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Elon Musk has called for the U.S. government to eliminate entire agencies
Court Watch |
2025/02/13 19:28
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Elon Musk, during a video call on Thursday at the World Governments Summit in Dubai, UAE, called for the United States to “delete entire agencies” from the federal government, pushing for drastic spending cuts and a restructuring of national priorities under President Donald Trump.
Musk, who was speaking remotely, painted a broad picture of his view on the Trump administration's goals, interweaving topics of “thermonuclear warfare” and the risks posed by artificial intelligence. He criticized what he saw as the dominance of bureaucracy over democratic governance.
“I think we do need to delete entire agencies, rather than just leaving a few behind,” Musk continued. “If we don’t remove the roots of the weed, it’s easy for it to grow back.”
Although Musk has appeared at the summit before, this time his comments carried more weight, as he now holds significant control over certain government functions, especially with Trump’s endorsement, after taking charge of the Department of Government Efficiency. His role has involved sidelining long-term government officials, gaining access to sensitive data, and prompting legal debates about presidential power limits.
In his remarks, Musk also expressed an isolationist stance regarding U.S. influence in the Middle East, especially given the ongoing legacy of the U.S. wars in Afghanistan and Iraq following the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.
Musk emphasized that under Trump, the U.S. has become “less interested in interfering with the affairs of other countries,” suggesting that the U.S. had sometimes been overly aggressive in international affairs. Speaking to the UAE audience, Musk noted, “There are times the United States has been kind of pushy in international affairs, which may resonate with some members of the audience,” acknowledging the UAE's autocratic governance.
On domestic matters, Musk touched on the Trump administration's push to eliminate diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) efforts, linking it to the potential risks of AI. He joked, “If hypothetically, AI is designed for DEI, you know, diversity at all costs, it could decide that there’s too many men in power and execute them.”
Regarding AI, Musk revealed that X’s new AI chatbot, Grok 3, would be ready in about two weeks, calling it “kind of scary.” He also criticized Sam Altman’s leadership at OpenAI, comparing it to a nonprofit dedicated to saving the Amazon rainforest that becomes a lumber company. Musk recently made a $97.4 billion bid to take over OpenAI, and a court filing on his behalf stated that he would withdraw the offer if OpenAI proceeds with its plan to become a for-profit entity.
Musk also shared plans for a new “Dubai Loop” project as part of his work with the Boring Company, which has been digging tunnels in Las Vegas to accelerate transit. According to a later statement from Dubai’s crown prince, Sheikh Hamdan bin Mohammed Al Maktoum, Dubai and the Boring Company would explore the development of a 17-kilometer (10.5-mile) underground network with 11 stations capable of transporting over 20,000 passengers per hour. No financial terms were disclosed. |
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Elon Musk dodges DOGE scrutiny while expanding his power in Washington
Court Watch |
2025/02/08 19:25
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Elon Musk made a clear promise after Donald Trump decided to put him in charge of making the government more efficient.
“It’s not going to be some sort of backroom secret thing,” Musk said last year. “It will be as transparent as possible,” maybe even streamed live online. It hasn’t worked out that way so far.
In the three weeks since the Republican president has been back in the White House, Musk has rapidly burrowed deep into federal agencies while avoiding public scrutiny of his work. He has not answered questions from journalists or attended any hearings with lawmakers. Staff members for his so-called Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, have sidelined career officials around Washington.
It is a profound challenge not only to business-as-usual within the federal government, which Trump campaigned on disrupting, but to concepts of consensus and transparency that are foundational in a democratic system. Musk describes himself as “White House tech support,” and he has embedded himself in an unorthodox administration where there are no discernible limits on his influence.
Donald K. Sherman, executive director of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, said Trump has allowed Musk to “exert unprecedented power and authority over government systems” with “maximal secrecy and little-to-no accountability.”
The White House insisted that DOGE is “extremely transparent” and shared examples of its work so far, such as canceling contracts and ending leases for underused buildings. House Republicans said the Trump administration also discovered that Social Security benefits were being paid to a dozen people listed as 150 years old.
