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NB note - I have included 3 articles that raise the alarm on the illegal takeover of the entire government by an unelected private person who has no guardrails - a private person who gets much of his own funding from government and who has conflicts of interest. Reportedly sensitive confidential data on companies and individuals is now in the hands of Musk and his henchmen and being downloaded to private servers.
As Elon Musk Begins Shutting Down Payments to Federal Contractors, a Strange Money Trail Emerges to His Operatives Inside the U.S. Treasury’s Payment System By Pam Martens and Russ Martens: February 3, 2025 ~
Elon Musk
Elon Musk is the billionaire CEO of the publicly-traded EV company, Tesla. As such, under corporate law, he owes a Duty of Loyalty to Tesla. Notwithstanding this well-established law, Musk is engaged in an array of other corporate endeavors outside of Tesla, including being the CEO of SpaceX, a private rocket company.
SpaceX is a major federal contractor to NASA and the Department of Defense. See our report: The U.S. Government Is Plowing Billions into SpaceX, Overlooking Drug Use, Sex Parties, and Elon Musk’s Coziness with Putin.
Now, the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Bloomberg News, and a host of other media outlets are reporting that Musk has used his 2-week old position as the head of a Donald Trump faux agency – the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) – which Trump created out of thin air last month by Executive Order, to have his DOGE operatives gain access to the U.S. Treasury’s $6 trillion payment system and snoop on its payments. This means that Musk’s DOGE hires could potentially access confidential information on government contract payments made to Musk’s competitors as well as highly confidential payments related to national security.
There are media reports this morning that Musk has begun to cancel payments to some federal contractors.
One of the individuals engaged in this snooping on behalf of Musk, according to reporting at the New York Times, is Tom Krause, the CEO of Cloud Software Group, which describes itself as “Developer of enterprise infrastructure software” whose platform encompasses, among other things, “business intelligence.”
Krause is still listed at the website of Cloud Software Group as its current CEO, as well as using that same title on his personal LinkedIn page. So how, exactly, did he gain security clearance to snoop on this vast U.S. government payment system. Why is the Board of Directors of Cloud Software Group allowing him to engage in this legally dubious undertaking?
Cloud Software Group’s major owners include Vista Equity Partners and Elliott Investment Management, according to an interview with Krause at SpencerStuart.
The founder, Chairman and CEO of Vista Equity Partners is billionaire Robert F. Smith, whose net worth is pegged at $10.8 billion according to Forbes. In 2020, during the first Trump administration, Smith was charged by the U.S. Department of Justice with engaging in a massive 15-year international tax fraud scheme. Smith was given a non-prosecution agreement and settled the matter for $139 million after cooperating with prosecutors.
The other major co-owner of Krause’s firm, Elliott Investment Management, is the giant hedge fund founded by billionaire Paul Singer, who remains at Elliott as President, Co-Chief Executive Officer, and Co-Chief Investment Officer. Singer gave the Trump-supporting Make America Great Again Inc. PAC $5 million in one check in August of last year.
In addition, and notably, Singer is also Chairman of the Manhattan Institute for Policy Research, a right-wing think tank. William Barr, one of Donald Trump’s Attorneys General during his first term as President, is a member of the Board of Trustees of the Manhattan Institute. Megadonors to Trump and Republicans, including hedge fund titan John Paulson and former Education Secretary Betsy DeVos in Trump’s first term, also serve on the Manhattan Institute’s Board of Trustees.
Senator Ron Wyden, the Ranking Member of the Senate Finance Committee has sent a letter to Trump’s recently confirmed U.S. Treasury Secretary, Scott Bessent, raising national security concerns about the snooping by DOGE inside the Treasury’s payment system and demanding answers in short order.
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This is it. This is Germany in the 1930s and what you do will be recorded in the history books. Your children and grandchildren will look back and ask what you did. Will you be able to look them in the face? Fascism thrives on fear. It wilts under scrutiny. Never look away. Never stop fighting. Hold them accountable and make them pay for every cruel thing they do. By now, you should be aware that a ketamine junkie is in control of the United States government. Donald Trump is out in public making wet fart noises to distract the press while Elon Musk is seizing control of the entire United States Treasury. Let me repeat that because the press sure isn’t: Elon Musk, who does not actually work for the government, is now in control of all of the money of the United States government and is randomly deciding to shut parts of it down based on paranoid far-right racist shit he read on Twitter:
Just to be clear: USAID is the part of the government that provides aid to foreign countries. That money buys food and medicine for children in extreme poverty. Drugs to keep them from dying from disease. Supplies for refugee camps. Aid for the victims of natural disasters and wars. Money to help the troops win over the locals. There’s a lot going on, all of it in the interest of national security. Of course, you can’t check any of that because Republicans pulled the website down so no one can look it up.¹ This must be an enormous strain on the budget, of course. We’re sending literally BILLIONS to other countries! It’s outrageous! Or, if you’re not a fucking moron and take 20 seconds to do some math, you’ll discover that of the $6.9 TRILLION budget, USAID makes up just .0062% of that. No, I did not accidentally insert an extra fucking zero. Not .062% .0062% We spend around $42 billion on this. By way of comparison, we give away over $650 billion to the fossil fuel industry, the most profitable industry to ever exist. That’s more than ten times as much and do you see the price of gas dropping? No, no you fucking do not. It’s actually about to shoot through the fucking roof because Trumpflation and the oil executives are going to laugh all the way to the bank. Here’s how the press is covering a private citizen who is not actually part of the government illegally cutting off aid to millions of people on a whim:
The Washington Post is a little bit better but not really.
