this post was submitted on 10 Mar 2025
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Summary

Elon Musk’s DOGE faces mounting pressure to show achievements amid criticism. Staffers, under pressure from Trump administration officials, seek public relations wins to counter negative headlines.

Cuts to federal offices led to mass layoffs, and efforts to modernize government services have been chaotic. DOGE prioritizes speed over security and protecting sensitive information.

Trump has distanced himself, stating agency chiefs, not Musk, control department cuts, preferring a "scalpel" over a "hatchet" approach. Public opinion has turned against DOGE, with 48% disapproving versus 34% approving, according to a Washington Post-Ipsos poll.

With limited time before their tenure ends, DOGE officials are desperate to show results.

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[–] [email protected] 184 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Someone should send them an email l to summarize their work from the past week

[–] [email protected] 86 points 1 week ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 36 points 1 week ago (3 children)

Taking drugs and fucking shit up are my strengths but I'm not to shabby at sexual harrasment or cheeky wanks at my desk either.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 week ago

Sounds like a perfect candidate to keep!

/s

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[–] [email protected] 90 points 1 week ago (4 children)

Turns out the federal government is actually pretty efficient. Who would've thought!

[–] [email protected] 85 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (1 children)

Every time there's a World War, a bunch of industries are put under the control of the government in a process called Nationalization, or a "War Economy"...

...this is because it's highly efficient. This is an excellent argument against free market libertarian types. They don't put business in charge of government (like is being done now, eg. Privatization) they put the government in charge of business/industry.

[–] [email protected] 54 points 1 week ago (2 children)

My societal dream is that the government would nationalize industries once they reach the monopoly or oligopoly stage. Like, congratulations Comcast/Verizon, you won the game of capitalism. Now move over and let the government actually provide services to the people at a reasonable cost.

But I know this is just a dream.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 1 week ago (4 children)

Honestly I'd prefer that the government set up government corporations to provide basic needs. The private corporations could still operate but they would control the higher end market. The gov. corps. would just make sure basics were affordable, not high quality.

Need a car? The gov corp car is $15,000 brand new and is basic as hell, but it gets the job done.

Need Internet? The gov corp fiber network is mid range speed and connects to everyone. As a bonus for profit corps and but rights to the dumb pipe fiber network that the gov corp set up and off higher speed at a higher price.

Basic clothes, basic toiletries, basic food, etc. you want designer or high end stuff, get it from the for profit corps. But basic necessities should be made at cost by the government for the citizens. It is the job of the government to care for it's citizens after all.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 1 week ago (15 children)

I mean, the poison is already in your pitch - "private sector gets the high end". What happens when the government fiber turns out to be faster? What happens when the government cheese is actually better? What happens when the government clothes turn out to be higher quality than the shit we wear today?

What is Verizon going to do? Cry to Congress that they need to go out of their way and pay more to artificially slow down gov fiber. Kellogg will cry free healthy food is ruining demand for overprocessed corn syrup products. If they don't kill it in the cradle they're all going to chip away at it, one bit at a time

How about the government produces the basics and the infrastructure, and corporations get fucked? Let small local business take over, and use the infrastructure at cost. Let competition thrive, and we use antitrust like the pro-active protection against oligarchy it was meant to be

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[–] [email protected] 29 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Efficient and complicated. Not that these dipshits would understand that.

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[–] [email protected] 24 points 1 week ago (1 children)

I wouldn’t call it “efficient” but I would call it optimal given the complexity.

[–] [email protected] 44 points 1 week ago (10 children)

"Optimal given the complexity" fits the definition of efficient.

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[–] [email protected] 61 points 1 week ago (2 children)

I'd say it's predictable ..... Had it been a success I think Trump would be shouting "One of my master moves, this is the mother of all my moves" Now we get to read "Trump has distanced himself" meaning it's failing and Musk is gonna be sacrificed without a thought "I don't know what Musk did, he acted like a loose cannon but I fired him for his incompetence"

[–] [email protected] 26 points 1 week ago (2 children)

The people Trump fired this way in the past didn't pay for his campaign.

Trump works for Musk, not the other way around.

[–] [email protected] 30 points 1 week ago (3 children)

True, but what does musk have left to give to trump? If he's no longer useful, trump will have no problem dumping him and moving on. As soon as he thinks it's more beneficial to turn on musk than it is to suck his dick, he will. Loyalty is one way for him.

[–] [email protected] 15 points 1 week ago (1 children)

I think its a game of "who owns the zeitgeist?" Its why "Rumble" exists; why fascists sought their own media ecosystems; its why Elon bought twitter.

There is some threshold where another billion buys you no more power, or at least, significantly less than your last billion. Hence buying a the worlds largest microphone, twitter, for what seemed like an overpriced market value.

So if Elon controls Trumps access; or even more threateningly, if Elon captures the zeitgeist, and Trump is no longer in control of narratives, or Elon is able to create and inject his own, thats a real material threat.

Trump is going to die soon; whoever inherits this cult is the real threat.

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[–] [email protected] 9 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Elon has said he will spend the money to drive out any Republican that votes against Trump. Elon controls Congress.

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[–] [email protected] 39 points 1 week ago

I thought destroying the government and setting up racism was the win?

[–] [email protected] 36 points 1 week ago (2 children)

I want DOGE to be put to sleep.

[–] [email protected] 23 points 1 week ago (1 children)

imagine this sentence 10 years ago!

rip Kabosu, your alias was not meant to be stained in such a way :(

[–] [email protected] 9 points 1 week ago (1 children)
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[–] [email protected] 32 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (1 children)

48% disapproving.