“We’re going to find billions, hundreds of billions of dollars of fraud and abuse and, you know, the people elected me on that,” Trump said in a Fox News interview to be aired along with the Super Bowl on Sunday. He described Musk as “terrific” and said he would soon focus on the Department of Defense, the country’s largest government agency.
That is true, at least judging by Musk’s social media, where no thought appears to be suppressed. His X account is a flood of internet memes, attacks on critics and professions of loyalty to the president. He has made clear the grand scope of his ambitions, talking in existential terms about the need to reverse the federal deficit, cut government spending and roll back progressive programs.
“This administration has one chance for major reform that may never come again,” he posted on Saturday. “It’s now or never.”
Musk is used to doing things his own way. The world’s richest person, he became wealthy with the online payment service PayPal, then took over the electric car manufacturer Tesla and founded the rocket company SpaceX. More recently, he bought Twitter and rebranded it as X, cutting jobs and remaking its culture.
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Rudy Giuliani is in contempt of court in $148 million defamation case
Court Watch |
2025/01/05 07:54
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Rudy Giuliani was found in contempt of court Monday for failing to properly respond to requests for information as he turned over assets to satisfy a $148 million defamation judgment granted to two Georgia election workers.
Judge Lewis J. Liman ruled after hearing Giuliani testify for a second day at a contempt hearing called after lawyers for the election workers said the former New York City mayor had failed to properly comply with requests for evidence over the last few months.
Liman said Giuliani “willfully violated a clear and unambiguous order of this court” when he “blew past” a Dec. 20 deadline to turn over evidence that would help the judge decide at a trial later this month whether Giuliani can keep a Palm Beach, Florida, condominium as his residence or must turn it over because it is deemed a vacation home.
Because Giuliani failed to reveal the full names of his doctors, a complete list of them, or of his other professional services providers, the judge said he will conclude at trial that none of them were in Florida or had been changed after Jan. 1, 2024. That was the date Giuliani says he established Palm Beach as his permanent residence.
Liman also excluded Giuliani from offering testimony about emails or text messages to establish that his homestead was in Florida.
The judge said Giuliani produced only a dozen and a half “cherry picked” documents and no phone records, emails or texts related to his homestead. He said he can also make inferences during the trial about “gaps” in evidence that resulted from Giuliani’s failure to turn over materials.
Liman said he would withhold judgment on other possible sanctions.
On Friday, Giuliani testified for about three hours in Liman’s Manhattan courtroom, but the judge permitted him to finish testifying remotely on Monday for over two hours from his Palm Beach condominium. By the time the judge issued his oral ruling, Giuliani was no longer present at all.
Joseph Cammarata, Giuliani’s attorney, noted in an email afterward that the election workers were not in the courtroom either and he called the outcome “no surprise.”
“This case is about lawfare and the weaponization of the legal system in New York City,” he said.
Cammarata said the state criminal case against President-elect Donald Trump and the civil litigation against Giuliani were “very similar. It’s the left wing Democrats trying to use liberal Judges in New York to win when they should lose on the merits.”
At the start of the hearing, Giuliani appeared before an American flag backdrop, which he said he uses for a program he conducts over the internet, but the judge told him to change it to a plain background. He also at one point held up his grandfather’s heirloom pocket watch and said he was ready to relinquish.
Giuliani conceded that he sometimes did not turn over everything requested in the case because he believed what was being sought was overly broad, inappropriate or even a “trap” set by lawyers for the plaintiffs.
He also said he sometimes had trouble turning over information regarding his assets because of numerous criminal and civil court cases requiring him to produce factual information.
Liman labeled one of Giuliani’s claims “preposterous” and said that being suspicious of the intent of lawyers for the election workers was “not an excuse for violating court orders.”
Giuliani, 80, said the demands made it “impossible to function in an official way” about 30% to 40% of the time.
After the ruling, the former mayor issued a statement through his publicist saying it was “tragic to watch as our justice system has been turned into a total mockery, where we have charades instead of actual hearings and trials.”
