In a stunning display of government overreach, the UK has effectively forced Apple to disable its iCloud encryption for British users. Earlier this month, we wrote about the UK wielding the Investigatory Powers Act — aka “The Snooper’s Charter” — to demand Apple create a backdoor in its iCloud encryption for all users globally. Despite Apple’s long-standing warnings that it would rather exit the UK market than compromise encryption, the UK government doubled down.
The ensuing public outcry and warnings of “serious consequences” from US politicians fell on deaf ears. While the government’s exact demands remain secret (because of course they do), Apple’s response speaks volumes: they’re shutting down iCloud encryption for UK users entirely rather than create a global backdoor.
Apple disabled its most secure data storage offering for new customers in Britain on Friday rather than comply with a secret government order that would have allowed police and intelligence agencies to access the encrypted content.
That sounds like the UK isn’t backing down.
This is a terrible result for everyone, making Apple users globally (but especially in the UK) more vulnerable. Law enforcement’s tired narrative frames this as a trade-off between privacy and safety, but that’s dangerously wrong. Encryption isn’t just about privacy — it’s a fundamental security mechanism that protects against identity theft, financial fraud, corporate espionage and much more. This move effectively dismantles both privacy and safety, not because law enforcement lacks investigative tools, but because they’re really just lazy and demanding a “convenient” backdoor that inevitably creates new security risks.
While this compromise gives UK law enforcement their coveted access to British users’ iCloud data, it creates a dangerous precedent and leaves user data vulnerable to bad actors ranging from cybercriminals to hostile nation-states. Even worse, this “solution” likely falls short of the government’s reported demands for global backdoor access — suggesting this might just be round one of a longer fight.
Had Apple complied with the U.K.’s original demands, they would have been required to create a backdoor not just for users in the U.K., but for people around the world, regardless of where they were or what citizenship they had. As we’ve saidtimeandtime again,any backdoor built for the governmentputs everyone at greater risk of hacking, identity theft, and fraud.
This blanket, worldwide demand put Apple in an untenable position. Apple has long claimed it wouldn’tcreate a backdoor, and in filings to the U.K. government in 2023, the companyspecifically raised the possibility of disabling featureslike Advanced Data Protection as an alternative. Apple’s decision to disable the feature for U.K. users could well be the only reasonable response at this point, but it leaves those people at the mercy of bad actors and deprives them of a key privacy-preserving technology. The U.K. has chosen to make its own citizens less safe and less free.
Mike Salem, UK country associate for the Consumer Choice Center, called on opposition parties to voice their discontent and demand the government outlines its reasoning.
“The UK government has set a precedent, and cast a new reputation that underscores the erosion of personal liberties and privacy in a digital age where these values are needed more than ever,” he said.
“This marks a very sad day for the basic principle of consumer privacy in the 21st century, depriving users of the tools that leave UK citizens exposed to governments, criminals and malicious hackers. The fact this has been done without debate, oversight or advance warning to UK Apple users is extremely concerning,” Salem said.
David Ruiz, senior privacy advocate at Malwarebytes, described the news as a “disaster” for the UK and one with potential global consequences.
“To demand access to the world’s data is such a brazen, imperialist manoeuvre that I’m surprised it hasn’t come from the US. This may embolden other countries, particularly those in the Five Eyes, to make a similar demand of Apple,” he argued.
Others have pointed out that if Apple had caved to the UK’s stupid demand, they would have almost immediately faced identical demands from other countries, including Russia, Turkey, Iran… you name it.
It is difficult to think of a more shortsighted move than what the UK has done here. It has put its own citizenry at greater risk, while threatening some of the basic fundamentals of private storage.
It’s good that Apple is taking a stand, but it feels like this is just one battle in a war that is far from over.
On Monday, those two stories converged. Martin put out a bizarre tweet:
If you’re unable to read the image embedded in the tweet, it reads:
As President Trumps’ lawyers, we are proud to fight to protect his leadership as our President and we are vigilant in standing against entities like the AP that refuse to put America first.
There are so many problems in so few words. First of all, there’s the grammatical error. Saying that he’s “President Trumps’ lawyers” suggests there are multiple President Trumps that he works for.