He’s destroying our entire government and 52% of Americans think ‘yeah, this is fine’ or ‘yeah, who cares?’

[–] [email protected] 25 points 1 week ago (1 children)

They don't understand what the people being fired do. There's no marketing or awareness campaigns for the GSA clerks that keep every government office in the country stocked with chairs; or the mental health nurses that pick up the phone at 2 in the morning.

People think it's some white guy just golfing while they collect checks.

[–] [email protected] 15 points 1 week ago (1 children)

That's… an ironic image, to say the least.

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[–] [email protected] 24 points 1 week ago (2 children)

There's still time to die a hero Elon. All you have to do is commit hari-kari and I will build you a statue.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Will the statue be a dual flush model?

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[–] [email protected] 21 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Find the student loan records and erase them!

[–] [email protected] 20 points 1 week ago (2 children)

I mean to say.. "Don't find the student loans records and don't erase them! Migrants hate that soon much! "

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[–] [email protected] 20 points 1 week ago (1 children)

The fall-out between Trump and Musk is going to be explosive! And it will come. Sooner than we think, I'd guess.

If Canadian and European movie theatres want to boost attendance, they might want to think about screening the whole thing.

When Trump inevitably threatens to have him deported, it's going to be the comedy event of the year. Oscar worthy.

[–] [email protected] 14 points 1 week ago

This would make my year. I hope you’re right

[–] [email protected] 20 points 1 week ago (3 children)

Like all his others companies.

  • SpaceX has exploding star ships
  • StarLink comes with so many ties, that alternatives are highly sought after
  • Neural link might already be defunct, I don't know
  • His stake in OpenAI is too complicated to follow
  • Tesla has 3 models you could buy, none of them is FSD yet, one is the Cyberstuck, no truck, no robots.
  • Boring company was just fluff and BS, since a tunnel that's only 1 lane wide is a safety nightmare and hyperloop is like the simpisons "monorail" Episode

Maybe at some point in his mid 50ties he should have focused on one thing.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 1 week ago (6 children)

You don't have to pretend space x is bad to hate musk. Spacex has done massive leaps for space tech

[–] [email protected] 13 points 1 week ago (2 children)

SpaceX is not some virtue of musk, he also pollutes heavily, and ignore safety standards to launch all those in texas

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[–] [email protected] 11 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

@Fredthefishlord @QuarkVsOdo all his companies basically exist to siphon off government funding that should be going to something more worthy. In the case of SpaceX, look what's happening to NASA now. And with the Hyperloop, he openly said he promoted that to take attention and money to prevent the development of high speed rail

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[–] [email protected] 20 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Defunding the nation, and undermining its function, is the win they wanted, and they're getting it.

People forget the point is to hand things over to corporate America. Hence this article is out of touch, and based on the author's feelings about Musk's feeling...

...whilst completely being ignorant of the plan. The plan is corporate run libertarian fifedoms. Corporate mini-states.

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[–] [email protected] 16 points 1 week ago (8 children)

I mean... If it's about efficiency, wouldn't the military be the first place to audit?

[–] [email protected] 16 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

That's how we know it was never about auditing or waste.

We have generals from the military asking for less equipment , and then congress ignores them and rubber stamps the contracts of their doners in the Military Industrial Complex.

https://apnews.com/united-states-government-united-states-congress-4416606e329b4c8baa755aad333d73db

If we want to go after real waste in our spending we need to start forcing the rich to make concessions. This becomes more true every year we allow wealth inequality to continue growing.

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[–] [email protected] 15 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Next: Elon Musk will try to fake one and will pull a full on Eric-Cartman-style "screw you guys, I'm going home" when his incompetence is inevitably revealed..

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[–] [email protected] 12 points 1 week ago

With limited time before their tenure ends, DOGE officials are desperate to show results.

Uh first I'm hearing of this

[–] [email protected] 11 points 1 week ago (1 children)

What is this limited time thing?

[–] [email protected] 13 points 1 week ago

When they were selling DOGE during the campaign, the pitch was they’d have a year or something to do their thing. The EO might have it spelled out can’t recall. But they also said they would just be an advisory group? Not insider threat hackers and political commissars at the top of every agency. Not sure why they are sweating a time limit since they dont care about any other law, regulation or protocol. I guess if they don’t deliver enough, Trump won’t do another EO extending their presence? They’re literally reworking agency stuff so that the DOGE staff have to sign off on commissioners actions, hiring etc so are they just going to revert that once the clock strikes midnight for DOGE?

I suppose the idea is that the admin wants to lock in all the creepy shit from project 2025 prior to mid terms since they know that all of it will end up being wildly unpopular and will result in republican losses in congress and potentially gridlock from that point forward… but again, their playbook essentially calls for the end of democracy, so why are they sweating something like the midterms…

[–] [email protected] 9 points 1 week ago

The funny thing is that Elon Musk is the wealthiest man ever and enough hecklers chanting "no one likes Elon" in a sing song manner would bring him to tears

[–] [email protected] 9 points 1 week ago

In the end, DOGE financial waste will be bigger than any "savings" they produced, but the real costs of their action will be much, much bigger in the end.

Just think of the people who will get killed by hurricanes without a warning because they dismantle NOAA.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 week ago (2 children)

What’s all the BS they’ve been doing all this time? Is it not winning to crash about like a bull in a china shop wrecking things? What sort of “win” are they looking for? Are they looking for a Death Star shot where the entire country says, “as if millions of voices suddenly cried out in terror and were suddenly silenced.”

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[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 week ago

I suggest Russian roulette, winner is one that finds the hidden present.

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