Musk threatens to fire federal employees who leak information during DOGE purge
Summary
Elon Musk warned federal employees against leaking information, stating, “if in doubt, they are out,” as he helps Trump implement sweeping government changes.
A Reddit post alleged Musk’s team is using “fingerprinting” tactics to track leakers. Musk, who spent heavily on Trump’s re-election, now leads the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), which has controversially seized control of federal payment and personnel systems.
The administration is also encouraging civil servants to resign, prompting lawsuits.
Whistleblower protections may challenge Musk’s crackdown on leaks.
https://www.thedailybeast.com/musk-threatens-to-fire-federal-employees-who-leak-information-during-doge-purge/Open linkView original on lemmy.world553
Comments86
Why the fuck do they still write like this? DOGE isn't a department of the government, it's just Elon with a Carte Blanche. And there's nothing controversial about this, it's a coup in plain sight.
It actually is. They took a Obama-era department and rebranded it
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_DOGE_Service
Which means it's full expanded name is "United States Department of Government Efficiency Service". Which is super efficient, isn't it?
The name may have already existed. But what Elon is doing in its name isn't what a governmental department does.
It is now. Elon Musk says so, and he bought a President.
Should be with the salute
Yes, but…a meme about an evil aspiring emperor manipulating those with the actual power behind the scenes in order to actually obtain that power is entirely appropriate.
And DOGE is pretty much the mirror of RAGE (Remove All Government Employees), which a pretty infamous techbro came up with.
It also bugs me how the O is stylized as a capital. In acronyms, isn't it proper to make it lowercase if it's a filler word like "of"?
And should he know this as an elite PoE (path of exile) player?
Don't you know why he did this in the first place?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dogecoin#Elon_Musk_and_Dogecoin
Omg makes sense now. I never followed that blatant meme coin.
Everything he ever does is a grift. I can't even imagine a life like that.
Depends, AOA is angle of attack. I'm sure there are more examples if I sit and think. The lowercase 'o' strikes me as more of a tech/internet thing, not traditional.
No I'm pretty sure lower case was always the case.
No, they just normally leave them out or capitalize. It really isn't common outside of computer-related stuff as far as I can think. I would be happy to be proven wrong if you have some examples.
Got a few more where 'of' gets a capital letter for you to ponder on.
TOEFL - Test of English as a Foreign Language
DOE - Department of Energy
Also other departments, DOD, DOJ, etc.
OOO -Out of office
MOA - Minute of Angle
I've always seen OoO for out of office. 🤷🏻
3 pages in, and haven't seen that, but okay.
https://www.google.com/search?q=out%20of%20office%20abbreviation
🤷🏻 seen it all through my career
It could also be straight-up omitted, such as with “United States of America” being U.S.A.
Ya this is also a good point.
And wasn't it originally going to have him and Ramaswamy or however the fuck you spell it as co-heads? Like, the top position was redundant out of the gate, and we're supposed to take its idea of "efficiency" seriously?
No, you're supposed to wonder what exactly its purpose is, who leads it, on what legal basis, and what the limits of its power are.
While 20-something year old unelected goons who won't say their names dismantle the government in a week.
Attention all federal employees! Chances are you’re gonna get your ass fired anyway, so malicious compliance is the watchword from now on. Leak, document, obfuscate, lie, confuse, sidetrack and goosechase them every chance you get.
Remember Hannah Arendt: evil is when every bureaucrat ‘just does their job’ because a higher power gave the order.
You’re the frontline of this fight now. Even if you never signed up for this. Because none of you did.
How exactly is elon who has no position in teh government firing people?
He has an entire department that was created specifically for him to do shit like this.
It was created off the books. He technically has no authority, so I dont k ow why anybody is listening to anything he says. This is plainly illegal, and congress should be taking action right now. Instead we are sitting on our thumbs watching from the side lines.
He technically does have authority, because he's got his team into the IT systems via Trump's orders.
Since the federal government basically runs on Microsoft, that means his goons can go into Active Directory and start locking other people out of key government systems. Then he has payroll mark you as "Terminated" in the accounting system, because his people are in that system, too. If you can't badge into your office, you can't log on to your computer, you can't use your phone, and you won't receive a paycheck, what are you except "fired"?