But the more alarming issue is Martin’s fundamental misunderstanding — or deliberate misrepresentation — of his role. As US Attorney, he serves not as the President’s personal counsel, but as a representative of the American people, bound by oath to defend the Constitution rather than any individual officeholder. This is so obvious and so blatant, that even Community Notes dinged Martin for this:
His tweet isn’t just grammatically incorrect — it’s constitutionally incoherent. By explicitly threatening the AP for “refusing to put America first,” Martin has essentially provided written confirmation that the Justice Department intends to use its power to punish protected speech. Even while his office defends White House officials in this case, their mandate remains defending the Constitution — not “protecting the leadership” or targeting news organizations for their editorial choices.
McFadden said the AP had not proven harm requiring an immediate restraining order. But he cautioned the White House that the law wasn’t on its side in barring AP over continuing to refer to the Gulf of Mexico, not simply the “Gulf of America” as Trump decreed in an executive order.
“It seems pretty clearly viewpoint discrimination,” McFadden told Brian Hudak, a government attorney.
And, in case you’re wondering, Judge McFadden is a Trump appointee. And he seems to recognize how clearly this violates the First Amendment:
Later, though, in an exchange with Hudak, he said “The White House has accepted the correspondents’ association to be the referee here, and has just discriminated against one organization. That does seem problematic.”
Martin’s reckless tweets have now effectively sandbagged his own Justice Department colleagues defending the case. But perhaps that hardly matters when Trump himself continues to broadcast the retaliatory nature of his actions, declaring that “We’re going to keep them out until such time as they agree that it’s the Gulf of America” and dismissing the AP as “radical left lunatics.”
The irony here is impossible to ignore. While self-proclaimed free speech warriors spent months breathlessly parsing the “Twitter Files” and amplifying unproven claims about Biden administration “censorship,” we now have senior government officials openly declaring — on social media, no less — their intent to punish a news organization for its editorial choices. The same voices that detected shadowy government censorship in every content moderation decision have fallen conspicuously silent when faced with explicit, documented proof of First Amendment violations. It seems their concerns about government overreach were somewhat… selective.
Perhaps this shouldn’t surprise us. When your primary concern is scoring partisan points rather than protecting constitutional principles, it’s easy to overlook even the most blatant First Amendment violations — as long as they’re coming from your team. But the Constitution doesn’t care about partisan affiliations, and neither should those who claim to defend it.
Here was a fun surprise last night. John Oliver just delivered what might be the most accessible and accurate mainstream takedown of content moderation myths we’ve seen yet. The latest episode of “Last Week Tonight” tackled content moderation head-on, while systematically dismantling Mark Zuckerberg’s increasingly dubious justifications for Meta’s policy changes. In this era where most mainstream coverage of content moderation is a total mess, Oliver somehow manages to both be hilarious and (surprisingly) get basically everything right about this impossibly thorny issue.
It’s worth watching, if only to see someone explain in 30 minutes what we’ve been trying to hammer home for years. (And no, I’m not just saying that because he mentions Masnick’s Impossibility Theorem — though that certainly doesn’t hurt.)
The segment hits on several key points:
First, there’s what you might call the fundamentals of content moderation (or “why the internet isn’t just porn and diet pills 101”):
Section 230 made it possible to moderate content online. Without it, websites would basically have two choices: let everything in (hello, spam!) or shut everything down. Neither is great for business, or users, or… well, anyone really.
Content moderation is an intractable issue. This isn’t just my opinion — it’s mathematics. Every platform that allows user content either moderates or dies trying. There’s no third option. (Unless you count “becoming a wasteland of porn and diet pill ads” as an option, which, fair enough, some do.)
The dirty secret is that social media companies have actually put a fair bit of effort into this problem. They’ve drawn lines, redrawn them, hired thousands of moderators, built AI systems, and… people still hate where those lines end up. Because of course they do. That’s the “impossible” part of my theorem.
Then, he debunks the false claims of political manipulation:
Oliver points out how MAGA Republicans insisting that content moderation is some sort of vast left-wing conspiracy targeting conservatives turns out to be complete nonsense.
