The Tax Elon Solution and Other Actual Reporting Not Included in the Frenzy
Politico’s Dasha Burns reports something that isn’t making headlines elsewhere: the fun of the Trump-Musk fight may be short-lived.
White House aides are trying to broker a peace.
White House aides, after working to persuade the president to temper his public criticism of Musk to avoid escalation, scheduled a call Friday with the billionaire CEO of Tesla to broker a peace.
“Oh it’s okay,” Trump told POLITICO in a brief telephone call when asked about the very public breakup with his onetime megabacker. “It’s going very well, never done better.” Trump went on to tout his favorability ratings saying, “The numbers are through the roof, the highest polls I’ve ever had and I have to go.”
Update, 1:30 ET: One after another access journalist has spoken to Trump and are now reporting that Trump thinks Elon has a problem. One after another access journalist has left unanswered — if Elon is nuts, why did Trump let him run unfettered through government for four months and what will Trump do to make sure Elon didn’t damage the government?
Aside from that actual news report, much of the rest of the reporting is no better — and often worse — than what we can do from the comfort of our own EU perch.
The same Politico lists seven right wingers who could get caught between the two narcissists. But only JD Vance — whose endorsement of Trump in the wake of Elon’s seeming endorsement of impeaching Trump was rather mild — is really stuck between the Silicon billionaires and Trump.
I’m really not worried, for example, about the Millers (though agree Stephen is the most likely peace broker, since he had a big role in recruiting Elon in the first place). And while David Sacks was one of Elon’s entrees into the Trump world, Trump’s increasing addiction to cryptocorruption guarantees Sacks some protection inside the White House.
Meanwhile, NYT has an inane post about eight ways Trump and Musk might damage each other. It doesn’t seem to realize that Musk could not just use Xitter as an irritant (which is what it reports), but could also rejigger Xitter to undercut the way it favors right wing discourse and disinformation generally. NYT simply doesn’t understand how important Xitter is to the far right project, not even with Charlie Kirk’s slavering tribute to it amid the worst of the blowup, not even with the way Elon destroyed Xitter’s gateway function to real journalism, in the process damaging outlets like NYT.
Worse still, NYT doesn’t seem to understand the ways Trump has used the presidency to pay off his election debt to Elon; it even calls DOGE a “pet project.”
Wield the power of the presidency against him. Mr. Trump has a tremendous array of powers at his disposal, with the ability to sign executive orders punishing political adversaries and to direct agencies like the Justice Department to initiate investigations. He could end some of Mr. Musk’s pet projects, such as the so-called Department of Government Efficiency, as well as his embrace of white South Africans, a priority of Mr. Musk’s.
As I noted, Elizabeth Warren made a list of 130 ways Elon exploited his access to Trump, many of them involving short-circuiting regulation of his businesses (this is an entirely different set of benefits to Elon than I included in this post).
34. Musk has direct business interests before over 70% of agencies and departments targeted by DOGE.
35. The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) was a top target. Musk called for “delet[ing]” the agency and DOGE attempted to fire up to 90% of CFPB staff, who would regulate X Money.
36. President Trump fired the CFPB Director and the new head of CFPB forbade the agency from doing work — after CFPB had received over 300 consumer complaints about Tesla.
37. X also deleted CFPB’s official account on the social media platform, limiting the public communications of an agency that regulates Musk companies.
38. X deleted the account of Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) Commissioner Richard Trumka Jr. after he posted about President Trump’s allegedly illegal firings of Democratic CPSC commissioners.
39. The Trump Administration fired Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) commissioners after EEOC investigated Tesla for alleged racial harassment and retaliation at the company’s Fremont Facility.
40. The Trump Administration plans to cut potentially thousands of EPA employees, after the EPA found that SpaceX violated the Clean Water Act, investigated Tesla’s actions at its Austin Facility, and investigated an xAI facility in Tennessee for air pollution.