In Europe we declare ourselves ready to work and are considered to be on paid leave until called upon.
That works so long as the paychecks keep coming. But also, it works because of the large well-structured unions that populate the European bureaucracy.
The US has made a point to dismantle public sector unions precisely because bosses don't like when this happens. We've also turned a great deal of the government over to contractors, both to keep public labor divided and to guarantee the rolls as a means of patronage (landing a contractor job means being in good standing politically) and efficient avenue for kickbacks (contractors and their staff financially support the candidates that send them billable work).
So it's less a question of "will we show up to work for this administration?" and more a question of "will we get included in this administration's patronage scheme?
Thanks for this writeup, fascinating read!
You can blame the "victory fund" bankrupting state parties and Dems losing ground in down ballot races over and over again so that the presidential campaign could have a dinner with Clooney.
Hopefully Ken Martin puts an end to that griff
Ken Martin is the establishment and is not going to change anything about the grift. The DNC is a lost cause.
I was not aware of it being a temporary organization. But it was created by executive order, which likely grants musk power to fire.
Oh, no. Executive orders, at least according to "the rules", do not supercede the law. This is all blatantly illegal in many ways.
Fat lot of good that does, though, considering the other two branches are run by corrupt yes men.
Also, I don't think there's anything saying it's temporary...?
I see people saying this a lot, but as someone unfamiliar, which orders are actually clearly violating existing law? There is the mass firings example, but when I looked it didn't seem clear which rule was actually broken.
I can't tell if you're actually serious or not. Did you even attempt to search? Frankly there's honestly too many for me to be bothered listing here. Furthermore, if you are actually asking on good faith, there have been numerous news articles posted to Lemmy directly, as well as easily available elsewhere.
That said, your whole tone almost screams "I'm just asking questions!", and I have better things to do.
Ok, I'm sorry to have upset you.
My angle here is that it's difficult to discuss this topic if there is not irrefutable proof that his actions as carried out were directly violating clearly defined legislation.
If we take the case of reclassifying civil servants, articles I read say that he can do it when "necessary" / "as good administration warrants" which seems like it could leave a lot of wiggle room for him to snake his way out of it. Following that, I don't see news on whether these people have actually been removed from their jobs or if Trump simply proclaimed something which was not acted upon.
The number of low quality rage-bait articles makes finding actual information quite difficult for me at least.
From the tone of your original post, I had thought you might be knowledgeable as to state clearly which laws he had broken, ideally something so clear it would be impossible for a lawyer not to rule against him (barring whatever the presidential immunity exempts him from).
I wish you well though, and no need to respond here if you don't want to.
It was, but it cannot surrept congress' constitutional authority in holding the governments coin purse. But, then again, if nobody does anything, I guess all bets are off at this point.
He has four people that dont have college degrees, the oldest is 24 and at least one is a teenager
Their actual names and contact info are floating around. But mainstream news isn't reporting it
I mean that would suggest he has a federal appointment then. I mean he was given authority as head of this department??? Because I have not heard his title or anything for a government position.
Dunno.
But I did some digging into the EO, and the USDS (United States DOGE Service) was a hack by renaming from United States Digital Service. It is under the USDS that they created the U.S. DOGE Service Temporary Organization. The EO also states that there is to be an administrator appointed by the White House that reports to the chief of staff. It sounds like to me that they are utilizing loopholes in the constitution/law to sidestep Congress.
Im not sure if the goal is to clog the courts or what but hiring and firing is not an at will with the federal government and it sounds like none of this will really fly. I feel like the way companies try to just see who they can drop and won't fight it but with unions its unlikely anyone would just give up without a fight since they have support.
This dipshit has no authority! What the actual fuck is happening?
We are looking at a coup, they already have judicial power, order forces, and when they get most departments and branches, they will take the legislative power. I give it less than a month, they will start persecuting members of Congress that oppose the current regime.
