WEBVTT - Inside Elon’s Attack on the US Government 0:00:02.480 --> 0:00:08.559 Bloomberg Audio Studios, Podcasts, radio news. 0:00:12.560 --> 0:00:15.320 Well, Elon Musk is now the richest person on the planet. 0:00:15.800 --> 0:00:18.639 More than half the satellites in space are owned and 0:00:18.760 --> 0:00:20.480 controlled by one man. 0:00:21.079 --> 0:00:24.360 Well, he's a legitimate super genius. I mean legitimate. He 0:00:24.400 --> 0:00:27.040 says he's always voted for Democrats, but this year it 0:00:27.080 --> 0:00:27.720 will be different. 0:00:27.760 --> 0:00:28.720 He'll vote Republican. 0:00:29.000 --> 0:00:31.480 There is a reason the US government is so reliant 0:00:31.520 --> 0:00:34.040 on him. Elon Musk is a scam artist and he's 0:00:34.080 --> 0:00:35.120 done nothing. 0:00:34.800 --> 0:00:50.080 Anything he does, he's fascinating the people. Welcome to Elon Ink, 0:00:50.120 --> 0:00:54.320 Bloomberg's weekly podcast about Elon Musk. It's Tuesday, February fourth. 0:00:54.640 --> 0:00:57.840 I'm your host, Max Chafkin in for David Papadopoulos. A 0:00:57.840 --> 0:01:01.400 few months ago, many people, although not let's be clear, 0:01:01.640 --> 0:01:06.160 the people on this podcast, were seeing Elon Musk as 0:01:06.440 --> 0:01:09.800 at best sort of a figurehead within the Trump administration, 0:01:10.000 --> 0:01:12.560 somebody who'd be on a blue ribbon panel and would 0:01:12.600 --> 0:01:15.760 mostly spend his time running his six very large, very 0:01:15.800 --> 0:01:18.640 important companies. But the events of the past few days 0:01:18.680 --> 0:01:21.920 have been shocking even to those of us who thought 0:01:21.920 --> 0:01:24.959 that Elon would take a big role. Starting late last week, 0:01:25.319 --> 0:01:29.200 Musk and his Doge team members went out across numerous 0:01:29.240 --> 0:01:34.880 federal departments and armed with Trump's executive orders, began sowing chaos. 0:01:35.200 --> 0:01:37.360 We're going to get into what happened and what might 0:01:37.400 --> 0:01:39.520 come next, and then take a look at how Musk's 0:01:39.520 --> 0:01:42.680 actual businesses are doing with a trade roar at home 0:01:43.040 --> 0:01:47.520 and all of this Musk created chaos and political divisiveness 0:01:47.880 --> 0:01:51.640 here at home. It's a lot to discuss all this. 0:01:51.680 --> 0:01:54.800 We have Bloomberg's elon Musk reporter Dana Hull Hey Dana 0:01:55.120 --> 0:01:58.600 Hey Nax and Bloomberg Politics reporter Ted Man joining us 0:01:58.600 --> 0:02:02.960 from DC Hey, Tedy. And here in New York, Anthony Cormier, 0:02:03.200 --> 0:02:06.480 a investigative reporter who co authored a great story yesterday 0:02:06.800 --> 0:02:11.800 from inside the offices of Musk's attempted takeover of USAID. 0:02:12.240 --> 0:02:13.760 Welcome Anthony, Thanks for having me. 0:02:14.160 --> 0:02:17.280 All right, So, Anthony, you co wrote this story with 0:02:17.360 --> 0:02:18.799 our colleague Jason Leopold. 0:02:19.000 --> 0:02:22.640 It is basically an inside. 0:02:22.000 --> 0:02:26.240 Account on what's kind of like a battle almost that 0:02:26.280 --> 0:02:29.920 played out inside of this us AID, which is a 0:02:29.960 --> 0:02:32.560 big foreign aid office inside the federal government. 0:02:32.680 --> 0:02:35.320 Just tell us what happened as far as you understand. 0:02:34.960 --> 0:02:38.840 It well, And there was a really unusual confrontation in fact, 0:02:38.880 --> 0:02:42.720 on Saturday between a group of what people are calling 0:02:42.760 --> 0:02:46.840 the Doge kids. These are young technologists who seem to 0:02:47.160 --> 0:02:51.080 have an ideological bent that is similar to Elon's. And 0:02:51.080 --> 0:02:56.080 they've been tapped by Musk and this new Doge team 0:02:56.160 --> 0:02:58.760 to go in and look for spending cuts and they 0:02:58.760 --> 0:03:03.399 took aim last week at USID, and so they show 0:03:03.480 --> 0:03:07.359 up on Saturday as the building is