The LA Times? LOL.
One little box. In the physical paper, it’s on page 5. Page. Fucking. Five. But it’s worse than this. So much fucking worse. Musk has control of literally the entire budget. The press noticed it and then immediately moved on. It’s really hard to overstate how fucking insane this is, not to mention wildly illegal. It was wildly illegal when Trump’s regime tried to do this last week but at least they’re the government. Musk isn’t even that. And yet, Elon Musk installed computers to give him direct control over the US Treasury and all of the money going out so he can just shut off anything and everything he wants at any time. You’d think the press would put a little more effort into alerting the public. Maybe half the effort they put into screaming about Joe Biden’s age or Hillary’s emails? Maybe? Or maybe they’ll just fuck off and masturbate some more over Trump being back in the White House. Here’s Josh Marshall to fill in the details the legacy press is just ignoring:  Josh Marshall @joshtpm.bsky.socialSeveral conversations today w people in the key executive departments. And while the particulars are hard to pin down my impression is that the Musk take over stuff is considerably worse than is being presented in the press. By this I don’t necessarily things they *done* yet but the level of … Sun, 02 Feb 2025 05:09:03 GMT View on BlueskyJosh Marshall @joshtpm.bsky.social2/ they already have over key computer systems, payment systems, etc. and with the press picture it’s not that things aren’t getting out. The stuff abt the Treasury payments systems and control over certain computer networks has been reported. It’s more putting together the big picture abt how … Sun, 02 Feb 2025 05:09:03 GMT View on BlueskyJosh Marshall @joshtpm.bsky.social3/ different pieces fit together. There also seems to be a significant amount of downloading government data onto private servers, etc, totally outside any cybersecurity regime. Additionally it’s unclear to the people inside whether the people doing these things actually work for the US govt… Sun, 02 Feb 2025 05:09:03 GMT View on BlueskyJosh Marshall @joshtpm.bsky.social4/ who they are, whether they’re even American citizens. They all seem to be Thiel and Musk protégés. And I’ve had multiple references to their refusing to identify themselves by anything but first name. The rationale given is that they could be doxed. Sun, 02 Feb 2025 05:09:03 GMT View on BlueskyJosh Marshall @joshtpm.bsky.social5/ One additional point and to be clear this latter stuff isn’t from my reporting just pieced together other reports and what musk is saying himself. They’re into th ex treasury payment system and claiming they’ve already found like $4B in “savings” a day. Sun, 02 Feb 2025 05:19:04 GMT View on BlueskyJosh Marshall @joshtpm.bsky.social6/ It’s important to know what this means. This is simple his DOGE team reviewing the US federal budget, law of the land and deciding which parts aren’t necessary. It sounds like they’re saying they will unilaterally cut these funds with control over the check writing at Treasury. Sun, 02 Feb 2025 05:19:04 GMT View on BlueskyJosh Marshall @joshtpm.bsky.social7/ They’re not saying that last part explicitly but that’s certainly the logic of what they’re saying. (Go look at his tweets over thd last two days). So a group of Musk protégés seem to be overruling the US federal budget. Impoundment by the president is illegal. It’s hard to think through … Sun, 02 Feb 2025 05:19:04 GMT View on BlueskyJosh Marshall @joshtpm.bsky.social8/ the levels of illegality having a group of people who don’t even seem to be US government employees doing it. Sun, 02 Feb 2025 05:19:04 GMT View on BlueskyOK, let me continue to paint the grimmest picture imaginable for you: The people Musk has doing this? They are not all highly skilled trusted employees. They’re kids fresh out of high school. Not college. Fucking high school!