41. The Trump Administration began requiring any EPA spending greater than $50,000 to obtain DOGE approval, potentially allowing Musk to slow down environmental enforcement actions, like past investigations into Tesla and SpaceX for hazardous waste dumping and other alleged activity.
42. The Trump Administration attempted to fire hundreds of FAA employees, including some who directly contribute to air safety, after the FAA required SpaceX to abide by environmental requirements.
And NYT’s treatment of DOGE as a “pet project” ignores one of the real risks exacerbated by this blowup. Elon’s DOGE boys remain burrowed into government agencies, rewarded for their lack of experience and ties to criminal hackers with GS-14 and GS-15 salaries.
Although Elon Musk has said that he is largely exiting his role at the so-called Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), at least three of his early operatives and key lieutenants throughout his government takeover have recently become full-time government employees.
Edward Coristine, Luke Farritor, and Ethan Shaotran’s employment designations at the General Services Administration (GSA) have been officially converted to full-time from the restricted special government employee classification that limited their time in government to a period of 130 days, according to documentation viewed by WIRED.
Coristine, who has gone by “Big Balls” online and previously worked for a telecommunications firm known for hiring former blackhat hackers, was converted to full time on May 31, along with Farritor. Shaotran became full time on April 10.
[snip]
Coristine, Farritor, and Shaotran, according to documentation viewed by WIRED, each maintain their “senior adviser” titles. Coristine and Farritor are drawing some of the largest salaries possible for government employees through the “General Schedule” employee rankings. They have a salary grade of GS-15, one of the highest grades, and Shaotran is one step below at GS-14. When they were special government employees, Coristine, Farritor, and Shaotran did not appear to be drawing salaries at all through GSA, WIRED reported in March.
These boys have access to our data! We still haven’t learned who was exfiltrating data from NLRB — as reported by whistleblower Dan Berulis — or why entities using a Russian address seemed to know the new login accounts created by DOGE boys.
18. I started tracking what appeared to be sensitive data leaving the secured location it is meant to be stored. I initially saw gigabytes exiting the NxGen case management system “nucleus,” within the NLRB system, and I later witnessed a similar large spike in outbound traffic leaving the network itself. From what I could see the data that was being exfiltrated added up to around 10 gigabytes– in the case that the data was almost all text files it would be the equivalent of a full stack of encyclopedias worth if someone printed these files as hard-copy documents. It is unclear which files were copied and removed, and I’ve tried multiple routes to prove this was not an exfiltration event but none have yielded fruit and some have been stopped outright. I also don’t know if the data was only 10gb in total or whether or not they were consolidated and compressed prior. This opens up the possibility that even more data was exfiltrated. Regardless, that kind of spike is extremely unusual because data almost never directly leaves NLRB’s databases.
[snip]
21. On or about March 11, 2025, NxGen metrics indicated abnormal usage at points the prior week. I saw way above baseline response times, and resource utilization showed increased network output above anywhere it had been historically – as far back as I could look. I noted that this lined up closely with the data out event. I also notice increased logins blocked by access policy due to those log-ins being out of the country. For example: In the days after DOGE accessed NLRB’s systems, we noticed a user with an IP address in Primorskiy Krai, Russia started trying to log in. Those attempts were blocked, but they were especially alarming. Whoever was attempting to log in was using one of the newly created accounts that were used in the other DOGE related activities and it appeared they had the correct username and password due to the authentication flow only stopping them due to our no-out-of-country logins policy activating. There were more than 20 such attempts, and what is particularly concerning is that many of these login attempts occurred within 15 minutes of the accounts being created by DOGE engineers.
Whether the fight between Elon and Trump is real and ongoing or whether it’ll be patched up, the blowup should lead people from both parties to demand that these DOGE boys be removed from government systems and agencies and a thorough audit of their work be done systemwide. Yes, Elon’s meltdown is cause to revisit his security clearances (with a consequent review of the SpaceX relationship), but the national security and privacy risk posed by Elon’s infiltration of government is actually far broader than that.