empty, and they 0:03:07.440 --> 0:03:12.079 demand access to the entire suite of offices, root around, 0:03:12.240 --> 0:03:15.920 and after some back and forth, one of the members 0:03:15.919 --> 0:03:19.240 of the Dose team calls Elon himself, and Elon gets 0:03:19.440 --> 0:03:23.320 on the phone with the security office of USAID and says, look, 0:03:23.320 --> 0:03:24.760 if you don't let us in, I'm going to call 0:03:24.880 --> 0:03:28.440 the Marshall Service. Which is kind of an extraordinary circumstance, 0:03:28.600 --> 0:03:31.239 kind of an unheard of conversation between these two sides. 0:03:31.960 --> 0:03:32.440 They get in. 0:03:32.560 --> 0:03:36.280 It's our understanding that they do in fact go through offices. 0:03:36.320 --> 0:03:40.160 They're looking, in fact in desk drawers, and ultimately they 0:03:40.240 --> 0:03:44.240 want to get into a security office, a secure facility 0:03:44.360 --> 0:03:46.720 that you need a certain security clearance to get into. 0:03:47.240 --> 0:03:49.240 Security says, no way, you can't do it. One of 0:03:49.280 --> 0:03:51.760 our piece of our reporting suggests that they actually tried 0:03:51.760 --> 0:03:55.640 to open a locked door to this secure facility. There's 0:03:55.640 --> 0:03:58.280 a big blowout, the security officials are put on leave. 0:03:58.840 --> 0:04:00.880 It's unclear at this point where than in fact they 0:04:00.880 --> 0:04:03.240 did get into this office and what they were seeking. 0:04:03.400 --> 0:04:06.640 Okay, so I want to get more into this confrontation 0:04:06.840 --> 0:04:09.720 over the weekend before we do that, Ted, There's been 0:04:09.760 --> 0:04:14.200 a lot happening with DOGE in Washington. We've seen Musk 0:04:14.320 --> 0:04:16.559 sort of go after a handful of targets, the Office 0:04:16.600 --> 0:04:19.200 of Personnel Management, which is like HR for the government 0:04:19.400 --> 0:04:22.839 General Services Administration, which controls I think the buildings the 0:04:22.839 --> 0:04:25.479 Treasury Department's payment system. We talked about that on the 0:04:25.520 --> 0:04:28.359 Emergency podcast over the weekend. Can you just sort of 0:04:28.400 --> 0:04:31.800 put this latest thing into context for us, sure? 0:04:31.880 --> 0:04:35.680 I mean what Anthesy is describing as an especially dramatic 0:04:35.760 --> 0:04:38.080 and colorful version of what has happened at a bunch 0:04:38.120 --> 0:04:40.480 of these other offices you just mentioned, where these landing 0:04:40.480 --> 0:04:44.720 teams of DOGE employees are just showing up and requesting 0:04:44.760 --> 0:04:48.880 access to the basic plumbing systems of the federal government, 0:04:49.080 --> 0:04:52.799 how money moves around, how people get hired, the information 0:04:52.880 --> 0:04:55.719 that is stored about every program and every person who 0:04:55.760 --> 0:04:58.839 works in the federal government. So it really is exactly 0:04:58.880 --> 0:05:03.920 what the executve orders that created this non agency agency promised, 0:05:03.920 --> 0:05:06.719 which is that they've they've given him the keys to 0:05:06.760 --> 0:05:08.720 all the systems, or they're trying to at any rate. 0:05:08.760 --> 0:05:11.280 In some cases, obviously they're having to try to take 0:05:11.320 --> 0:05:13.640 them because they lack the legal authority. But it does 0:05:13.640 --> 0:05:15.760 seem like this is this attempt to kind of get 0:05:16.120 --> 0:05:18.600 over top of the whole machine and figure out how 0:05:18.600 --> 0:05:19.320 it works. 0:05:19.640 --> 0:05:23.360 And Dana, is you on doing anything else of the moment? 