Attention to the Unseen

The New York Times reports: A private equity investor who is one of Elon Musk’s closest confidants has taken a new role in the Social Security Administration, a development that could be politically combustible given the program’s popularity with voters and Mr. Musk’s apparent intent to make major changes at the agency. The investor, Antonio Gracias, who has served on the boards of Mr. Musk’s businesses Tesla and SpaceX, has started a job at the administration as part of the…

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Wired reports: Experts with decades of experience at the agency are now worried that DOGE operatives working across multiple agencies increases the risk of SSA data being shared outside of the agency, or that their inexperience will lead to them breaking systems entirely. In the SSA filing [in federal court in Maryland opposing a motion for a temporary restraining order filed by unions that would prevent DOGE from accessing SSA records], lawyers for the agency claim that the DOGE operatives…

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Wired reports: As America’s most decorated civil servants sipped cocktails in the presidential ballroom of the Capital Hilton, worrying about their table assignments and wondering where they fell in the pecking order between US senator and UAE ambassador, Elon Musk sat staring at his phone, laughing. Few of the guests at the Alfalfa Club banquet in Washington, DC, on January 25 knew what he knew: that a crew of senior executives and young Musk loyalists was preparing to occupy the…

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CNBC reports: Tesla’s selloff on Wall Street intensified on Monday, with shares of the electric vehicle maker plunging 15%, their worst day on the market since September 2020. On Friday, Tesla wrapped up a seventh straight week of losses, its longest losing streak since debuting on the Nasdaq in 2010. The stock has fallen every week since CEO Elon Musk went to Washington, D.C., to take on a major role in the second Trump White House. Since peaking at $479.86…

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Brian Barrett writes: The “deep state” is a top-tier conservative bogeyman, right up there with DEI and George Soros. But it seems fair to ask: If a bunch of shadowy, unelected figures, many with shared business interests and connections, took over government functions at the highest levels and directly contravened the will of Congress, what might you call that? How about … DOGE? After years of alarm over unelected bureaucrats pulling the strings, what better example can you find than…

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Isaac Stanley-Becker writes: On January 29, American Airlines Flight 5342 collided with a U.S. Army helicopter near Washington’s Ronald Reagan National Airport, killing 67 people, in the deadliest U.S. air disaster in recent history. That alone would have been a crisis for the Federal Aviation Administration, the agency charged with ensuring the safety of air passengers. But the next day, President Donald Trump deepened the FAA’s problems by blaming the disaster on diversity programs, a pronouncement that baffled many in…

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Fortune reports: It’s almost unthinkable, but Tesla Inc., the company that comes to mind when most people think about electric vehicles, may have had its best days in China, the world’s biggest and most advanced EV market. Elon Musk’s automaker has been backsliding in China for the past five consecutive months on a year-on-year basis, according to data from the country’s Passenger Car Association. Tesla’s shipments plunged 49% in February from a year earlier to just 30,688 vehicles, the lowest…

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Democracy Docket reports: Ever since President Donald Trump’s victory in November, election officials at every level and voting rights advocates have worried that he would gut the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) — the little-known federal agency responsible for the nation’s cybersecurity and protecting critical infrastructure from digital threats. And now that those cuts have come to fruition, election officials are already experiencing the loss of crucial CISA resources they said are integral to voting security. In the seven…

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CNN reports: Liberals and government employees aren’t the only people angry with Elon Musk. Tesla’s plunging share price means many investors are angry, too. Shares of Tesla shot up 91% after election day, peaking just before Christmas, as investors anticipated Musk and his car company would be big winners as a result of Donald Trump’s second term as president. Musk was Trump’s largest financial supporter during the campaign, and has since become the highest-profile member of his administration, by far….

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CNBC reports: The Federal Aviation Administration briefly halted flights to several Florida airports on Thursday night after a SpaceX Starship testing failure. The incident marks the second time this year that SpaceX experienced a mishap during a flight test of Starship resulting in debris raining down and commercial flights disrupted. Affected airports included Miami International Airport, which is an American Airlines hub, and airports serving Fort Lauderdale, West Palm Beach, and Orlando, Florida. The regulator said, in a statement on…

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Kyle Chayka writes: Silicon Valley is premised on the idea that its founders and engineers know better than anyone else: they can do better at disseminating information, at designing an office, at developing satellites and advancing space travel. By the same logic, they must be able to govern better than politicians and federal employees. Voguish concepts in Silicon Valley such as seasteading and “network states” feature independent, self-contained societies running on tech principles. Efforts to create such entities have either…

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electrik reports: Tesla chairwoman Robyn Denholm has sold another $33 million worth of Tesla stock (TSLA) as she lets Elon Musk destroy the company’s brand. As the head of Tesla’s board of directors, Denholm is amongst the few people who actually have oversight over Elon Musk at Tesla. While Musk is CEO, he owns only about 13% of Tesla’s shares. Still, he is seen as having complete control over the company and the board, which is actually what led to…

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The Record reports: The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) refuted reports that changes are being made to how it approaches cyberthreats from Russia. The Guardian newspaper wrote Friday that analysts at CISA were “verbally informed that they were not to follow or report on Russian threats,” according to an anonymous source, and that work being done on one Russia-related project “was in effect ‘nixed.’” “CISA’s mission is to defend against all cyberthreats to U.S. Critical Infrastructure, including from Russia,”…

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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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