The election workers’ lawyers say Giuliani has displayed a “consistent pattern of willful defiance” of Liman’s October order to give up assets after he was found liable in 2023 for defaming their clients by falsely accusing them of tampering with ballots during the 2020 presidential election. |
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PA high court orders counties not to count disputed ballots in US Senate race
Court Watch |
2024/11/18 06:19
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Pennsylvania’s state Supreme Court on Monday weighed in on a flashpoint amid ongoing vote counting in the U.S. Senate election between Democratic Sen. Bob Casey and Republican David McCormick, ordering counties not to count mail-in ballots that lack a correct handwritten date on the return envelope.
The order is a win for McCormick and a loss for Casey as the campaigns prepare for a statewide recount and press counties for favorable ballot-counting decisions while election workers are sorting through thousands of provisional ballots.
McCormick’s campaign called it a “massive setback” for Casey.
The Democratic-majority high court’s order reiterates the position it took previously that the ballots shouldn’t be counted in the election, a decision that Republicans say several Democratic-controlled counties nevertheless challenged.
In a statement, Gov. Josh Shapiro, a Democrat, said a lack of legal clarity had surrounded the ballots, putting county officials in a position where they were “damned if they did and damned if they didn’t — likely facing legal action no matter which decision they made on counting.”
It comes amid a gust of fresh litigation in recent days filed by both campaigns, contesting the decisions of about a dozen counties over whether or not to count thousands of provisional ballots.
Casey’s campaign says the provisional ballots shouldn’t be rejected for garden-variety errors, like a polling place worker forgetting to sign it. Republicans say the law is clear that the ballots must be discarded.
The Associated Press called the race for McCormick last week, concluding that not enough ballots remained to be counted in areas Casey was winning for him to take the lead.
As of Monday, McCormick led by about 17,000 votes out of almost 7 million ballots counted — inside the 0.5% margin threshold to trigger an automatic statewide recount under Pennsylvania law.
Statewide, the number of mail-in ballots with wrong or missing dates on the return envelope could be in the thousands.
Republicans last week asked the court to bar counties from counting the ballots, saying those decisions violate both the court’s recent orders and its precedent in upholding the requirement in state law that a voter write the date on their mail-in ballot’s return envelope. |
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Kenya’s deputy president pleads not guilty in impeachment process
Court Watch |
2024/10/22 07:48
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Kenya’s deputy president, who faces impeachment, pleaded not guilty in a senate hearing Wednesday to all allegations including corruption, inciting ethnic divisions and support for anti-government protests that saw demonstrators storm the country’s parliament.
Deputy President Rigathi Gachagua, who has called the allegations politically motivated, could be the first sitting deputy president impeached in Kenya.
The case highlights the friction between him and President William Ruto — something that Ruto once vowed to avoid after his past troubled relationship as deputy to Kenya’s previous president, Uhuru Kenyatta.
Gachagua has said he believes the impeachment process has Ruto’s blessing, and has asked legislators to make their decision “without intimidation and coercion.”
The tensions risk introducing more uncertainty for investors and others in East Africa’s commercial hub. Court rulings this week allowed the parliament and senate to proceed with the impeachment debate, despite concerns over irregularities raised by the deputy president’s lawyers.
The impeachment motion was approved in parliament last week and forwarded to the senate. Gachagua’s legal team will have Wednesday and Thursday to cross-examine witnesses, and the senate will vote Thursday evening.
Under the Kenyan Constitution, the removal from office is automatic if approved by both chambers, though Gachagua can challenge the action in court — something he has said he would do.
Kenya’s president has yet to publicly comment on the impeachment process. Early in his presidency, he said he wouldn’t publicly humiliate his deputy.
Ruto, who came to office claiming to represent Kenya’s poorest citizens, has faced widespread criticism for his efforts to raise taxes in an effort to find ways to pay off foreign creditors. But the public opposition led him to shake up his cabinet and back off certain proposals. |
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