0:05:23.440 --> 0:05:26.000 Is he basically just is this like a doze like 0:05:26.279 --> 0:05:28.080 one hundred percent full time right now. 0:05:28.640 --> 0:05:30.680 He did take an hour out of his busy schedule 0:05:30.760 --> 0:05:33.120 last week to like be on Tesla's earning call, but 0:05:33.200 --> 0:05:36.000 he is hunkered down in Washington, d C. His plane 0:05:36.040 --> 0:05:39.400 has been at Dulles for two weeks. And Anthony, what 0:05:39.480 --> 0:05:42.159 kind of really struck me about your story over the 0:05:42.160 --> 0:05:46.440 weekend is kind of the gleeful abandon with which Musk 0:05:46.560 --> 0:05:49.279 and the Doze crew, where kids as some as some 0:05:49.360 --> 0:05:51.839 have called them, are going about this. I listened to 0:05:51.880 --> 0:05:54.880 Elon Musk do his X spaces on Sunday night, and 0:05:54.880 --> 0:05:59.039 he was like very euphoric about about what they had done. 0:05:59.320 --> 0:06:02.680 To be clear, shutting down which we're in the past 0:06:02.760 --> 0:06:05.640 is doing shutting down USAID. The reason for that, as 0:06:05.640 --> 0:06:09.320 opposed to simply, you know, trying to do some minor 0:06:09.320 --> 0:06:13.560 house cleaning, is is that as we dug into USAID, 0:06:13.800 --> 0:06:16.480 it became apparent that what we have here is not 0:06:16.600 --> 0:06:18.760 an apple with a worm in it, but we have 0:06:19.120 --> 0:06:20.960 actually just a bowl of worms. 0:06:21.400 --> 0:06:25.279 He also said, we spent the weekend feeding USAID into 0:06:25.279 --> 0:06:27.760 a wood chipper. Could have gone to some great parties, 0:06:28.000 --> 0:06:29.000 did that instead? 0:06:29.360 --> 0:06:31.640 Yeah, Anthony, I think this is a really important point. 0:06:31.680 --> 0:06:35.039 Like Musk is not a nine to five person. He 0:06:35.200 --> 0:06:37.839 operates a lot on the weekends and a lot late 0:06:37.880 --> 0:06:40.760 at night, and the fact that this kind of confrontation 0:06:40.880 --> 0:06:43.320 happened on a Saturday is just super striking to me. 0:06:43.360 --> 0:06:46.240 I think that's by design. And could you just talk 0:06:46.240 --> 0:06:48.240 a little bit more about like who the doged landing 0:06:48.320 --> 0:06:50.159 team at USA I did is? I mean you and 0:06:50.240 --> 0:06:52.840 Jason and your story actually had like the names of 0:06:52.880 --> 0:06:55.400 these people and many of them are like twenty five 0:06:55.440 --> 0:06:58.479 and under, recent college graduates, young engineers who have worked 0:06:58.520 --> 0:07:01.120 for Elon's other companies. Can you give us a little 0:07:01.120 --> 0:07:03.240 bit more census to who exactly they are. Do they 0:07:03.240 --> 0:07:06.159 have security clearances? Are they special government employees? 0:07:07.240 --> 0:07:09.600 They are all great questions, we think. 0:07:09.760 --> 0:07:13.440 So far, they've been assigned to other government offices, the 0:07:13.440 --> 0:07:17.640 Office of Personnel Management, the GSA, the Small Businesses Administration. 0:07:17.680 --> 0:07:20.840 I believe one of them has been and they all 0:07:20.840 --> 0:07:23.440 seem to have, like I said earlier, an ideological bent 0:07:23.600 --> 0:07:26.400 as far as we can tell. For instance, there's a 0:07:26.400 --> 0:07:30.440 fellow called Gavin Kleeber. He's a twenty something who has 0:07:30.440 --> 0:07:33.840 a blog, and on his blog he expounds on these 0:07:33.880 --> 0:07:37.560 kind of conspiracies about how the CIA was responsible for 0:07:37.600 --> 0:07:40.840 everything that happened to Congressman Matt Getz. There's another individual 0:07:40.840 --> 0:07:44.040 on that that sort of beachhead team that was at usaid. 0:07:44.880 --> 0:07:46.680 This is a person who is a teeal fellow. Right, 0:07:46.720 --> 0:07:51.920 So we're seeing people who come from that sort of strainingly. 0:07:51.160 --> 0:07:55.320 Online right wing conspiratorial ecosystem. 0:07:55.400 --> 0:07:57.320 Right, your words are perfect, right. 