Now, why would Musk recruit people so young when he could recruit literally anyone with his unlimited money? The answer should tell you everything you need to know about what he intends to do. Musk wants people who will obey his orders without question and who better than a barely 20-something? Someone dazzled by Musk’s reputation and money. Someone who hasn’t had time to mature enough to think for themselves and weigh the consequences of what they’re doing. In other words, someone who will do every illegal thing they’re told to do without even necessarily realizing what they’re doing. “But Mr. Musk said we were allowed to do that!” is a phrase we’re going to be hearing a lot over the next several years as people are dragged into the streets and put up against the wall. Here’s the thing, Musk is not doing this for funsies. He, not Trump², has four distinct goals here:
Remember, every time the economy tanks, the rich get a LOT richer. They seize property and assets and power. Right now, the economy is thriving and that’s dangerous to oligarchs. A thriving economy means workers will demand more. More money. More representation. More equality and equity. The exact opposite of what authoritarians want. The solution? Blow it all up as quickly as possible. But it’s not just enough to line his pocket. Musk is part of the project to eliminate the government. Republicans have been working towards this goal for decades and they’re taking their shot now. The tech bros have gone all in on Curtis Yarvin’s dystopian nonsense about how America needs a “CEO” aka “a dictator” because democracy is just so annoying and messy. After all, what has democracy ever done but hold the rich back from living out their dreams of raping little girls and hunting the poor for sport. It’s probably worth noting an awful lot of the tech billionaires leading this coup hail from South Africa and never got over the end of Apartheid. I’m sure that has nothing to do with them empowering Nazis here in America. It’s also worth noting that Musk is now helping himself to the personal information of millions of government employees and social security numbers of every American. And they’re putting this stuff on unsecured computers. I sure hope none of Musk’s close friends in Russia or China access it “by accident.” That would definitely never happen because the people in Trump’s and Musk’s orbit are all well-known to be careful with sensitive information and not at all open to bribery or blackmail. Hey, remember that time we found out that Russian computers were linked to computers at the Trump Organization and we all pretended that never happened? Or that time Trump had hundreds of stolen classified documents sitting in his bathroom? Nothing like that could ever happen again. Definitely. And, finally, there’s 100% no chance that Elon Musk, a businessman who has lied, cheated, and stolen his entire career, will use his control over the ENTIRETY OF THE UNITED STATES TREASURY to enrich himself even further. Zero chance he will cut off money from his competitors or extort massive bribes from them. No chance whatsoever that he will force companies to do his bidding or lose access to vital funds. And there is absolutely no way in the world that billions of dollars will accidentally find their way into the Swiss bank accounts. Who’s even going to notice a hundred billion here or there from a $6 trillion budget?! Oh? You want to do an audit? You’re fired, you nosy fuck. And Kash Patel’s As the damage escalates, it’s extremely important to keep this in mind:  Aaron Rupar @atrupar.comDraw your own conclusions, but Donald Trump is not behaving like a leader who expects democratic accountability for himself or his party next year or in 2028. Sun, 02 Feb 2025 03:15:08 GMT View on BlueskyThe fascist oligarchs believe A. they can do so much damage that losing elections won’t matter or B. that they’ll have the power to prevent their removal even if they do lose. The third option is even worse: C. They’ll lose and they won't be held accountable because the nation will have to “look forward” to heal from the damage. This is what we did after Nixon and Reagan and Bush and Trump 1.0 instead of dragging them all into the streets and making examples of them. First, state attorneys general have to get their asses in gear. Musk and his little henchmen may be immune to federal prosecution because the DoJ won’t touch them and Trump will just pardon them anyway, but they’re not protected from state charges. Musk is violating so many laws right now, it’s impossible that he’s not violating several on the state level. Second, when this is over and the fascists have self-destructed as they always do, we have to throw “unity” out the window. No talk of healing and looking forward. We have to seek more than “justice.” There needs to be a reckoning. The party of fascism needs to be burned out root and stem. The companies that took their side need to be destroyed for collaborating. I don’t mean paying a bribe and keeping their head down to avoid being punished by Trump’s regime. I mean the companies that actively worked with the fascists. Twitter. Facebook. Keep it up, Google. You’ll be up against the wall, too. We see you and we know what you’re doing. You’re only going to get one shot at this because when the peasants come for you, we’re going to come for ALL of you and hiding in your little doomsday bunkers won’t be enough, you rat fuck bastards. There are 273 days until the first Blue Wave and it starts in Virginia, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania. I hope you feel better informed about the world and ready to kick fascists in the teeth to protect it. 1 If you don’t know what they’re doing, then you can’t complain, right? 2
Donald Trump literally has no idea what Elon Musk is doing. He’s just nodding his head and obeying because he’s a fucking puppet. xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx |
