Michael A. Cohen, publisher of the newsletter ‘Truth and Consequences,’ writes on MS NOW’s website, “Elon Musk is arguably the most powerful man in the world — and increasingly he is using that power in deeply dangerous ways.” As reported in The Wall Street Journal and other sources, we’ve learned that he ordered a slowdown of “a military-grade version” of SpaceX’s Starlink satellite system called Starshield, upon which Ukraine relies to intercept incoming Russian missiles, or to fire its own drones against Russian targets. The Journal’s one sentence — “with a seeming flick of a switch, Musk has the power to alter the course of a deadly conflict,” which points dangerously to his “increasingly malign influence at home and foreign policy abroad.”

Russia has chosen to directly target civilians with its missiles and drones, killing and injuring thousands, and Musk’s actions are detrimental in Ukraine’s defense of its citizens. Historically, a single individual not involved in combat has not been able to exercise such extraordinary power in a major military confrontation. Musk has expressed concern that a satellite-based network could play such a prominent offensive role, nuclear conflict might result. The simple explanation for his current action is that he is working hand-in-hand with President Trump, both blaming President Zelenskyy for continuing the war with his country’s assailant. Trump blames Ukraine for increases in global energy costs with their attacks against Russian refineries, as he chooses to ignore his own Iran war folly.

The Trump administration has increased pressure on Zelenskyy to capitulate to Putin’s demands, making Musk’s Starlink slowdown consistent with their wishes to appear as peacemakers — too late for the show in boosting support in the midterm election, however. Both Trump and Musk were obsessed with the midterms candidates, with the most powerful man in the world spending a quarter of a billion dollars in support of the GOP, with $150 million alone going to Ken Paxton in the Texas Senate race — a total obscenity that one individual can apply so much influence in an election. But, thanks to our Supreme Court for loosening the campaign rules, Musk’s excesses are allowed to boost Republicans, even as he reaches further to interfere with the Russia/Ukraine conflict.

Cohen asks, “Is America a true democracy when a single, unelected citizen can have such a big impact on an American election? Is it consistent with America’s founding ideals for one citizen, unelected and unaccountable, to have the power to influence the outcome of a foreign war in which vital U.S. national security interests are at stake? This isn’t the first time Musk has gotten involved in matters of state and left behind a trail of damage. After Trump won back the White House in 2024, he rewarded Musk by putting him in charge of the Orwellian-named Department of Government Efficiency.” In a short, calamitous occupancy, DOGE wreaked havoc within the federal government.

Hundreds of thousands of government employees were needlessly fired, the Social Security Administration was weakened, and decades of scientific research was undermined, all of which saved very little money in this aggravating undertaking. In Musk’s words, throwing the U.S. Agency for International Development into “the wood chipper” resulted in the deaths of as many as a million people globally. Musk’s defenders may point to his business success, but he isn’t content with merely being a successful entrepreneur — he wants to use his millions to exercise power that eclipses governments and politicians.

Should the House Democrats manage to flip that governmental body, Politico reports that multiple committees plan to scrutinize his business practices, his weighty government contracts and his control of the Starlink system. To make it more difficult for the obscenely wealthy to wield pressure over American elections and on American statecraft is another agenda item that should be a top priority because Musk is growing menace, and Trump won’t, or can’t, rein him in. Trump’s sprawling and disastrous pet project with DOGE dismantled important pieces of our government, illegally canceled billions of dollars in grants, all in the most chaotic, unhinged, and reckless manner.

With Musk spearheading the project, his own companies were winning billions of dollars in government contracts, massively enriching his already obscene wealth and creating glaring and severe conflicts of interest. His DOGE raiders were able to delve into the deepest files, exposing the most private and sensitive information of our population, citizens and non-citizens alike, to rank amateurs, a boon for Homeland Security and ICE as they moved against immigrants and people of color. Steve Schmidt calls Musk “the flimflam man, the bully with a grievance, the salesman who begins to believe that the people buying his story have acknowledged his right to rule them.”