It's already happening at the state level. Tennessee is passing a law that would make it illegal for state legislature to vote against a bill that aligns with federal policy.
https://www.newsweek.com/tennessee-bill-would-prohibit-voting-against-trump-immigration-policies-2023749
I guess they've never heard of states' rights...
They thought of everything.
What is happening is that they don't care about the law.
Also what is happening is people still seem to be surprised by that.
A government that was more intent on ruling than governing, has been doing all it can to muddy the waters on constitutional interpretation, finally hit a tipping point.
Americans voted for this (or didn't bother to vote to avoid it)
Musk threatens to illegally fire employees he is already illegally firing.
For any dedicated centrists, or even Trump Voters who are starting to feel this increasingly itchy feeling in the back of your mind, like there is a question you want to ask but your brain kind of shies away from putting it into words, let me help you out:
Yes, you are the baddies. Yes, it is only going to get more uncomfortable from here on out. If you haven't walked away after reading this comment, you are now choosing the side you know is wrong. On purpose. That is now your identity.
So he wants them to quit but if they leak anything he’ll fire them? His mind is an enigma
I hope people just say fuck it and leak everything
A lot of that is happening. But you've still got to leak to a source. After the way Snowden and Assange were handled, and the degree to which the bigger journals and news channels have been compromised by conservative financial interests, there's a big open question of who you even tell this stuff to.
Going to another Glenn Greenwald or Matt Taibbi would be a huge mistake.
There are a few out there, Ken Klippenstein has been receiving and publishing a lot of leaks recently. It does make me worried for his security though.
Lmfao. How, exactly, are whistleblower protections going to do shit ?
Know what Nazis and the USSR did to "whistleblowers"? They killed them. Just a matter of time before these people who are leaking the information and slowing things down get shot for "refusing to vacate the premise" after being fired.
Like the Boeing whistle-blowers?
He's gonna fire you anyway, leak harder.
Seriously they're going to fire just about everyone. It's not much of a threat.
Mulk: "I'm going to fire you if you leak anything about me firing all of you."
Staff: "I mean... yes...?"
What if the workers leak information that Elon is an agent of China?
Orr worse, what if he's secretly DEI and woke? Smells like a foreigner with ties to hostile nations to me
You know what would really bring the conservative movement to its knees? Saying Trump is an agent of the Russian government. Then make a big picture of him and Putin kissing.
Absolutely guaranteed to work. There's nothing America can't fix by doubling down on Red Scare.
He may just be a useful idiot, but he's doing exactly what Putin wants.
How Trump's Army veteran pick for Pentagon chief, Fox & Friends' Pete Hegseth, sees the world
This doesn't benefit Putin, it benefits the US military export industry. Europe rearming would be a bonanza for US arms sales.
It won't work. AI exists now, they will just say its fake.
You cannot leak information! I'm the one who leaks information! -fElon
Space Karen disliked that.This man needs to be tried for treason, convicted, and hanged for his crimes against the republic.
Fuck that south African shitsnake
We can't let them complete the Network State takeover. This is hostile to democracy. We will not survive this.
Why are you using their made up name for it?
Network State = fascism
Its corporate fascist states
https://balajis.com/p/the-network-state-2021
If you tell on me I'LL FIRE YOU! also, here's your pink slip, we're going a different direction, goodbye.
It's literally the same thing he did with twitter
The difference is federal unions
if the unions decide to do something... so far they have just been docile like lambs
I think the confusion is you only hear about what federal unions are doing from the media, and you have no experience working with the federal government and don't understand the process.
Well if what they are doing is not hitting ANY news outlets (even informal ones or their own sites) I sincerely doubt they are doing anything worthwhile (unless it happens to be some covert operation)
The other issue is that they really have little recourse when all branches of government AND the courts were handed over to the Orange Turd on a silver platter... what are they actually going to do?
The ONLY proper recourse left here is a general strike and I see Redditors helping on that front more than Unions
That's a hypothetical....
https://www.afge.org/
"Rim me, Elon."
If there are any undercover operatives in my organization disrupting my efforts, I would simply find them and remove them. It is very easy to do because I have so much information and I am so much smarter than everyone else.