0:07:57.800 --> 0:08:00.000 These are the people who sort of believe in that mission, 0:08:00.480 --> 0:08:03.200 whatever you think of it, and they've been hired and 0:08:03.320 --> 0:08:05.800 tasked with many of the similar things. I mean, there's 0:08:05.800 --> 0:08:07.640 a brilliant story in the New York Times about how 0:08:07.720 --> 0:08:11.480 this mirrors what happened at X right that they go 0:08:11.560 --> 0:08:14.880 in and wipe out half the staff and figure it 0:08:14.920 --> 0:08:19.080 out later. And folks at USAID are saying to us, like, 0:08:19.560 --> 0:08:25.960 you can't break malaria coverage, like it's irresponsible to stop 0:08:26.000 --> 0:08:29.320 some of the funding of these measures, and they've to 0:08:29.400 --> 0:08:30.840 use his words, put it in a wood chipper. 0:08:31.240 --> 0:08:33.720 It also really mirrors what happened at TESLA, right, So 0:08:33.760 --> 0:08:37.680 like last spring, Elon Musk fired nearly twenty percent of 0:08:37.720 --> 0:08:40.920 the staff at Tesla and people literally like were going 0:08:40.920 --> 0:08:43.040 to work in the morning and they only knew that 0:08:43.080 --> 0:08:45.640 they had been dismissed because their badges no longer worked 0:08:45.640 --> 0:08:48.600 and they were immediately cut off from all systems. That's 0:08:48.640 --> 0:08:51.080 what's happening at USAID right. Like people that are like 0:08:51.120 --> 0:08:53.160 in missions around the world are like all of a 0:08:53.160 --> 0:08:56.440 sudden like told like that they're fired, but they can't 0:08:56.440 --> 0:08:59.839 even access any kind of system to like get reimbursed 0:08:59.840 --> 0:09:03.160 for they're plane ticket home or like to close out 0:09:03.160 --> 0:09:05.439 what they'd been working on with their partners. I mean, 0:09:05.520 --> 0:09:07.839 people are really like around the globe or left hanging. 0:09:08.120 --> 0:09:11.440 There's medicine on the loading dock in some cases, like 0:09:11.480 --> 0:09:15.040 there's just we've just walked away from real obligations that 0:09:15.080 --> 0:09:16.000 affect real lives. 0:09:16.240 --> 0:09:18.600 TED build on that a little bit, because I don't 0:09:18.640 --> 0:09:21.440 think we've totally established what said stake here, Like, first 0:09:21.440 --> 0:09:24.079 of all, I don't think it's clear that Elon Musk 0:09:24.160 --> 0:09:27.280 has in fact destroyed like he I'm not sure that 0:09:27.840 --> 0:09:30.520 you know, sorry to use the metaphor, but put it 0:09:30.520 --> 0:09:33.160 in the wood chipper. And also like if he were 0:09:33.200 --> 0:09:37.360 to destroy USID, like, what does this organization actually do well? 0:09:37.400 --> 0:09:38.800 I mean, to your first point, there are a lot 0:09:38.840 --> 0:09:41.280 of people who point out he legally lacks the authority 0:09:41.360 --> 0:09:44.320 to destroy USAID was created by a statute. It was, 0:09:44.480 --> 0:09:46.600 you know, a law made this thing. He can't undo 0:09:46.640 --> 0:09:48.800 it by waiving a magic wand at it. The question 0:09:48.880 --> 0:09:53.079 is whether anyone in Washington who opposes this is going 0:09:53.120 --> 0:09:54.640 to stand up to it or going to find a 0:09:54.640 --> 0:09:56.760 way that's effective. And we don't really know the answer 0:09:56.800 --> 0:10:00.920 to that. USADA is broad, and it's like a lot 0:10:00.960 --> 0:10:05.160 of federal agencies where it's it's they all have something 0:10:05.160 --> 0:10:07.080 that we've talked about this before. It's easy to pull 0:10:07.120 --> 0:10:08.960 out and make fun of. You know, there's always some 0:10:09.800 --> 0:10:12.559 budget line for research that sounds stupid if you want 0:10:12.600 --> 0:10:14.680 to make it look like they're just out there wasting money. 0:10:14.720 --> 0:10:18.160 But it's also it's an agency directing soft power by 0:10:18.200 --> 0:10:22.400 funding humanitarian efforts around the world. It's intended from its 0:10:22.440 --> 0:10:27.240 outset to project American benevolence and force in opposition to 0:10:27.360 --> 0:10:31.200 other superpowers, namely Russia and China. So, yeah, that's the 0:10:31.240 --> 0:10:33.680 thing that they have just switched off with no warning. 