He also does an excellent job debunking the misleading narrative around “Hunter Biden laptop” story. As we’ve written, that story has been blown totally out of proportion. The narrative says it was suppressed. It wasn’t. The narrative says the details were damning. It wasn’t that either. What it was, mainly, was a masterclass in how to turn routine content moderation decisions into political theater. And Oliver shows that clearly.
Then there’s Zuck’s latest performance piece about how the Biden administration supposedly forced him to censor content. Oliver absolutely nails why this claim is ridiculous. (Pro tip: When the government “pressures” you to do something and you just… tell them no and nothing happens in response, that’s not exactly censorship.)
And then the kicker: Oliver highlights (as we have multiple times) that even the very conservative Supreme Court has said these claims are nonsense. Though I suppose when reality conflicts with your preferred narrative, you can always just pretend the Supreme Court doesn’t exist… or that Amy Coney Barrett is too woke.
And here’s where Oliver really sticks the landing, showing where all of this is heading:
Remember all those “simple fixes” politicians keep proposing for Section 230? Oliver explains how every single one would basically hand the government (and specifically, the Musk/Trump administration) a shiny new tool to silence speech they dislike. Because nothing says “free speech” quite like giving the government more power to control online speech, right?
Finally, Oliver exposes the Zuckerberg two-step: Zuck loves to brag about how he stood up to the Biden administration’s requests, but conveniently leaves out the part where he completely rolled over for Trump’s actual threats. (You know it’s bad when Trump himself is bragging about how effectively he bullied Zuck, which Oliver points out, shows that it doesn’t take a genius to realize what really happened.)
In the end, what Oliver has given us is basically a greatest hits album of Techdirt’s content moderation coverage from the last few years, except with better production values and more jokes about Mark Zuckerberg’s new look. And the finale? A pitch-perfect “advertisement” for Facebook’s new content moderation philosophy that can be summed up in two words: Fuck It.
Look, there are different ways to manage people. You could, for instance, have regular performance reviews, set clear expectations, and provide constructive feedback. Or… you could send an email late on a Saturday to the entirety of the federal government workforce (even those outside the executive branch) demanding that everyone list five things they did last week, while simultaneously tweeting that anyone who doesn’t respond will be fired.
The latter is what happened this weekend when federal employees received this email:
What did you do last week?
Please reply to this email with approx. 5 bullets of what you accomplished last week and cc your manager.
Please do not send any classified information, links, or attachments.
Deadline is this Monday at 11:59pmEST.
Now, you might think this is just another story about Elon Musk’s catastrophically bad management style. (And it is!) But it’s actually much, much dumber than that.
It was sent on Saturday. And Elon Musk is taking credit for it, even though the Trump administration last week stated in court that Musk has no authority other than to advise the President, and has no official role with DOGE. Even more bizarre, Musk claimed on ExTwitter that anyone who failed to reply to the email by Monday night would have that failure to respond be taken as a resignation.
There are several problems here. Well, actually there are about fifty problems here, but let’s start with the obvious ones:
The email doesn’t mention anything about resignations. That part came in a separate tweet, because apparently that’s how the federal government works now. (If you’re a federal employee who doesn’t obsessively follow Elon Musk on ExTwitter, I guess you just… accidentally resign? Maybe?)
The federal government is, how do I put this, kind of big? Some federal employees are on maternity leave. Some are on vacation. Some are in submarines deep under the ocean where checking email would literally compromise national security. (I assume Musk would count “maintaining radio silence to avoid detection by foreign adversaries” as one of your five accomplishments for the week, but who knows?)
If this all feels familiar, it’s because we’ve seen this movie before: Musk pulled exactly the same stunt when he took over Twitter, right before destroying about 80% of that company’s value. (You would think he’d recognize how badly that has gone and think that maybe a different approach is needed, but not Elon Musk!)
Furthermore, the email went to all federal employees, including many who are not a part of the executive branch. There are multiple reports of clerks and judges in the judicial branch receiving it as well. And while we’re still waiting to see the courts sort out if Musk has authority over the executive branch (he likely does not), he absolutely does not have authority over the judicial branch.
