Claudius there's still an overriding sense of 'we'll just vote them out if things don't work out'. not sure it will pan out quite as smoothly as that. I'm sure there's some vague 'abuses' going on at the FEC that musk and co will be sorting out in the coming months

    jones How do you feel now if you supported this? It would've been far better if that useless spook on the roof had put a bullet in him.

      editorial section will now be focused on free markets and personal freedoms? what does that even look like? such capitalist gobbledygook

        Gazza M poor Bezos is upset because he’s the only mega billionaire without his own social media platform so has to make do with bullying a newspaper instead like the old days

            Mirth didn't think of it that way. the most perverse of pissing contests

              Honest question: do we think it's that Zuck, Bezos and Musk have drunk the techno-futurist Kool-Aid?

              If they reckon there's going to be a total social and economic revolution caused by AGI, then they might think they're going to need full vertical integration of US government, military, media and manufacturing to "beat China" as it unfolds.

              This is an existential threat to them, because if they didn't "beat China" then they'd rapidly fall into a second tier of wealth and status. And it'd make sense for the "disruptors" to be hugely paranoid about getting "disrupted".

                Burnwinter I think they are just more overtly able to embrace being an oligarch and the power that comes with it when you are in the government.

                https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/feb/26/trump-cabinet-elon-musk

                "But Doge, mostly consisting of young male software engineers fuelled by pizza and Red Bull, has been a disaster. It fired the people who oversee the nuclear weapons stockpile then hastily tried to rehire them, only to find they were hard to contact because they could not access their work email accounts. It claimed to have saved $8bn on a terminated contract that was actually worth only $8m. Musk falsely stated that the US spent $50m on condoms for Gazans. And it emerged this week Doge quietly deleted the top five items from its public ledger of alleged savings after they turned out to be nothing of the sort."

                More unsurprising insights on Musk and Doge from exact reason you should not trust them outright without evidence. We cancelled ebola prevention but don't worry we picked it up. What about things that you cancelled that you don't realise?

                    There it is. The "trillion dollars of savings" line. Saw that coming a mile off.

                    If you are spending wildly more than you make that position is not sustainable. You either need to raise taxes or cut spending. Total American debt has doubled in the last 10 years, already at like 120% of GDP and think the current deficit is like over $1.5t over the last year, America are on the path to bankruptcy.

                    A lot of other Western economies need to get realistic as well about their spending and debt levels.

                      I'm sorry, but if you honestly believe proper due diligence is being done around these cuts before they happen and the amount of it he calls "fraud", I don't know to tell you. Any auditor will tell you that it's impossible to conclude about something being fraud that quickly.

                      I didn't say I think due diligence is being done. They've decided to move fast and aggressively and that is their choice, DOGE seems to be very popular in America and doesn't take a genius to figure out why. If they do fuck up then there will be political consequences for Trump and Elon Musk.

                      I'd be shocked, absolutely gobsmacked if there wasn't rampant fraud happening. Not just in America but even here in the UK. We all know the Tories were at it but Labour aren't any better.

                        JazzG I'd be shocked, absolutely gobsmacked if there wasn't rampant fraud happening. Not just in America but even here in the UK. We all know the Tories were at it but Labour aren't any better.

                        • Fraud absolutely does happen. The National Audit Office even says so themselves and yes, it's a disgusting waste of resource.
                        • Fraud that meaningfully changes the national debt figure does not. Because even £87bn (the upper limit) is only 3% of the UK national debt.
                        • There already are audits conducted - at least in the UK. These reports are publicly available.
                        • Slashing government spending under the guess of efficiency is literally what austerity was. That is not popular.

                          JazzG I didn't say I think due diligence is being done

                          Okay... So do you think that is important or just something besides the point?

                              JazzG If they do fuck up then there will be political consequences for Trump and Elon Musk.

                              No there wont. Trump is in his final term, its not a parliamentary system where they can vote no confidence. He's there for the next 4 years unless he dies in office. 🤞

                                  its a farce. muskrat is starting his X propaganda campaign against verizons $2B contract with the FAA. how convenient that he's proposing starlink to supplant verizon. the daft rebuttal that he's not profit-seeking because 'why would he need more money?' is utterly juvenile koolaid chugging. the consequences of what's being done won't end with trumps term.

                                  I'm no fan of this buffoon. he's been caught launching crypto scams for the last few months. but he does represent a bellwether of 'trump bro' sentiment. he's not a hardliner like some other MAGA influencers, but trump leaning at a minimum. first it was the H1B visa stuff, then the bizzare Gaza AI clip and now this Epstein files debacle. there are some early signs of at least spider cracks forming in the dam of popular sentiment.

                                    JazzG mate that's not how it works, you can't compare how businesses or private individuals run their finances with national economies.

                                        Though to roll with the bad analogy for a moment, who congratulates the head of a household for saving money by starving the family? Even in bourgeois economics it's the role of the state to play caretaker making sure society and economy reproduce themselves. 👏

                                          jones I'm not comparing, businesses need to obviously turn a profit whereas governments need to not be racking up stupidly deficits every year and sinking under their own debt. The way the US government finances are being handled simply is not sustainable long term, short term nothing is going to happen to be fair. This is also what Trump campaigned on, he said he would balance the budget and use Elon Musk to look at trimming bureaucracy and wastage.

                                          Burnwinter Though to roll with the bad analogy for a moment, who congratulates the head of a household for saving money by starving the family?

                                          I am not aware of any US citizens being starved by the current government cuts?

                                          QuincyAbeyie Of course you'd hope they are looking at things carefully before just cutting them but clear there are mistakes being made. Mistake which they have acknowledged as well.

                                          Qwiss I think he does care about his legacy a lot, he probably thinks he is doing this to make the country better. Whether he actually does is another story though, his ego being one of many stumbling blocks! If this goes bad he'll get punished in the midterms and end up a lame duck president, his majority in the house is very thin.

                                                    Gazza M Jokes, some of those 'influencers' went there and got their binded copies and parading them around and then found fuck all in them 😆 Some of the stuff redacted has been available online and that information is unredacted lol.