Finally, I’m not seeing any outlets point out that making one small change to the Big Ugly bill at the center of this dispute — the huge tax cuts for people like Elon — would not only limit the damage it does to the deficit (Elon’s claimed complaint with it) but also call Elon’s bluff (since he very much wants to eat his tax cut too).
Let’s tax Elon. That’ll make this blowup go someplace productive!!
The narcissistic explosions of last night really aren’t just fun and games, as they’re largely being treated by the press.
They’re a visible reminder of the problem with access, the problem with wealth inequality, the problem with campaign finance failures, the problem with Trump’s unbound corruption.
To pay off a campaign debt, Donald Trump let an unstable man — allegedly abusing drugs — with no understanding of government bureaucracy unleash a tribe of DOGE boys throughout government for four months, countering the will of Congress based on his whims and conspiracy theories. And now that man has threatened vengeance on Trump.
This may get papered over because Trump needs to paper it over.
But it’s high time the political press caught up to Wired and ProPublica in unpacking the grave risk of all this.
We have reached the epitome of constitutional collapse. A lawless corrupt president granted broad immunity, a feckless congress, a corrupted judicial system. Just as the founders feared, a government run by people with no moral code without any concern for the common good. The John Roberts court must be so proud.
Yes, and the Russian addresses is really concerning. Absolutely no daylight here and it will take a Democratic Admin to find out the deets.
John Roberts is a man without a moral compass. He should be reminded of that as often as possible.
Yes to all. Let’s not forget that Citizens United opened the door for Elon to come along and buy 2024 for Trump; Roberts helmed that one, and he is the connecting link to last year’s immunity decision. The various theories behind these decisions, such as the Unitary Executive, have never been anything more than flimsy improvisations cooked up by the far-right judiciary and funded by the untouchable wealthies they serve.
Roberts owns all this. He’s been paid fairly well (through his wife) not to care. He calls himself a Christian. I don’t know how he sleeps at night.
He’s one of the Christians for whom Jesus is an afterthought.
$400 billion or thereabouts is a lot of money, but the presidency conveys a lot of power, especially for a man who has proved immune to scandals that would scuttle most politicians. Putin throttled troublesome (to him) oligarchs. In the fight between Putin and Prigozhin my money was always on Putin. Whatever access Elon has to whatever damaging information there is to be had about Trump, I don’t see what he gains by this. If this battle continues, Elon loses. In some ways, I kind of wish Elon could damage Trump, but I don’t see it. And in the very unlikely event of total Trump capitulation, the idea of President Vance is not comforting.
Rick Wilson did an “Open Letter to Elon Musk” podcast in which he suggested that Musk rejigger X (twitter) to deplatform Trump. A few conspiracy theories given prominence might also be interesting.
After the first round, I’d have to score the match a draw. They both delivered glancing blows but nothing serious. Unless Musk has photos, the Epstein accusation is weak tea because Trump’s relationship with Epstein has been out there for a while. Trump’s threat to cancel contracts is bluster. It is interesting that Trump, as an aside, wondered why Biden hadn’t cancelled the contracts, as if everyone puts personal animus ahead of the country’s interests.
If there is a second round, it will be interesting to see who Musk has as allies. Was the “impeach Trump and make Vance President” an attempt to get Peter Thiel on board? Or just a not so subtle reminder about who’s Vance’s daddy?
Marcy, thanks so much for this post. I especially agree with your concluding remarks:
“The narcissistic explosions of last night really aren’t just fun and games, as they’re largely being treated by the press.”
“They’re a visible reminder of the problem with access, the problem with wealth inequality, the problem with campaign finance failures, the problem with Trump’s unbound corruption.”
…..
“…it’s high time the political press caught up to Wired and ProPublica in unpacking the grave risk of all this.”
