The question no one asking is why Elon is sending a team of teenage programmers and not a team of financial auditors if he really wanted to cut government spending?
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Teen on Musk's DOGE team graduated from 'The Com'
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Re: Teen on Musk's DOGE team graduated from 'The Com'
#322Earlier quoted context omitted.
Much of it is! Journalists are already using it to debunk some of Elon’s claims like the one they only 10% of USAID reached intended targets (which appears to be based on his complete misreading of a breakdown) The real question now is where is DOGE’s evidence of all of this corruption? There are massive claims of rampant corruption, such as calling the USAID corrupt to their core, but literally zero evidenced has be…
> where is DOGE’s evidence of all of this corruption? Presumably this was published by DOGE: https://www.whitehouse.gov/fact-sheets/2025/02/at-usaid-wast... I encourage everyone to follow the links and determine the accuracy of the claims being made.
The linked Breitbart article had this:
“Between 2005 and 2008, the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) devoted at least $330 million in funding to failed ADP projects intended to deter farmers and traffickers from cultivating and trafficking opium.”
The article actually said the money was intended to STOP opium production. But the Whitehouse Fact sheet (last bullet point) twisted the facts to say the complete opposite.
Re: Teen on Musk's DOGE team graduated from 'The Com'
#323The question no one asking is why Elon is sending a team of teenage programmers and not a team of financial auditors if he really wanted to cut government spending?
Cause these can get access to things Elon wants access to and will do what Elon wants. Musk does not want audit, he wants someone who will find exactly what Musk wants him to find and wont worry about legality or rules.
Musk is not concerned with producing false accusation for example. Obviously he could find corrupt auditors and probably did, but those are slower. They take more time to produce what was asked from them.
Re: Teen on Musk's DOGE team graduated from 'The Com'
#324The reason security clearances are so important, and why people are so upset about randos going through so much sensitive government information, is that things like this can be used by adversaries to lean on these employees in the future. One of these kids might have worse skeletons in their closet. Given how well-known their names are, adversaries of the USA are likely combing through their own intelligence archive…
> Or, even more horrible, they might have family that adversaries can lean on.
Isn't that the case for any government employee?
Re: Teen on Musk's DOGE team graduated from 'The Com'
#325Earlier quoted context omitted.
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Is there a real source to this? I'll humour you and try to find one. The rabbit hole leads down sketchy sites to sketchy tweets, to someone who eventually sources it as "vBulletin, Biden basement" and links to a Musk tweet with no further info. [0] Smells a lot like "flooding the zone with shit", but I don't think anyone is pro-corruption. Assuming this is true, and it seems like misinfo, I hope that the right has a…
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Re: Teen on Musk's DOGE team graduated from 'The Com'
#326Earlier quoted context omitted.
> why Elon is sending a team of teenage programmers and not a team of financial auditors if he really wanted to cut government spending? History has one answer for the deployment of reams of young fiery-loyalist men to the front lines: cannon fodder.
IMO it's more reminiscent of Red Guards from Cultural Revolution era China.
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Re: Teen on Musk's DOGE team graduated from 'The Com'
#327Is it the same Edward Big Baller that tweeted that Elon stole the election and is setting up more computers within the government to be hacked? https://bsky.app/profile/cartwright776.bsky.social/post/3lhr...
That’s not the same guy clearly
Re: Teen on Musk's DOGE team graduated from 'The Com'
#328Earlier quoted context omitted.
Reporting on this is terrible. There are also senior (in age and experience) people, but much of the focus is on the youngins for obvious reasons. Musk also believes (either arrogance, or true belief) that much of this stuff can be figured out from first principals without much need of traditional experts.
As a side note: that is very similar to how a consulting team would operate. Very young (inexperienced) team on the ground + senior people flying in from time to time.
"flying in from time to time"?
I'm sorry but what are these guys working on that's taking precedence over this?
Re: Teen on Musk's DOGE team graduated from 'The Com'
#329Ignoring the horrifying political parts, I think one aspect here about data access that is inherently worrying is that it seems like all usual controls were bypassed and the DOGE people had very low level access to systems. So there are probably copies of sensitive data now in their possession, and nobody knows exactly what was copied and where it is stored. This kind of access would be dangerous even in the hands of…
The amount of commercially and politically valuable information there is in these systems is incredible. If these people are scooping up this information you can imagine they might be tempted to monetize or weaponize it at some point, or use the threat of such for their own gain. This is absolutely chilling when you think about it.
I wonder what this is going to do to the value of the dollar in the next couple years...
Re: Teen on Musk's DOGE team graduated from 'The Com'
#330The question no one asking is why Elon is sending a team of teenage programmers and not a team of financial auditors if he really wanted to cut government spending?
> not a team of financial auditors
There is a claim that many federal payments do not have information necessary for traditional financial audits. Maybe a team of forensic auditors would be more apt?