reforming it. No wonder he wants to go to Mars asap. He is beginning to realize that taking a chainsaw to the government before he understood it might have been not very bright.
He’s also just now finding out that all those agencies and bureaus he was chain-sawing are there for reasons he’d never bothered to learn about, because he’s The Smart Guy And Knows All (except, clearly, why governments exist and have regulations).
This just in: https://www.sfgate.com/news/politics/article/federal-trade-court-blocks-trump-from-imposing-20350182.php
Now we find out if this will stick.
Trump admin lodged an appeal “within minutes” of this ruling coming out:
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c8xgdj9kyero
Of course they did. They believe they shouldn’t be stopped from achieving whatever they want today. Even if it’s illegal, immoral, and unconstitutional.
…if it doesn’t stick because…SCOTUS, then Don will TACO (Trump Always Chickens Out) anyway. That is why we have on one day, off the other, on again, off again…trade sanctions today.
Oh the ‘genius’ of a C-grade undergrad student from Wharton Business School.
TACO seems to me like an on/off switch for insider trading: selling before tariffs are announced, buying before they are taken back or postponed.
Rumor has it that in leaving DOGE, Elmo took Steven Miller’s wife with him. (Miller is not happy.) Rumor also says some other things about those three….
If I was Stephen Miller’s wife, I’d leave him for the first person who showed any interest in me, but Elmo? Talk about “frying pan to fire”!
The Miller/Waldman marriage was strange to begin with. How could any woman think marrying Stephen Miller is a good idea – let alone breed with him. Ick.
As deputy press secretary for the United States Department of Homeland Security during the tenure of Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen under Trump 1.0, Waldman repeatedly denied that DHS was separating children from their parents under the Trump administration’s family separation policy – no doubt winning Stephen Miller’s cold, calculated, ghoulish heart.
In December 2024, Trump announced that Waldman would be joining the Department of Government Efficiency.
Now you know the rest of the story.
I suspect she likes power, and people who have it (especially if they have money).
I have been away from EW for a while and I am always so impressed by the intellect and wit of the people who post here, when I return. Double ick if Stephen Miller’s wife is romantically involved with Lumpy Face. She is going to help him seed his new utopia? Yuck. But, anyway, I wanted to address Marcy’s original post question of why MAGA people are more concerned about Harvard than SpaceX. The simple answer is propaganda – Steve Bannon, Rupert Murdoch, Joseph Farah and many others have spent decades spinning yarns about how evil liberals are and how liberal universities are “destroying America” with their evil liberal thoughts (without really specifying the mechanism). While Elon Musk is revered as some sort of new Thomas Edison with his phantasmagorical inventions, when he is really just a nerdy spreadsheet jockey who made a few lucky investments. This wanton destruction of one of the greatest institutions of Western learning only makes sense in the alternative universe of fiction that right-wing media has created.
Talk about poor choices in life, Katie not only married Stephen Miller, but she left Miller for Elmo – which begs the question: Is being a part of Elmo’s breeding harem a step-up for Katie?
One theory is that Trump’s animus toward Harvard is personal, driven by his history with Pritzker family. Penny Pritzker is chair of Harvard’s Board.
Trump’s history with the Pritzkers started in the 1970s, with his Hyatt Hotel project in NYC. Penny’s uncle was a major party to that arrangement. By the 1990s, the deal had gone bad and Trump had it out for the Pritzkers
https://www.cnn.com/2025/05/06/us/penny-pritzker-harvard-board-trump
Clearly, Trump picked out Harvard as a target for the tip of his spear because he is attempting to cripple universities – where thinking people who can see through his bluster tend to congregate. Could Trump be that petty that he would use a personal beef from decades ago to pick out his top target?
The fact that Penny’s brother, J.B. Pritzker, is a prominent Trump critic could also be a part of it.