Schmidt continues: “There are extraordinary engineers at Musk’s companies. There are people whose intelligence, discipline and labor have produced astonishing things. Their accomplishments are real. Musk has made himself the owner of their genius. The workers build great machines. The public helps finance the enterprise. He takes the applause. Then he explains why the rest of us must surrender more power to the only man who can save us. His greatest talent is shamelessness. He sees a colossus in the mirror. A savior. A god. An American king entitled to make decisions for people who have never consented to his authority. And increasingly, his decisions reach into questions of life and death.”

Mira Bhakta writes on The Hill, “SpaceX founder Elon Musk warned Democrats over a possible congressional probe, writing, ‘live by the sword, die by the sword. Those who pick fights with me should understand that I will find out who is really pulling the strings and come for them, not just their puppets.'” The Democrats are reportedly looking to extend their probe beyond Musk’s business operations into his immense authority as a special federal employee at DOGE, about which Representative Gerry Connolly is accusing the White House of ‘obscuring the facts‘ of his role at that department.

DOGE reports that it saved $214 billion through asset sales, contract cancellations, fraud and improper payment deletion, programmatic changes and workforce reductions during the 130-day tenure. Supposedly, that amounted to $1,329 saved per taxpayer, reducing the national debt by 0.54 percent. However, an investigation by the environmental nonprofit group Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility claimed the Trump administration cost taxpayers an estimated $10 billion in 2025 through its deferred resignation program. In another report, the Government Accountability Office estimated the administration spent $6.7 billion on administrative leave after DOGE pushed for employee buyouts.

In his book ‘Blockers: Rebels in the Deep State,’ best-selling author Michael Lewis examines the early days of Trump Presidency II, DOGE, and Elon Musk, by profiling six specific federal employees who viewed their positions through a dedicated public-service calling rather than political alignment. DOGE labelled pejoratively, those career civil servants, holdovers, or anyone who resisted sweeping, fast-tracked, or illegal rollbacks of government operations, as ‘blockers.’ In Trump’s Washington it was the worst thing a federal employee could be called if they wanted to remain employed. Lewis, known for his thorough investigative work, familiarly in his book ‘Moneyball‘ which was made into a successful movie, details DOGE’s eighteen week push to slash budgets through mass buyouts and firings, which failed to deliver as it destabilized critical nonpartisan functions.

Reviewers praise Lewis for transforming the first two years of Trump II into a thriller about federal employees, while posing the question: “If these public servants can’t survive in government today, then what does it say about us?” Within the six profiled subjects were a security guard, one who kept sensitive tax data safe, another who made certain that politicians  and civil servants played by the rules, another who studied wildfires, and one who probed the mysteries of cystic fibrosis. As the Financial Times wrote, “For all its sound and fury, DOGE achieved no meaningful cuts. Taking its false economies into account, DOGE might even have added to the US deficit. Yet as Michael Lewis sets out in his commendable new book, the effects of DOGE’s storm will be felt for years to come, as a result of Musk’s arrogance and conceit.”

Sam Freedman writes in The Guardian, “Donald Trump’s catastrophic errors get so much attention that his systemic one can be easily missed. While the world looks on in dismay at his farcical war in Iran, the thuggery of ICE agents or clownish attacks on erstwhile allies like Canada and Denmark, the core functions of the American government are slowly disintegrating…It is harder to get people to focus on the machinery of the state because the effects are often slow and hard to pin down…The other problem is that bureaucracies are hard to make interesting. Their work is technical and complicated, and most officials are taught to avoid saying anything engaging in public. By the time a journalist has explained what an agency does and why it is important, the reader may well have clicked on to the next thing.”

Freedman comments on Lewis’s book, saying that the ‘blockers‘ didn’t do much blocking, since they all either end up resigning upon being asked to do something illegal, or are fired. Much of the book is taken up detailing the valuable work they accomplished before being turned out by Musk and his ‘muskrats‘ for being conscientious. Freedman says the ‘villains’ had varied motivations for participation in DOGE, ranging from young coders having limited social skills, to turncoat bureaucrats looking for an easy gig — to include health secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and his bizarre obsession with dead animal parts. Freedman accuses Musk of becoming bored after causing a satisfying degree of havoc, turning it over to Russell Vought, developer of Project 2025.