Now, you might wonder what possible justification there could be for this bizarre demand. Well! According to Musk (who, remember, suffers from the most ridiculous level of troll-fueled confirmation bias we’ve ever seen) this is just a simple test to make sure federal employees are checking their email. Because apparently the biggest problem facing the federal government is… insufficient inbox monitoring?
There are a few problems with this theory:
Some federal employees literally can’t check email (see: aforementioned submarine crews)
Some federal employees shouldn’t check email (see: anyone handling classified information on secure systems)
Some federal employees don’t need to check email on weekends (see: basically everyone else)
But the real kicker is what Musk’s defenders are saying.
The argument goes something like this: “Actually, this is totally normal! Companies do this all the time!” Which… no? Look, I’ve worked in and around plenty of companies, and yes, you typically have regular performance reviews. You might even have weekly check-ins with your manager. But there’s a slight difference between “scheduled performance review with your direct supervisor” and “surprise email from someone who may or may not have authority over you demanding immediate justification for your existence.” (The difference is that one is management and the other is performative chaos.)
That’s just being an asshole with too much power.
Also, because these are federal government emails, they’re subject to the Freedom of Information Act, which means reporters are already lining up to request copies of all the responses. I suspect we’ll soon have a fascinating database of federal employees explaining their jobs to… well, to no one in particular, since Musk doesn’t actually have any actual authority here.
Not surprisingly to most people, but apparently surprising to Musk, it turns out that various federal agencies have opinions about their employees sending detailed work descriptions to random email addresses. And those opinions are mostly variations on “please don’t do that.”
The FBI, for instance, whose new director Kash Patel (in theory a Musk ally, mind you) seems particularly annoyed:
Then there’s Tulsi Gabbard, the new Director of National Intelligence (and, again, typically a Musk ally), who had to explain something that really shouldn’t need explaining: “Given the inherently sensitive and classified nature of our work, I.C. employees should not respond to the OPM email.” (Translation: “Please don’t send classified intelligence work details to a random email address, even if Elon Musk asks nicely.”)
The Defense Department, meanwhile, sent out what might be the most diplomatically worded “absolutely not” in recent memory. From their memo:
“DoD personnel may have received an email from OPM requesting information. The Department of Defense is responsible for reviewing the performance of its personnel and it will conduct any review in accordance with its own procedures,” Selnick wrote. “When and if required, the Department will coordinate responses to the email you have received from OPM. For now, please pause any response to the OPM email titled, ‘What did you do last week.’”
The Administrative Office of the Courts, which is run by John Roberts, sent out a mealy-mouthed email to the judicial branch recommending not responding: “this email did not originate from the judiciary or the administrative office and we suggest that no action be taken.” Roberts could have taken a stand and noted that the executive branch has no authority whatsoever here, but I guess he’ll have an opportunity to do that in court before long.
The State Department and Homeland Security both also told employees not to respond. Though CISA, which is a part of Homeland Security, first told employees to obey the email. That kind of confusion is happening elsewhere as well:
Other departments gave conflicting guidance. The Department of Health and Human Services told its employees on Sunday morning to follow the directive. An hour later, an email from the Trump-appointed acting director of the National Institutes of Health, a subordinate agency, told employees to hold off on responding. Hours later, the health department told all employees to “pause” responses to the ultimatum.
One message on Sunday morning from the Department of Health and Human Services, led by Robert F. Kennedy Jr., instructed its roughly 80,000 employees to comply. That was shortly after the acting general counsel, Sean Keveney, had instructed some not to. And by Sunday evening, agency leadership issued new instructions that employees should “pause activities” related to the request until noon on Monday.
“I’ll be candid with you. Having put in over 70 hours of work last week advancing Administration’s priorities,I was personally insulted to receive the below email,” Keveney said in an email viewed by The Associated Press that acknowledged a broad sense of “uncertainty and stress” within the agency.
Keveney laid out security concerns and pointed out some of the work done by the agency’s employees may be protected by attorney-client privilege: “I have received no assurances that there are appropriate protections in place to safeguard responses to this email.”
