Attention to the Unseen

Politico reports: Elon Musk’s political meddling in Europe is cratering Tesla’s sales — and that’s putting at risk its revenue from selling credits to other automakers looking to avoid paying penalties for not meeting European Union emissions targets. European automakers face fines should they fail to meet this year’s carbon dioxide reduction goals, but those selling too many CO2-emitting cars can dodge the fee by pooling with a company doing better than the EU demands. That’s been a lucrative earner…

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Mike Brock writes: As I write this in early 2025, a quiet revolution is unfolding within the U.S. government. Inside the newly created Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), teams of young tech operatives are systematically dismantling democratic institutions and replacing them with proprietary artificial intelligence systems. Civil servants who raise legal objections are being removed. Government databases are being migrated to private servers. Decision-making power is being transferred from elected officials and career bureaucrats to algorithms controlled by a small…

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Don Moynihan writes: For those who don’t know much about government, the idea of Elon Musk as a serious tech guy who could shake up how the public sector work was appealing. Even people who do know a lot about government were hopeful. Such hopes now look naive. Musk is not just ignorant about what government does, he chooses to celebrate and make decisions based on that ignorance, defaulting to accusations of fraud to explain things he does not want…

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The Washington Post reports: Amid the tumult of mass firings, the Trump administration’s dismissal of workers who maintain America’s nuclear weapons delivered perhaps the greatest shock. These are people with highly sensitive jobs, the Energy Department would later acknowledge, who should have never been fired. Almost all the workers were rehired in an embarrassing about-face, a prominent example of how the administration has had to reverse dismissals in multiple instances where its scattershot approach caused deeper damage to agencies than…

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Brian Barrett writes: If you’ve felt overwhelmed by all the DOGE news, you’re not alone. You’d need too much cork board and yarn to keep track of which agencies it has occupied by now, much less what it’s doing there. Here’s a simple rubric, though, to help contextualize the DOGE updates you do have time and energy to process: It’s worse than you think. DOGE is hard to keep track of. This is by design; the only information about the…

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Matteo Wong writes: The rivalry between Sam Altman and Elon Musk is entering its Apprentice era. Both men have the ambition to redefine how the modern world works—and both are jockeying for President Donald Trump’s blessing to accelerate their plans. Altman’s company, OpenAI, as well as Musk’s ventures—which include SpaceX, Tesla, and xAI—all depend to some degree on federal dollars, permits, and regulatory support. The president could influence whether OpenAI or xAI produces the next major AI breakthrough, whether Musk can succeed…

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Wired reports: On February 10, employees at the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) received an email asking them to list every contract at the bureau and note whether or not it was “critical” to the agency, as well as whether it contained any DEI components. This email was signed by Scott Langmack, who identified himself as a senior adviser to the so-called Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE). Langmack, according to his LinkedIn, already has another job: He’s the…

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Robert Reich writes: One of the unacknowledged advantages of the horrendous era we’ve entered is that it is revealing the putrid connections between great wealth and great power for all to see. Oligarchs are fully exposed and they are defiant. It’s like hitting the “reveal codes” key on older computers that let you see everything. On Wednesday, Jeff Bezos, the third-richest person in America, who bought the Washington Post in 2013, announced that the paper’s opinion section would henceforth focus…

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  The 2024 Tesla Model 3 has some of the most advanced navigation, autonomous driving, and safety features currently on the market, meaning it’s full of equipment that can record and track your surroundings—and you. How much data does Tesla collect? Where is it stored? And can you trust them to protect your sensitive information? WIRED decided to investigate.

The Washington Post reports: Elon Musk and his cost-cutting U.S. DOGE Service team have been on a mission to trim government largesse. Yet Musk is one of the greatest beneficiaries of the taxpayers’ coffers. Over the years, Musk and his businesses have received at least $38 billion in government contracts, loans, subsidies and tax credits, often at critical moments, a Washington Post analysis has found, helping seed the growth that has made him the world’s richest person. The payments stretch…

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Matt Bai writes: [W]hat’s happened at USAID over the past couple of weeks is unfathomable. A $50 billion agency — funded by taxpayers, empowered by Congress and employing something like 11,000 people around the world — is now tightly controlled by a handful of 20-something software engineers who have never worked a day in government. They disregard promises from the American secretary of state while agonized policy experts stand by helplessly. In the coming weeks, courts will have to decide…

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London Guerrilla Ad-fare: #Tesla the #Swasticar … from 0 to 1939 in just 3 seconds #Musk pic.twitter.com/y96FiQ5g1Z — Peter Speetjens (@PeterBeirut) February 24, 2025 The Guardian reports: When Mike Schwede first sat in a Tesla Roadster 15 years ago, he felt like it was a glimpse into the future. By 2016, he was the proud owner of a Tesla, revelling in the thumbs up he would get from other drivers as he whizzed along Europe’s highways in the electric vehicle….

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