0:10:34.160 --> 0:10:35.920 It does sound like it's very analogous to what you're 0:10:35.960 --> 0:10:39.480 describing Dana Tesla and what happened at X, but you know, 0:10:39.559 --> 0:10:43.080 it's a little bit different when we're talking about baby formula. 0:10:43.520 --> 0:10:45.880 Yeah, this has come up in a few stories and 0:10:46.000 --> 0:10:48.000 Anthony and maybe it's you've even come across it. 0:10:48.000 --> 0:10:48.520 I'm curious. 0:10:48.520 --> 0:10:51.160 But like the idea that they're using quote unquote AI, 0:10:51.559 --> 0:10:56.000 these these dose kids are using AI to essentially figure 0:10:56.000 --> 0:10:58.640 out what's cut And I feel like, to Ted's point, 0:10:58.720 --> 0:11:00.920 like a lot of these things you do a search 0:11:00.960 --> 0:11:04.719 for them and it sounds pretty bad or it sounds like, oh, 0:11:04.720 --> 0:11:06.600 this is some frivolous thing. But a lot of what 0:11:06.720 --> 0:11:11.560 USAID does is sort of project American influence in the world, 0:11:11.600 --> 0:11:13.320 Like this is this is like a big part of 0:11:13.360 --> 0:11:16.240 our like Foreign Policy and. 0:11:18.640 --> 0:11:24.360 Foreign Policy Magazine once describe usa AIDA's work as trying 0:11:24.400 --> 0:11:28.480 to do good things in bad places. And it's everything 0:11:28.600 --> 0:11:34.320 from again, like HIV treatment in Sub Saharan Africa, it's 0:11:34.360 --> 0:11:37.600 rebuilding Ukraine. They've got there' spent loads of money there, 0:11:37.679 --> 0:11:41.120 appropriate loads of money there. And I think to its critics, 0:11:42.240 --> 0:11:44.920 like their USAID is seen as sort of a front 0:11:45.000 --> 0:11:47.640 for the CIA. I mean, there's not real evidence to support, 0:11:47.640 --> 0:11:50.160 at least in recent years anyway, but you can see 0:11:50.200 --> 0:11:54.640 why it might be a target of folks like Elon 0:11:54.720 --> 0:11:59.400 Musk or Donald Trumptil who have an ideological bent against 0:11:59.520 --> 0:12:03.040 expound our power. And also, like Trump, ran on an 0:12:03.080 --> 0:12:07.240 America first platform, and their argument is going to be 0:12:07.320 --> 0:12:11.120 I think that these programs still serve Americans first. Right, 0:12:11.240 --> 0:12:14.280 No one on this call is going to be the 0:12:14.320 --> 0:12:18.240 beneficiary of a USAID program. But I think you could 0:12:18.240 --> 0:12:23.240 make an argument that like solving famine and poverty in 0:12:23.640 --> 0:12:27.160 developing countries does keep the United States safe. I mean, 0:12:27.200 --> 0:12:30.000 that's like what JFK started this whole thing about, right. 0:12:30.240 --> 0:12:33.760 JFK in nineteen sixty one, to combat some Soviet Union 0:12:34.240 --> 0:12:38.400 essentially said that American security American national security is best 0:12:38.440 --> 0:12:41.480 served by stability across the world. So he starts a 0:12:41.520 --> 0:12:46.520 program that will reduce famine, war, and poverty across the 0:12:46.520 --> 0:12:49.600 world in the hopes that it will keep us safe 0:12:49.600 --> 0:12:52.040 here at home. And I think that's what soft power 0:12:52.080 --> 0:12:52.400 looks like. 0:12:57.440 --> 0:13:01.440 So we've seen a couple of congress people, Senator Roger 0:13:01.480 --> 0:13:05.280 rit Wicker of Mississippi kind of pushback gently. He said 0:13:05.520 --> 0:13:08.240 he'd seen usaid kind of to your point, Anthony as 0:13:08.360 --> 0:13:11.320 quote our way of combating the Belton Road initiative, that's 0:13:11.360 --> 0:13:14.360 like the Chinese equivalent of soft power. We've also seen 0:13:14.400 --> 0:13:18.240 Democrats push back, probably even more strongly. Let's play a 0:13:18.240 --> 0:13:19.760 clip from Senator Bryan Shatz. 0:13:20.200 --> 0:13:24.200 You cannot wave away an agency that you don't like 0:13:24.480 --> 0:13:28.360 or that you disagree with by executive order or by 0:13:28.440 --> 0:13:32.800 literally storming into the building and taking over the servers. 