Look, even if you were somehow convinced this was a good idea (it’s not) and that demanding work summaries via surprise weekend email is totally normal corporate behavior (it really, really isn’t), you’d still have to marvel at the sheer incompetence of the implementation. All this is doing is generating a shit ton of confusion across the entirety of the federal government.
That doesn’t seem very useful for “efficiency.”
And then there’s Ed Martin, the US Attorney for DC (who, you might remember, we just last week discussed as spectacularly incompetent), who sent what might be the most confusing “clarification” email in federal government history:
“Let me clarify: We will comply with this OPM request whether by replying or deciding not to reply.”
Well! That certainly clears things up. (For those keeping score at home, Martin is saying they will comply by either… doing the thing or not doing the thing. Which is technically true and also technically useless.)
But wait, there’s more! Because Elon (who, remember, is supposedly just an advisor with no actual authority) didn’t take kindly to the Pentagon’s “please ignore this” memo. His response? To threaten to fire the person who wrote the Pentagon’s memo. Yes, the person with no authority is threatening to fire people at the Pentagon for not recognizing his non-existent authority. It’s like a fractal of nonsense.
Meanwhile, Musk has been gleefully mocking anyone pushing back on this demand, insisting that people are only upset because they can’t come up with five things they did last week. Which is… not the point. At all.
Let’s be clear about this (in “five bullets”):
Everyone can list five things they did last week
The issue isn’t the difficulty of the task
The issue is being asked to justify your existence via a pointless busywork exercise to someone with no authority over you
…via a weekend email
…that threatens termination in a separate tweet
But Musk wasn’t done yet. Because his solution to this manufactured crisis is… wait for it… to use his own proprietary AI chatbot to generate fake responses. Yes, you read that right. Musk sent Trump a screenshot of someone (possibly himself) asking Grok (his own AI) to make up fake accomplishments for such an email reply, which Trump then posted to Truth Social, which Musk then reposted to ExTwitter as proof of how “easy” this all is.
So to summarize: The person demanding accountability from federal workers is actively encouraging them to use AI bullshit generators to create fake responses. And not just any AI — his AI specifically. (Nothing says “government efficiency” quite like using a private company’s AI to generate fake work reports for that same private company’s CEO who has no actual government authority but pretends he does.)
It also suggests a disturbing comfort with using AI to generate artificial accountability rather than pursuing any kind of meaningful government oversight (in case you were one of the three rubes left in the country who still believes that’s what Musk is doing). The fact that neither Musk nor Trump seem concerned about the security implications of federal employees feeding their work details into private commercial AI systems is particularly alarming.
There are a whole host of problems with all of this, but mainly, it’s just fucking stupid.
Kelley said in the letter that the union has “received numerous reports from dedicated civil servants, including those who care for our veterans and safeguard our nation, expressing frustration over the email’s tone and intent. Rather than fostering professionalism and respect for their work, this hastily written email left many feeling undervalued and intimidated.”
And even Republicans are having trouble defending this one.
Senator Lisa Murkowski, Republican of Alaska, also criticized Mr. Musk’s order.
“Our public workforce deserves to be treated with dignity and respect for the unheralded jobs they perform,” she wrote in a statement on social media. “The absurd weekend email to justify their existence wasn’t it.”
The whole thing is an exercise in dickishness for the sake of dickishness. But beyond the obvious management failures, this episode raises serious concerns about data security and privacy. The combination of FOIA-able responses, encouraged use of commercial AI systems, and the broad scope of affected agencies creates a perfect storm of potential security risks. Federal employees’ work details could be exposed in ways that compromise ongoing operations, especially in sensitive areas like national security and law enforcement. It’s yet another example of how tech-bro solutions to imagined problems often create very real security vulnerabilities.
Of course, Musk fans will cheer it on, insisting that the federal workforce deserves to be treated like shit, even as this will impact many people who actually supported Trump and Musk. The entire attitude is “if you’re not part of the inner circle, you’re worthless.”
It’s obnoxious. And it’s designed to demoralize workers on purpose. The assumption that all federal employees are a waste is such a stupid, ignorant position. But it’s clearly how Musk is treating everyone who works for the government.