“Vought is the real deal, quietly and systematically deconstructing the state while keeping out of the spotlight and getting others to do his dirty work for him,” writes Freedman. One of Vought’s victims was scientist Francis Collins who had assisted in the discovery of a successful treatment for cystic fibrosis, giving longer life spans to those suffering under the condition. Under President Obama, Collins was head of NIH, continuing in the slot during Trump’s first term and into Biden’s tenure, before stepping down to manage a research lab. Collins was effectively forced out as part of Vought’s cost-cutting. “What makes this particularly remarkable is that Vought’s own daughter has cystic fibrosis. Ideology is a powerful drug,” declares Freedman.

“One of the most irritating aspects of DOGE’s brief existence was the stream of op-eds from people who really should have known better,” says Freedman, “that someone’s finally trying to enact reform, even if it was being done in a clumsy and aggressive manner. In reality, Musk’s overweening arrogance, glibness and total lack of preparation have seriously harmed the case for proper reform. Not just due to the mess he and the likes of Vought caused, but also because they brought the very idea of making the state more efficient into disrepute.” He concludes that agencies and departments should not have to rely on unsung heroes, battling failing systems, and doing 90-hour weeks for little money because of their intense devotion to public service. Effective government needs processes that work when used by a regular person doing a nine-to-five job, with embedding it into the fabric of our institutions.

Daily Dose of Democracy speaks of President Trump’s “seething disdain for the very people who propelled him to the White House,” which is jarring each time he flaunts it as he did recently in a campaign rally in Corpus Christi, Texas. He began his mocking by dangling the fake $5,000 bribe checks voters will never see, then laying down the caveat that the money must be spent in this country. Suggesting that the attendees use the money to splurge on a vacation to Mar-a-Lago1, he backpedaled immediately with the warning that the most they could afford there is a hamburger and maybe a small dessert — “I’m not even sure you could buy that. No don’t go there. That’s not a good place if you’re price conscious.” As in, “You can’t afford to dine with me, peasants.”

Lisa Needham on Daily Kos writes, “More like not a good place to go if you’re taste-conscious. Imagine what a burger cooked to Trump’s taste would be. You’d be paying five large for basically an overcooked Big Mac wrapped in gold foil with mandatory ketchup, right?” Texas Senate candidate James Talarico commented, “The reason poverty exists in the wealthiest country in human history is not because we can’t feed the poor. It’s because we can’t satisfy the rich.”

Gram Slattery and Jasper Ward of Reuters report that Trump finds it “unacceptable” that one of his former lawyers, Alina Habba Mildon, secured a $50 million contract for herself while working at the US Department of Justice. “I thought it was totally obnoxious and outrageous, and it’s not acceptable, not acceptable at all,” groused the president. Venezuelan banker Julio Herrera who was facing US felony bribery charges struck a plea deal in August 2025, guaranteeing Habba Mildon more than $50 million over four years, after she signed a contract on January 1 with his company, Concord Partners. She had already been disqualified from serving as US attorney, resigning on December 8, then being appointed senior adviser to Attorney General Pam Bondi the same day.

Trump pardoned Herrera on January 15, 2026, but Habba Mildon said she was never paid for securing a pardon, never met with anyone at the White House or Justice Department about a pardon, and never did any work for a pardon for anyone. Incidentally, Herrera’s daughter who is a US citizen donated $3.5 million to a Trump-connected super PAC — hardly newsworthy, you think? Habba Mildon has declined to elaborate on what, if any, actual work she does at Concord, and the company has no public profile with its business remaining unclear even to some people associated with the Herreras. Daily Dose of Democracy reports that “an irate Trump is telling aides that his former attorney should fork over at least some of her quid pro quo dough to his future presidential library or another Trump-related entity.” Selling pardons? Totally fine! Not cutting the Gaudyfather in on the deal? Unconscionable!