Elon Musk's Demolition Crew
410 comments
·February 7, 2025Quarrelsome
hn_throwaway_99
> that has just resigned because of hyper racist comments he made in the past that have come to light.
Just to add clarity, "the past" in this case wasn't even that long ago, as these racist tweets that were uncovered were from June to December of 2024.
Zigurd
That, and the standard for rejecting racists shouldn't be set at "hyper racist." Especially since we are seeing supposedly well educated young men in an environment that has normalized anything less than "hyper."
wrfrmers
It seems as good a time as any to point out that the environment in which people like this are making decisions is the one in which equal opportunity/affirmative action/DEI become tenable, if not necessary.
For those of you whinging about how unfair scope-broadening to force decision makers to at least consider marginalized people for opportunities is, the problem is not these initiatives, it's these people, who make it impossible to determine if someone is being rejected for merit or for some other reason.
In general, we have to get away from the idea that the highest score along a narrow measure is the be-all-end-all of merit, anyway. Set a reasonable floor of competence, and then either run a lottery or begin looking at other qualities.
Quarrelsome
I just wanted to distinguish that he wasn't simply clumsy with his language or casually racist but rather entirely identified with it.
metadat
Some of the comments are detailed here:
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/jd-vance/bring-back-vance-s...
And they're indefensibly off-color and disgusting, and it's even more insane the VP of the USA is defending Elez.
https://x.com/JDVance/status/1887900880143343633
> We shouldn't reward journalists who try to destroy people. Ever.
Step 1. Discredit the media and stop the flow of information.
Step 2. Divert public funds to only your friends and allies.
Pretty straightforward.
insane_dreamer
He's been reinstated. Racism totally OK now! Woohoo!
Quarrelsome
and Musk now calls for the firing of the journalist that reported on those social media posts. Is this a dream?
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wnevets
Expect a lot more fake stories about fraud and other nefarious doings from these guys to justify their crimes. The exact something happened with twitter.
gman83
Yeah, it's probably a fishing expedition to uncover some "scandal": https://www.techdirt.com/2025/02/03/the-twitter-files-playbo...
notfed
And the fisherman definitely isn't controlling for selection bias.
ZeroGravitas
It's Twitter Files but for the US Government.
Total nothing burgers but you still have people foaming at the mouth about whatever slanted headline they managed to cook up and do performative outrage over.
And to be clear, they all knew that going in. They're intentionally using false stories to attack and threaten people and organisations and have turned it into an industry.
motorest
[flagged]
ZeroGravitas
They're more likely to claim the agency knowingly gave $100 million worth of paperclips to the Taliban as part of a Marxist plot.*
If you're going to make stuff up, why not go big and viral.
* And yes, if you're not keeping up with the news cycle this is a thing that really happened, just with condoms not paperclips.
tim333
You have to wonder given the Gaza mix up - they saw money going to "gaza" and assumed it was the usual one rather than Gaza, Mozambique - whether they are going to do anything competently.
I mean a techy seeing one word on a spreadsheet that looks iffy and putting hundreds of skilled people out of their jobs as a result is not a great way to run things.
purplezooey
"Demolition Crew"? That's a very kind euphemism for a collection of sycophant clowns that have no experience in government. Indeed I could not find a single one that had any experience.
motorest
You need experience to preserve and improve a service.
If you want to destroy and sabotage a service, you place incompetent people at the helm.
Even the CIA lists this as a strategy in its sabotage manual.
winrid
[flagged]
motorest
> Who is incompetent in this list?
The definition of competence is "having the necessary ability, knowledge, or skill to do something successfully."
You're posting in a forum mainly followed by engineers. Your average experience engineer knows well what a kid straight out of college brings in in terms of ability, knowledge, or skill to do something successfully. We know, because some of us are tasked with onboarding said kids to come straight from college. Some of us had the privilege of onboarding elite recruits from college, and even they need guidance to be effective at their job.
And you just assume these randos don't? They parachute into organizations, systems, and services they are completely oblivious about, they antagonize and are outright hostile to the existing staff and procedures, they even try to push code without knowing a thing about anything, and this doesn't raise any red flags with you?
> I think they can figure out a government ledger.
Do you really know, though? I don't think so.
tim333
No competence in government programs.
insane_dreamer
Destroying is easy.
Building is hard.
notfed
We're going through a "rewrite the gov as microservices" phase.
3vidence
Honest question for Americans.
What do you think the federal government is doing to make you "poorer" that deserves dismantling the government.
US income tax is generally lower than other advanced economies. Housing and medical insurance is mainly a state issue.
maximinus_thrax
> What do you think the federal government is doing to make you "poorer" that deserves dismantling the government.
