Lambert here: This is a level-headed interview, especially in February. Worth studying for leading-edge conventional wisdom. Note, however, that data exfiltration goes unmentioned.
[MILLER] Doge is a vehicle that was announced in November for Elon Musk to fulfil his ambition of drastically slashing government spending by . . . he initially floated roughly $2tn a year. It’s unclear or it was unclear what precisely the format of it would be, despite the fact that it’s got ‘department’ in its name. But it does seem to be a branch of the executive office of the White House, which has a bunch of tech CEOs and founders and a lot of young coders embedded in it who are going around key government agencies and essentially auditing them for so-called waste and frivolous spending, and rapidly shutting down various activities and attempting to fire tens of thousands of civil servants.
[ROGERS] [Y]ou know, by Elon Musk’s Twitter feed, it looks like weapons systems at DOD could be something that they focus on.
Lambert here: LOL.
[Miller] [T]he Treasury payments system] is perhaps the most sensitive system within the US government… And it seems that Doge targeted this early on, because by looking at things as they go out the door, you can sort of go down line by line and item by item and see whether you agree with it or whether you think this is wasteful spending. The problem is that this is, you know, as I mentioned, a very sensitive system. And all of a sudden, two people who were not even named until earlier this week, emissaries from Doge, reportedly had access to it. And Elon Musk was going on X and posting that he was rapidly shutting down illegal payments…..
[ROGERS] I talked to Don Hammond, who used to run the federal payment system. And what he told me is that improper access could affect payment integrity and or sensitive data. And so when we’re thinking about the world’s richest man taking on the world’s largest bureaucracy, the question is really who do you trust? And half the country probably loves that Elon Musk is doing what Washington has been unable to do for decades, which is to go after, you know, so-called waste, fraud and abuse. But the issue here is how it’s being done.
[FILIPINO] So, guys, last question here. It sounds like Doge kind of has free rein unless somebody steps in. Is there anything that can kind of get in its way right now?
[MILLER] Well, there’s one thing for certain, and that is Donald Trump. And we’ve seen this week that after Musk dominated the headlines for days in a row, something we know that Trump is not particularly fond of, Trump told reporters that there are limits to Musk’s power and said that he’s running things by the White House. But he said Elon can’t do and won’t do anything without our approval. And he also hinted that the White House had already vetoed some of the more radical suggestions that Doge has floated.
And then there’s also the others within the Trump orbit who have competing priorities. Trump himself has vowed not to touch social security and Medicaid. And, you know, there are many within his orbit who would also stand in the way of those being slashed. And, of course, there are plenty of China hawks who want more money at the Department of Defense rather than less. And so, those are perhaps going to be the more effective curbs on Musk’s power.
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