0:13:33.200 --> 0:13:35.880 Yeah, that's kind of where the Democrats are, Dana, do 0:13:35.960 --> 0:13:39.640 we have a sense of where President Trump is here? 0:13:39.679 --> 0:13:41.760 I mean this has been kind of a running theme, 0:13:41.880 --> 0:13:44.360 like how like plugged in, is President Trump here? How 0:13:44.600 --> 0:13:48.120 was he like, Yeah, Elon, go go destroy usaid, go 0:13:48.160 --> 0:13:50.240 put in the woodshipper, or did Elon kind of do 0:13:50.360 --> 0:13:51.120 this on his own. 0:13:51.559 --> 0:13:54.400 I think that Elon did it with Trump's blessing. I 0:13:54.440 --> 0:13:56.200 think that there was a comment from Trump at one 0:13:56.200 --> 0:13:59.440 of the briefings that Elon can't do everything that he wants, 0:13:59.480 --> 0:14:02.559 but he checks in and like this was okay. Marco 0:14:02.640 --> 0:14:05.880 Rubio yesterday said that now parts of USAID are going 0:14:05.920 --> 0:14:08.240 to be sort of absorbed into the State Department. So 0:14:08.880 --> 0:14:12.560 this is not Elon going rogue. Elon Musks thinks that 0:14:12.720 --> 0:14:15.160 he has a mandate to do this, and until the 0:14:15.200 --> 0:14:18.040 Trump administration stops him, he is not going to stop. 0:14:18.400 --> 0:14:21.720 I think what has surprised people is like the speed 0:14:22.160 --> 0:14:24.640 with which he is doing it. It's almost like watching 0:14:24.720 --> 0:14:27.760 like a foreign nation get sacked, where like they take 0:14:28.080 --> 0:14:31.000 like city over city over city, and they're going agency 0:14:31.000 --> 0:14:33.160 by agency by agency. And I think that they've had 0:14:33.200 --> 0:14:35.800 this plan in the works for months. And I'm also 0:14:35.880 --> 0:14:39.720 super interested in how Doge is working with either in 0:14:39.760 --> 0:14:42.800 tandem or in parallel with the folks at omb and 0:14:42.960 --> 0:14:46.120 Ross Voyd and Project twenty twenty five, Like these are 0:14:46.240 --> 0:14:48.120 very similar objectives. 0:14:48.640 --> 0:14:48.880 Yeah. 0:14:48.880 --> 0:14:50.760 Absolutely, And I think we're gonna we're gonna have to 0:14:50.760 --> 0:14:53.320 talk about Russ Vaught at some point on this podcast. 0:14:53.560 --> 0:14:55.760 I wanted to play one more clip from that very 0:14:55.880 --> 0:15:00.480 surreal Twitter spaces. You know, first of all, the who 0:15:00.520 --> 0:15:02.640 is out at Dose just like showed up as a 0:15:02.640 --> 0:15:04.800 co host, which was sort of weird and amusing, and 0:15:05.200 --> 0:15:08.480 there was this like slightly awkward vibe I thought between 0:15:08.480 --> 0:15:10.520 the two men. And then there was also this moment 0:15:10.560 --> 0:15:15.280 where Musk actually spoke to his kind of relationship with 0:15:15.400 --> 0:15:17.800 President Trump. Let's just listen to that real quick. 0:15:17.720 --> 0:15:19.240 And this could be done without the full support of 0:15:19.240 --> 0:15:22.720 the President and with regard to the USA, I do stuff. 0:15:22.720 --> 0:15:24.920 I went went over with him, you know, in. 0:15:24.880 --> 0:15:28.680 Detail, and he agreed with the that we should we 0:15:28.680 --> 0:15:30.960 should shut it down. I mean, that's want to be clear, 0:15:31.040 --> 0:15:34.680 that's and I actually checked with him a few times. 0:15:35.360 --> 0:15:38.200 Are you sure, like yes, so we're shutting it down? 0:15:38.800 --> 0:15:41.880 Ted, Did you take that as Musk having Trump's full 0:15:41.920 --> 0:15:44.200 and complete endorsement or whatever? Like there was something a 0:15:44.200 --> 0:15:46.800 little bit like like protest too much to me about 0:15:46.840 --> 0:15:48.520 Like I asked him once and he said yes. Then 0:15:48.520 --> 0:15:50.000 I asked him again and he said, like it just 0:15:50.200 --> 0:15:52.040 I don't know, there was something about that. And I 0:15:52.080 --> 0:15:55.200 also just sort of wondering, you know, we're seeing Congress 0:15:55.240 --> 0:16:00.280 people senators and House members make statements, do you sense 0:16:00.360 --> 0:16:03.240 any kind of political blowback or even the beginnings of 0:16:03.880 --> 0:16:06.360 political blowback, either from Republicans or Democrats. 