This is what you get after years of defunding or mishandling education. The oligarchs managed to convince the general public that the government is stealing from them. The past decades have seen a huge upward wealth transfer which peaked during covid and this was repackaged and sold back to the people as 'government bad'. Sure, government bad because they didn't go after the oligarchs, but dismantling it is not a solution.
There will be no tax cuts for the plebs after the government is 'leaner', I guarantee it. At most a marginal couple hundred bucks per year - at the cost of drastically cutting down the civil services, some of that invisible stuff that makes society run. By far the biggest beneficiaries of a weak impotent government will be the existing ruling class, the so-called 'elites' the angry 'deplorables' voted against.
My worry is that it's going to backfire and at the exact wrong time, when we need to deal with climate change, pandemics, crumbling old infrastructure and ongoing wealth consolidation. Fun times ahead.
nradov
Federalism has always been a fundamental, unresolved issue in American politics. At one end of the spectrum some people think that states should be reduced to mere administrative units and all real power should be centralized at the federal level. At the other end some people think that the federal government should only deal with external affairs, and everything else should be left to the states. The issue is largely a matter of ideology rather than about whether it's making us poorer or whether federal income taxes are too high.
fzeroracer
Unfortunately this isn't the dividing issue. The right doesn't actually believe in the division between states and the federal government, it's just a convenient wedge for them to push their power grabs.
That much can be seen via both how they've weaponized abortion and anti-transgender policy. First they move to remove federal restrictions so that states can freely restrict the rights of individuals, then they add federal laws which force blue states to comply either by funding blackmail or through control of the supreme court.
wrfrmers
It's incorrect to divorce this dynamic from its history, which is largely one of America's right wing/nativists using "states' rights" as a cover to infringe on the rights of marginalized people, which are supposed to be inalieanable from the federal government's point of view. You have to mention the applications of that ideology, which include secession, Jim Crow laws, and anti-abortion laws, among others.
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realdjtthrow
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3vidence
High levels of government debt aren't exactly unique to America, however, America has the unique ability to issue it's own reserve currency that other countries will absolutely buy.
Also isn't by far the number one government spending item the military? Why aren't they starting there?
jrs235
They'll keeping buying dollars so long as they trust the US. Being erratic and shifty hurts that.
realdjtthrow
[flagged]
ty6853
The US has a progressive income taxation so they've counterbalanced that through taxing the balance ultimately via inflation,which is regressive against the cash based poor.
tomrod
Fox has testified in court that they are entertainment, not news. Consider more factual sources.
Yes, deficit spending has been high due to Covid and recovery. Of course it was started by Trump"s tax cuts.
Perhaps we consider taxing wealthier people.
realdjtthrow
[flagged]
Keyframe
Apparently, DOGE is also meddling with FAA's air traffic control system. I wonder what could go wrong here? https://x.com/elonmusk/status/1887233566263967812
defrost
The question was raised here 24 hours ago .. and [flagged][dead] fairly rapidly.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42957495
Which was unfortunate as I asked for technical comments on the wisdom of moving fast and breaking things when applied to a million humans aloft at any moment.
prisenco
They're going to rewrite it in Nodejs and React aren't they?
dialup_sounds
Certainly not! They're going to tell a chatbot rewrite it in node.js and React.
ZeroGravitas
From the insanely rambling Trump description it sounded like they were going to connect it to starlink because:
> You can't hook up satellites to land and you can't hook up land to satellites.
tim333
I think there are two different things. One, Musk said the traffic control system crashed last week and they want to check how it's set up. Two they are looking at making a new satellite based air traffic control system which could be interesting if a bit self serving if it means all planes have to get starlink.
Satellite based air traffic control could be quite interesting - there have been people wanting to make a computerised system for ages but it's hard to do because firstly with existing systems the UK one has to talk to the French one which has to talk to the Tunisian one etc and it's hard to make that work and secondly your London - NY flight wants to get permission to land but there's no data signal mid atlantic.
spicyusername
I want to believe these changes can be positive, but the people in charge of enacting them have done nothing but disabuse me of trust and good faith.
spankalee
What changes and what's any indication that they would ever have been positive regardless of these people?
Unilaterally taking a chainsaw to federal agencies, against their congressional establishment, in a rush in the first three weeks of the administration, is a terrible idea no matter who's running the show.
Even if that were somehow a positive thing, the goals range from ridiculously dubious to outright evil.
oliwarner
I assume the rush is so these changes get made law-by-budget.
Whatever they manage to cut will stay cut once Congress sets that as the ongoing budget and assuming a fairly balanced future, it could take decades to undo.
motorest
> I want to believe these changes can be positive, (...)
What is there to suggest these changes have any positive trait whatsoever? They don't even carry a plausible justification.
insane_dreamer
If the change was _technical_ (streamline systems for greater efficiency) I would be supporting it.
