MUSK is Leaving after Gaining Billions in Future Contracts

  

This article is adapted from a Choose Democracy newsletter email.

I’ve been searching for a metaphor to grasp the meaning of Elon Musk’s departure from DOGE. The closest I can come is an abusive relationship, where the person being harmed makes a significant break from their partner, like moving out, but hasn’t completely ended the relationship.

As a friend, you know all is not well. The threat of violence remains. The relationship is still toxic and dangerous. Still, you applaud the move. You don’t feed your friend’s aching feeling of disempowerment and loss — you feed the courage, the agency and the strength to keep going.

So it’s in that spirit that I want us to take a moment to acknowledge, even celebrate, our collective achievement of a massive, unplanned retreat by the richest person on the planet. Yes, it’s not everything — but if we can only cheer when it’s everything, we’re going to live sad lives.

It must be said: Musk’s departure is not because of the 130-day limit on special government employees. Plans had already been made to blow past that. Sure, Trump will spin this as part of his plan — but we have to stop ourselves from thinking that everything they do is masterminded. The anti-authoritarian side can also be relentless, brilliant, courageous and strategic.

Workers ignoring Musk orders. Institutional resistance to DOGE. Tesla Takedown. Pension letters. All these efforts beat back the salesmanship of Donald Trump hawking Teslas on the White House lawn and the richest man attempting to insulate himself from the people’s will.

This is a collective achievement. And I know, it’s hard to hold any kind of victory in dire times of great loss, but trench warfare tells us that before you can fully stop a thing, you have to slow it down. This is a moment for marking a significant slowing.

A critical retreat, not a total withdrawal

Musk’s 130-day tenure at DOGE was characterized by aggressive cruelty. He eliminated somewhere between 200,000-260,000 federal positions through mass firings, buyouts and early retirements. He didn’t achieve his stated goal of $2 trillion in savings. Even his website, filled with misleading and inaccurate claims, only touts around 8 percent of that goal — and actual verifiable numbers are closer to 0.8 percent. The most casual look at his 31 percent cut of tax auditors at the IRS reveals that the goal isn’t savings — it’s enriching himself and displacing democracy. Predictably the Republican budget is set to explode deficit spending andextract more money from all but the richest people in this country.

Nevertheless, Musk did manage to traumatize people in government, as well as much of the country. He’s walking away having stolen vast amounts of our data, killed investigations into his companies and gotten billions in government contracts — including a staggering $831 billion deal to build a fanciful Golden Dome. 

President Trump is not a reliable source of information — so it’s unwise to take it too literally when he says, “Elon’s really not leaving.” To be sure, the abusive relationship likely isn’t over. But the relationship has transformed starkly. 

After months of sycophant behavior, Musk spent his final weeks repeatedly attacking Trump policy — a violation of the social norms of Trump’s mob loyalty. Musk expressed “disappointment” about Trump’s spending bill. He has apparently withheld $100 million of pledged donations to Republican campaigns. He blasted Trump’s Middle East sweetheart deals that gave preference to Musk’s AI competitor Sam Altman. These open attacks are new and part of a significant growing political distance between Trump and Musk.

While it’s reasonable to doubt how far he is stepping back, it’s notable that a lot of key players in Elon Musk’s team are leaving the White House too. Steve Davis, Musk’s long-time confidant and internal coordinator, packed his bags. Recently fired DOGE staffer Sahil Lavingia told Wired Magazine, “Steven was the only person who was across everything” — leaving a massive hole in DOGE’s coordination. Katie Miller, the wife of the anti-immigrant crusader Stephen Miller, is also following Musk out of the White House. She was another critical node, the person who others trusted with the unenviable task of giving Musk bad news.

 

 

Trump Impounds Billions of Public Money : An Administrative Coup

 

Our summary is this: It's an administrative coup. Trump has ordered tens of billions (maybe up to $3 trillion) of budget halted indefinitely in a blatantly illegal move. He's claiming power to halt and potentially redirect funding that's already been authorized by Congress — a classic authoritarian move.

Here's what we know. And we're doing our best to catch up with this story, because it's moving fast.

There's a memo from Matthew Vaeth, the acting head of the Office of Management and Budget. (That's the same government entity who set-up the DEI "snitch" line, that's now been spammed by tens of thousands of our fellow residents.) 

In typical Trump-style, the memo gets its facts wrong. It claims in FY2024 the US government spent $10 trillion (actually it was $6.8 trillion). It says money should be used for the administration's priorities — "The use of Federal resources to advance Marxist equity, transgenderism, and green new deal social engineering policies is a waste of taxpayer dollars that does not improve the day-to-day lives of those we serve." (Again, it's very fact deficient.)

The memo says a pause will begin at 5pm on January 28th where, "Federal agencies must temporarily pause all activities related to obligation or disbursement of all Federal financial assistance, and other relevant agency activities that may be implicated by the executive orders, including, but not limited to, financial assistance for foreign aid, nongovernmental organizations, DEI, woke gender ideology, and the green new deal."

Anyone promised federal grants might have their money at risk, even states. This is Congressional directed spending and Trump is ordering people to not do it. This funding includes universities for education and research programs, nonprofits, local and tribal governments, disaster relief aid, education and transportation funding, loans to small businesses… the list is long. (It does explicitly exclude Social Security and Medicare and "assistance provided directly to individuals.")

The mainstream press hasn't caught the significance. The NY Times has the story buried. The Washington Post at least has it as their top story, but with wild understatements like "the order's legality may be contested." Smart groups like Democracy Forward are already looking for plaintiffs (if you think you might be one, please contact them). 

Others see this rightly as a huge power grab: "What OMB is doing violates the constitution itself. The ICA fills in the details of how congress and the executive interact over the spending power, but finding the ICA unconstitutional and ratifying OMB’s action here would mean overthrowing the most fundamental constitutional design."  Thanks to journalist Marisa Kabas who broke this story.

Rebecca Solnit has captured some of the immediate pushback from Democrats in Congress. For example:

“They say this is only temporary, but no one should believe that,” Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-New York) said in a statement. “Donald Trump must direct his Administration to reverse course immediately and the taxpayers’ money should be distributed to the people. Congress approved these investments and they are not optional; they are the law.”

So what can we do?

It's been a lot. And the shock approach of this administration is to overwhelm us with nonsense and a state of paralysis. We continue to believe the best thing is to stay grounded and keep yourself sane amidst insanity. 

At this juncture, three actions we suggest that make sense to us:

1) Urge media to cover this story properly

This is not "possibly illegal" — it's "patently illegal." You can read notes on that here.

It's not "temporary" — it's "indefinite." There's no timetable for ending it.

It's not just a memo — it's an administrative coup.

2) Urge your Representatives to act like this is a big deal

If you know us, this isn't a knee-jerk action we suggest. We think this is a strategic because it's Congress that's being violated — their power is being directly undermined. 

3) Continue to support ACLU and Democracy Forward

These groups have been preparing litigation for some time. Unless Trump revokes this, this will certainly make its way through the courts. Our read is even the biased courts will have trouble swallowing this — so it may end up being shut down. 

Keep breathing. “Do not judge me by my successes, judge me by how many times I fell down and got back up again," Nelson Mandela.

Warmly,

- Choose Democracy

Chipmaker’s Scramble to Build Marred by Mistakes and Injuries

Chipmaker’s Scramble to Build Marred by Mistakes and Injuries: TSMC’s $40 billion semiconductor facility in Phoenix, an open shop that resisted signing an agreement with labor unions, has been tainted with accidents, alleged wage theft, and costly setbacks.

Anti Union $40 Billion, financed by U.S. Taxpayers.