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.