I don’t think Musk will win in any overall battle for public opinion. Trump is much better at that.
However, it will only take a few votes, a couple of senators, for instance, to shut down the BBB. Only a few. Musk might be able to manage that. Especially if he starts hyping the crushing debt it will incur.
The risk of Elon Musk’s DOGE boys being embedded isn’t just about national security. I don’t see media covering the fact that X isn’t Musk’s only leverage. He could shut down the Treasury and other IT systems if he’s given himself the right admin access. Of course, this is a card he could only play once, whereas Trump has endless ways he can fuck over Musk’s business and personal life. I imagine there are also smaller ways Musk could use the data he allegedly stole—he’s already floated the Epstein files—that could embarrass or sabotage Trump.
Cambridge Analytica on steroids as well.
Shutting down the US Treasury’s payment systems and other USG IT systems are odd things to exclude from your description of national security threats.
If we think that Musk has plundered or bought the full Epstein files – or if Trump believes he has – will we recognize a TACO? What will Musk do if his threat doesn’t work?
I’ve also been wondering if Elon has the files already. It might be why Trump is okay with Miller trying to broker a truce.
Undoubtedly, Musk has laundered all our data with AI and it’s sitting somewhere (Palantir?). With that data they can do what Cambridge Analytica did… times 1000. Big data power – but where will Musk point it?
That Palantir panopticon is one scary surveillance machine.
Questions should be asked.
Perhaps the “pee tape”(or something like it) is real. It didn’t have to take place in a Moscow hotel room though.
Maybe filmed by Epstein and eventually sold to the Kremlin? Or even stolen and sold to the Kremlin?
(IMHO, we will NEVER “see” the “Epstein Files”. No way the gov would give up such an incredible amount of bipartisan dirt when there’s extortion to be had)
Has anyone war-gamed this one out? Aside from the Russian, Chinese, Israeli and multiple other intelligence agencies, of course. I mean, are OUR intelligence folks gaming it out?
Because what’s being treated as entertainment by the press poses numerous real dangers. Most obvious: it serves as cover for that vicious, anti-democratic bill to crawl under the radar to passage. But also it distracts the man supposedly in charge of the nuclear codes, whoever that really is. It may look like a pissing contest, but a POTUS and the World’s (maybe) Richest Man both have way too much power right now, and way too little impulse control, for this strafing not to cost collateral damage.
I think money actually talks louder than an almost 79-year-old vanity vortex who can’t see beyond his own event horizon. Musk is no genius. But he’s rich as hell, which means that in the world as we’ve designed it he can achieve almost anything.
NASA and the Pentagon are definitely worried and scrambling to find some alternative solutions to the total reliance they have on SpaceX. It’s not at all funny. I wonder what board members are doing and thinking now.
I wonder about the FAA. Musk succeeded in ousting its chief, IIRC. Then DOGE cut past the fat and into at least needed muscle, if not bone. Americans notice aviation safety–or rather, the lack thereof. Musk’s contracts (or contracts with contractors) were/are burrowed throughout the government.
That’s part of why I think he can do more damage to Trump (and the rest of us) than Trump can do to him. God alone knows what lunatic politician Musk might feel like throwing a hundred million dollars at next year. He was largely responsible for JD Vance landing an atherosclerotic heartbeat away from fulfilling every white Christo-nationalist’s dreams.
“Threats over SpaceX contracts send officials scrambling for alternatives” – The Washington Post, 6/7/25
“The fight between President Donald Trump and Elon Musk highlights the government’s outsize dependence on a single company for missions.”
…..
“From a legal and practical standpoint, the threats by the president and Musk would be difficult to carry out, said procurement specialists. If either the government or the company opted out, they would face major financial penalties, government procurement experts said. And if the contractor pulled out, it could affect its ability to win future contracts.”
https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2025/06/07/trump-musk-spacex-nasa-national-security/