But it's clear the change is _ideological_. And even if you think that one ideology is better than the other, ideological purges of civil servants (who may hold personal political views but whose offices are apolitical and usually there for decades regardless of the party in power), are very dangerous -- just two steps away from fascism.
tomrod
My take exactly. It makes the takes around Yarvin's Dark Enlightenment seem like their real motive.
r00fus
How could anyone feel positively about any changes to a codebase that are not allowed to be reviewed by anyone else?
ChrisArchitect
More discussion:
The young, inexperienced engineers aiding DOGE
29athrowaway
[flagged]
tomrod
Aye, but comptency is also not proven.
I'd prefer our secure and important systems be handled appropriately and by those who have proven themselves consistent and loyal to the Constitution.
joyeuse6701
Sure, but youth is NOT associated with caution, which is needed in abundance when dealing with critical legacy systems. This is a bad plan.
Animats
What we're seeing happen in the downsizing area is mostly from the Project 2025 policy manual.[1] The just-confirmed head of the Office of Management and Budget, Russell Vought, was one of the major authors of Project 2025. It's worth reading that, at least the key sections. Trump has insisted that Project 2025 is not his policy, but what's happening is close to the manual.
The Project 2025 people couldn't agree on tariffs. So there are two contradictory sections by different authors, "Free Trade" and "Fair Trade". Trump seems to have picked the "Fair Trade" plan.
Trump's initiatives in Canada, Panama, Greenland, and Gaza were not part of the plan.
jrs235
Greenland and Panama Canal stuff sounds like a push for Technocracy. Look at the North American Technate! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Technocracy_movement#The_Techn...
And seems to align with Musk's dreams.
ZeroGravitas
Greenland at least was mentioned in project 2025 as having security implications. Trump may have freestyled some extra policy on top of that.
> Concerning Greenland, the opening of a U.S. consulate in Nuuk is welcome. A formal year-round diplomatic presence is an effective way for the U.S. to better understand local political and economic dynamics. Furthermore, given Green- land’s geographic proximity and its rising potential as a commercial and tourist location, the next Administration should pursue policies that enhance economic ties between the U.S. and Greenland.
and
> Established an office in Greenland to help counter China’s claims of being “a near Arctic state” and reoriented its programming across Asia—including establishing a USAID Mission to Central Asia—in line with America’s Indo- Pacific strategy.
Animats
Not sure about "security implications", but a mining site writes "Greenland is considered one of the last frontiers for exploration by mining experts."[1] There's oil, and some companies drilling, various gemstones, and iron.
jrs235
Look at my sister comment to yours about technocracy.
tmikaeld
As an outsider trying to make sense of all this.
Is America taking the hammer down on all types of spending because America is desperate to bring down debt from 120% of GDP?
GaryNumanVevo
Not at all, it's mostly optics. The US DOD spends like $900 BILLION a year, and you don't see DOGE even attempting to touch that money.
denvermullets
adding to this, they can't even pass an internal audit to account for where all that money is going. 7 years in a row they failed an audit.
consteval
It has nothing to do with cutting expenses or even optics as other's have said.
It's about power, and how much you can have. This presidency is pushing the limits well past where they are, with the intention they will be reeled back, but not all the way. "Shoot for the moon, you'll land among the stars" strategy.
ianburrell
There isn't enough spending for them to cut the $2 trillion deficit. The federal spending is $6.75 trillion. Discretionary spending is $1.7 trillion, that is most of the departments and all of the military. The rest is entitlement spending that hard to be touched.
The only way to balance budget is to cut taxes, but Trump wants tax cuts.
tomrod
On your last bullet, I think you mean raise taxes. Is that right?
ianburrell
Yeah, have to raise taxes to balance budget.
insane_dreamer
Not really. It's about cutting expenses so that he can pass a large tax cut (primarily benefiting corporations and the wealthy). No one is worried about the deficit anymore.
krishnazden
Copem.All those criticising doge team haven't created anything worthwhile. All these people secretly wanted twitter to fail post elons take over. Bigballz is much better than all those who are criticizing you. I have seen detrimental effects of usaid creating social havoc in other countries.
insane_dreamer
Would like to point out that "finding corruption" -- as Trump today stated was the purpose of King Elon' efforts (which is odd because I thought it was to cut "waste") is _exactly_ the way that Xi Jinping was able to get rid of all opposition in China after being chosen as Premier, to where he is now completely unopposed in anything he may want to do. (Was living in China during those years.)
Beware.
null
Elez, the guy who pushed the changes the devs were not allowed to review to the production payment system, is the guy that has just resigned because of hyper racist comments he made in the past that have come to light.
If in doubt, I recommend checking them out because they're incredibly awful, to the extent that it makes you wonder if the payment system he pushed to had ethnic information attached to it.