Tesla CEO and X owner Elon Musk speaks during a rally for Republican presidential nominee and former U.S. president Donald Trump, at the site of the July assassination attempt against Trump, in Butler, Pennsylvania, U.S., October 5, 2024.
Associated Press (2/4/25) evidently needed the work of ten reporters to produce “Elon Musk Tightens Grip on Federal Government as Democrats Raise Alarms.”
At first blush, the story might seem to convey concern, but look closer: We see Musk matter-of-factly described as a “special government employee, which subjects him to less stringent rules on ethics and financial disclosures than other workers.”
He’s also described as “in charge of retooling the federal government.” Is that a thing? AP suggests we believe that it is.
The debate, AP tells us, is just between Republicans who “defend Musk as simply carrying out Trump’s slash-and-burn campaign promises,” and Democrats who, “for their part, accused Musk of leading a coup from within the government by amassing unaccountable and illegal power.” Tomato, to-mah-to, you understand.
Musk locking federal workers out of internal systems, denying them access to their own personnel files, with their pay history, length of service and qualifications: Why, that’s just “Musk’s penchant for dabbling.” He’s been “tinkering with things his entire life,” the wire service says. He learned to code as a child in South Africa, you see, and “now Musk is popping open the hood on the federal government like it’s one of his cars or rockets.”
Popping open the hood of democratic processes to tinker with them? If you rely on reporting from nominally neutral outlets like Associated Press, you might imagine that’s only a concern of partisan Democrats, not regular folks like you and me.