Early on in his interview with President Trump and Elon Musk the day past, Fox Information’s Sean Hannity attempted ever so gently to unravel the most important query: What does Musk in reality do?
“He’s your tech reinforce?” Hannity requested, relating to the phrases at the T-shirt Musk had opened his blazer to expose a couple of moments previous.
Musk stated he used to be.
“He’s a lot more than that,” Trump insisted.
The alternate did little to reply to the query. Musk’s exact function and obligations stay so obscure, and so shrouded in secrecy, that even he and the president haven’t rather agreed on what to name it, or precisely how to speak about it.
Trump as soon as stated that it will be Musk’s process to “lead” the so-called Division of Executive Potency, however a court docket submitting this week stated he used to be no longer in reality the administrator of that effort — even supposing it did not say who was. The White Space has called Musk a “particular executive worker,” and Karoline Leavitt, the click secretary, insisted that the dept simply steered companies, with out the authority to fireplace other people.
“He’s extra robust than a cupboard secretary, however he isn’t Senate-confirmed,” stated Jessica Riedl, a senior fellow on the Big apple Institute and a former Republican Senate aide, who added that, on the similar time, Musk provides little public details about his daily actions.
The White Space has no longer laid out precisely what number of people are a part of Musk’s workforce, or precisely what they’re doing. For all of Musk’s guarantees of transparency, the general public is finding out about his workforce’s paintings in large part thru reporting and thru, as my colleague Zach Montague pointed out today, criminal filings. Even judges are having difficulties ascertaining fundamental information concerning the workforce’s incursion into companies and the knowledge its personnel is accumulating.
The vagueness serves Musk in a few tactics. Downplaying his process — as he did all the way through the Hannity interview — may assist wall him off from scrutiny, as Zach wrote. However it might additionally permit his function, and that of his workforce, to conform as he and the president see have compatibility.
In any case, the executive order growing the Division of Executive Potency stated its function used to be to modernize era and tool. However Musk has spent a lot of his time targeted, a minimum of publicly, on chopping prices. Then, final evening, he instructed that his actual process used to be to put into effect Trump’s govt orders.
“I think like they’re making the foundations up as they’re going alongside,” stated William Hoagland, a senior vp on the Bipartisan Coverage Heart who spent 25 years running on problems associated with the funds for Senate Republicans.
MORE ON THE INTERVIEW
‘I like the president’
They didn’t give an explanation for the bits and bobs of Musk’s process, nor a lot else of substance.
However something Musk and Trump did do all the way through their joint look final evening is to provide an explanation for simply how a lot they adore each and every different, Shawn McCreesh writes.
“I like the president,” Mr. Musk declared straightaway. “I simply wish to be transparent about that.” The president, for his section, described Mr. Musk as “a super particular person,” “a terrific particular person,” “a being concerned particular person” and “a super man.”
It used to be an overt show of bromance through two males neatly conscious that numerous other people — together with Democrats and federal employees — would really like for them to get a divorce. Situational as their bond could be, each made an effort to behave like circle of relatives.
“I think like I’m interviewing two brothers right here,” Hannity stated.
THE DATA
A privateness fight ramps up
The U.S. executive collects a mountain of private details about you, me and everyone else who lives on this nation. It’s the type of knowledge that hackers and scammers are all the time seeking to get ahold of — the knowledge you’re all the time being advised to offer protection to.
That knowledge has hastily change into central to the criminal, bureaucratic and political fights raging over Musk’s actions.
Musk’s workforce of tool engineers have again and again sought get entry to to this knowledge, my colleagues Andrew Duehren and Cecilia Kang wrote today, calling it crucial to the gang’s hunt for fraud.
Mavens and a few company leaders say the workforce will have to have the ability to perform with out unfettered get entry to to tax information or checking account data. A pass judgement on has blocked access to a couple Treasury information, however some courts have declined to intrude at different companies.
Republican lawmakers who normally carry considerations about knowledge privateness appear unbothered, according to Politico, whilst Democrats are turning the problem into an assault at the management.
“It’s no longer rocket science: an unelected billionaire will have to NOT have get entry to in your private monetary data,” Consultant Mark Pocan, Democrat of Wisconsin, wrote on X.
Extra from the companies
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The Interior Income Provider is set to begin shedding 6,000 more recent hires.
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Secretary of Transportation Sean Duffy said a workforce from SpaceX would advise the Federal Aviation Management.
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Firings expanded on the Inner Division with a purge of probationary workers.
MEANWHILE on X
Musk pivots to selling Grok
My colleague Kate Conger, who covers X, spotted that Musk’s feed veered again to certainly one of his trade pursuits lately. Right here’s extra from Kate:
Few issues can destroy Musk’s present focal point at the federal executive. However the race to construct synthetic intelligence does once in a while butt in.
On Saturday, Musk’s personal jet left Washington and flew to California, in step with a device that tracks its flight information, and on Tuesday, he debuted the most recent model of Grok, the synthetic intelligence type he’s development at xAI.
And he spent Wednesday morning selling his new product, sharing pictures generated through Grok and asking his fans to subscribe to X with the intention to “get the arena’s smartest AI.”
The hype round Grok comes as Musk continues to place drive on his best competitor within the A.I. global, OpenAI. Musk has sued OpenAI, and he not too long ago made a bid to shop for it, even supposing its board rejected that offer.
Different notable posts:
Musk joined Trump in criticizing President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine, selling a number of accounts on X that lashed out on the Ukrainian chief. Trump and Zelensky were buying and selling barbs over peace talks with Russia.
Musk shared Trump’s feedback, through which the president known as Zelensky a “dictator,” and he reposted a number of right-wing influencers who criticized Zelensky for no longer maintaining elections for the reason that Russian invasion in 2022.
— Kate Conger
A FACT CHECK
Are tens of tens of millions of useless other people getting Social Safety exams?
No.
The Social Safety Management is likely one of the companies the place Musk’s workforce is looking for get entry to to reams of knowledge. That’s as a result of Trump officers suspect there are “tens of tens of millions” of useless other people receiving Social Safety bills, Leavitt, the White Space press secretary, stated not too long ago.
Emily Badger and Minho Kim looked into that claim and located that it perhaps comes from a misreading of the publicly to be had numbers. Sure, the Social Safety database contains tens of millions of American citizens who’re more than likely useless however who don’t have any loss of life information. However they typically don’t acquire exams.
Were given a Tip?
The Instances provides a number of tactics to send important information confidentially.