0:16:06.680 --> 0:16:09.560 I don't know how much Musk was sensing blowback in 0:16:09.640 --> 0:16:11.880 that moment when he said that, it's certainly I hear 0:16:11.920 --> 0:16:14.120 it the same way that if the blowback is coming, 0:16:14.120 --> 0:16:17.160 he's reminding everybody that the leader of their group, of 0:16:17.240 --> 0:16:19.400 their movement approves of what he's doing, or at least 0:16:19.400 --> 0:16:22.160 has given him the whip hand. But there is blowback coming. 0:16:22.440 --> 0:16:25.000 Like Bill Cassidy is a center from Louisiana, he's also 0:16:25.040 --> 0:16:27.680 a doctor, and I think it was earlier today, if 0:16:27.680 --> 0:16:30.040 not yesterday, he was criticizing the fact that this is 0:16:30.080 --> 0:16:33.680 shut down PEPFAR, which is probably the most successful public 0:16:33.720 --> 0:16:37.080 health initiative certainly of the last half century, which is 0:16:37.120 --> 0:16:39.840 also a Republican program. It's a Bush program. People are 0:16:39.840 --> 0:16:42.480 starting to grapple with the consequences, and it's not just 0:16:42.560 --> 0:16:46.360 Democrats complaining. I think Musk probably is aware that he's 0:16:46.360 --> 0:16:48.360 going to have to sort of defend some of this 0:16:48.400 --> 0:16:50.360 stuff if he wants it to stick. I would just 0:16:50.400 --> 0:16:52.760 point out, though I think you used the word glee earlier. 0:16:53.320 --> 0:16:55.640 There is like on the subject of russ Vote, like 0:16:55.680 --> 0:16:57.800 in the way that the DOGE people are talking to 0:16:58.240 --> 0:17:02.200 the civil servants who are going after the weird shot 0:17:02.280 --> 0:17:05.520 at all of them in the offer of the retirement package, 0:17:05.520 --> 0:17:07.480 where they said, we'd like to move you from low 0:17:07.680 --> 0:17:11.280 productivity public sector work into the private sector. Like this 0:17:11.400 --> 0:17:14.080 disdain for anyone who works for the government is a 0:17:14.119 --> 0:17:17.199 connective tissue to the rest of MAGA. That's the way 0:17:17.320 --> 0:17:20.879 russ Vote has spoken about wanting every civil servant to 0:17:20.920 --> 0:17:23.120 feel like a villain and to not want to go 0:17:23.160 --> 0:17:25.520 to work in the morning. And there is this shared 0:17:25.960 --> 0:17:29.760 antipathy for the government worker has a type, and I 0:17:29.760 --> 0:17:31.800 think that that is the way at least right now 0:17:31.800 --> 0:17:33.040 where they're working in harmony. 0:17:33.520 --> 0:17:36.280 Yeah, Anthony, I was curious if that came up in 0:17:36.320 --> 0:17:40.000 your reporting, just the extent to which part of the 0:17:40.040 --> 0:17:42.800 goal here seems to be the performance as much as 0:17:42.800 --> 0:17:47.119 it is the actual like actually cutting these programs, but 0:17:47.320 --> 0:17:51.080 to make civil servants feel bad or something like that. 0:17:51.280 --> 0:17:53.800 No, not as much as not explicitly. The thing that 0:17:53.840 --> 0:17:57.120 did come up is a real lack of transparency. It's 0:17:57.200 --> 0:18:00.720 very difficult for us to understand who in fact works 0:18:00.760 --> 0:18:03.639 for doughe like, what are they do? Like, how are 0:18:03.640 --> 0:18:06.480 they communicating with one another? Like my colleague, you guys 0:18:06.480 --> 0:18:10.760 probably know Chas Leopold is the most aggressive user of 0:18:10.800 --> 0:18:13.959 the Freedom of Information Act. And I am sure we 0:18:14.000 --> 0:18:16.640 will be litigating some of these issues, but I am 0:18:16.680 --> 0:18:20.240 struck by the lack of complete transparency. I mean, it's 0:18:20.240 --> 0:18:24.119 happening on a social media platform that the great world's 0:18:24.200 --> 0:18:27.640 richest man owns, Like he's setting and explaining public policy 0:18:28.240 --> 0:18:31.439 on an all on a business that he owns. That 0:18:31.520 --> 0:18:35.439 does not strike me as being businesses as usual. 0:18:35.640 --> 0:18:37.760 Yeah, to the point about lack of transparency, We've seen 0:18:37.800 --> 0:18:41.480 reports saying that these doge kids are will. 0:18:41.440 --> 0:18:42.880 Like refusing to give their last name. 0:18:43.000 --> 0:18:45.440 So like many of the people at these agencies don't 0:18:45.440 --> 0:18:48.719 even know who they're dealing with. And just to be clear, like, 0:18:48.880 --> 0:18:52.840 legally Elon cannot shut down usaid ted you kind of 0:18:52.880 --> 0:18:55.160 you said it, but I just want to establish that, right. 0:18:55.440 --> 0:18:58.280 Yeah, that's certainly the argument you hear from every Democrat 0:18:58.320 --> 0:19:01.040 in Congress I've heard talk about this to say, Look, 0:19:01.800 --> 0:19:04.280 he's got an executive order saying that he can recommend 0:19:04.359 --> 0:19:06.199 changes to the government, but that doesn't mean that he 0:19:06.240 --> 0:19:08.280 can go in and remove something that is in the 0:19:08.320 --> 0:19:11.240 Statutes of the United States that was created by law. 0:19:11.600 --> 0:19:13.480 But that's going to be something where I think every 0:19:13.480 --> 0:19:16.600 indication is they're going to dare the other side to 0:19:16.640 --> 0:19:18.120 fight them and to take it to court. 0:19:18.160 --> 0:19:22.639 And anthony this kind of these tactics, this kind of playbook. 0:19:22.880 --> 0:19:25.440 Do we have any sense of whether it has been 0:19:25.480 --> 0:19:28.800 replicated at any other federal agencies or whether we expect 0:19:28.800 --> 0:19:31.760 to see the same kind of approach anywhere else within 0:19:31.800 --> 0:19:32.159 the government. 0:19:32.240 --> 0:19:32.760 Yeah, I think so. 0:19:33.720 --> 0:19:36.840 We don't know yet where they've gone, but we do 0:19:36.960 --> 0:19:41.639 know we understand that one of the main DOGE kids, 0:19:41.680 --> 0:19:43.760 for lack of a better word, is a guy called 0:19:43.800 --> 0:19:47.119 Gavin Kleeger, and his name has not been copied on 0:19:47.440 --> 0:19:50.880 a number of other emails to other agencies. So the 0:19:51.000 --> 0:19:53.800 thought is from people who work at these agencies, if 0:19:53.800 --> 0:19:57.320 we're not now we're next right, that they are priming 0:19:57.359 --> 0:19:59.920 the pump, so to speak, to come knock on our 0:20:00.119 --> 0:20:03.320 door in the future. So it doesn't seem to end 0:20:03.359 --> 0:20:06.840 with USAID or GSA or oh PM. It looks like 0:20:07.600 --> 0:20:10.920 this is going to be a step by step process. 0:20:11.080 --> 0:20:13.840 As you guys are saying, they're going to be more 0:20:13.840 --> 0:20:15.080 of these standoffs. 0:20:15.080 --> 0:20:17.440 We're going to be following it. Anthony, hope to. 0:20:17.359 --> 0:20:19.520 Have you back to talk about as you as you 0:20:19.600 --> 0:20:21.080 and your colleagues follow these stories. 0:20:21.240 --> 0:20:23.000 Thanks again for being with us, Thanks for having me. 0:20:27.840 --> 0:20:32.240 All right, let's talk about the impact that these very 0:20:32.359 --> 0:20:36.720 well publicized antics and potentially consequential handtics are having on 0:20:36.880 --> 0:20:37.840 Musk's businesses. 0:20:38.160 --> 0:20:40.000 You know, we have talked over and. 0:20:39.960 --> 0:20:42.520 Over again on this podcast, Dana will know ted you 0:20:42.560 --> 0:20:44.240 may have even picked up a hint of it because 0:20:44.240 --> 0:20:47.440 it comes up so often about the prospect that Musk's 0:20:47.520 --> 0:20:52.400 politicking will somehow hurt Tesla. David Popadopolis is like obsessed 0:20:52.400 --> 0:20:54.920 with this question. He's always trying to force Dana to 0:20:55.520 --> 0:20:58.000 admit that that maybe there's an impact. 0:20:58.119 --> 0:20:59.880 And Dan, I think we've got it now, right. 0:21:00.080 --> 0:21:05.440