The Trump DOJ retribution tour has begun, as Ed Martin, Trump’s interim US Attorney for the District of Columbia, launches a series of politically motivated investigations targeting critics of Trump and Elon Musk. Martin, a former talk radio host and “Stop the Steal” supporter with no prosecutorial experience, is transforming what should be an independent office into what appears to be a personal intimidation squad.
After years of baselessly crying “lawfare” over legitimate investigations into January 6th and other matters, MAGA Republicans are now demonstrating what actual politically motivated investigations look like. This is after Trump-fluffing media like the National Review declared upon Trump’s election victory that it would lead to “the end of lawfare.”
Not surprisingly, we’re seeing the reverse. There are too many examples to cover right now, as the whole of the MAGA movement in government, including at both the FTC and FCC, appear to be engaging in frivolous lawfare to attack and harass those who are insufficiently sycophantic towards Trump and Elon Musk. And Ed Martin seems to be leading the pack.
For what it’s worth, Martin has no background as a prosecutor. He was one of those rightwing talk radio hosts for many years as well as an occasional (unsuccessful) candidate for political office. He was one of the foolish “stop the steal” supporters who has admitted to being at the Capitol on January 6th in 2021, and claimed that what happened there was “nothing out of hand.” As a lawyer, he represented some of the January 6th defendants, raising some ethical eyebrows as one of his first moves as US Attorney was to move to dismiss a case against a defendant he himself represented. This has already resulted in a bar complaint.
But Martin’s most concerning actions involve his apparent eagerness to serve as a personal attack dog for the administration. Soon after criticism of Musk’s DOGE initiative began mounting, Martin sent a particularly stupid letter to Musk and Steve Davis (one of Musk’s inner circle hatchet men), saying that he would “chase… to the end of the Earth to hold… accountable” anyone who “acted simply unethically” in regards to the government smashing that DOGE was doing.
If you can’t see the image, the text reads:
Dear Steve & Elon,
Thank you for the referral of individuals and networks who appear to be stealing government property and/or threatening government employees. After your referral, as is my practice, I will begin an inquiry.
Please let me reiterate again: if people are discovered to have broken the law or even acted simply unethically, we will investigate them andwe will chase them to the end of the Earth to hold them accountable. We will not rest or cease in this. No one should abuse American taxpayer dollars nor American taxpayer workers.Noone is above the law.
I am proud that we have been able to assist local law-enforcement in protecting the DOGE workers and others over the past week or so. A safe DC is a priority for President Trump and all of us.
Please keep in touch and continue to refer matters to me as soon as possible.
All the best.
Edward R. Martin, Jr
Setting aside Martin’s peculiar spelling choices, his letter represents a fundamental misunderstanding (or deliberate misuse) of the DOJ’s role and constitutional limitations. The DOJ is not supposed to be the personal Gestapo of anyone in the executive branch, though Martin clearly feels otherwise. Indeed, he claimed that part of the job of his office is to “protect DOGE” and “federal workers,” which seems like an odd thing to say as it is DOGE and Musk who are going around threatening and firing federal workers:
In an email obtained by Rolling Stone, former “Stop the Steal” organizer turned interim U.S. Attorney Ed Martin claimed that members of Elon Musk’s so-called Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) were receiving “despicable” threats.
“We are the D.C. U.S. Attorney’s office; we are the guardians of federal workers. You and I must do whatever possible to ensure that government work is safe for all involved,” Martin wrote Wednesday, as his boss dubiously and unceremoniously fires tens of thousands of federal workers en masse, with little oversight, accountability, or rationale.
But Martin’s most dangerous overreach is his attempt to criminalize what he calls “simply unethical” behavior — a standard that exists nowhere in federal law and would violate basic First Amendment principles. While there are narrow exceptions for “true threats,” decades of Supreme Court precedent has carefully limited the government’s ability to punish speech.
As just one example, in the US v. Bagdasarian, the courts determined that truly horrendous speech from someone who said that President Obama should be shot (in much more graphic and problematic language) was not a true threat. To be a “true threat” speech has to show an actual “intent to commit an act of unlawful violence.”
Yet Martin seems determined to ignore these well-established constitutional boundaries. Instead, he’s ramped up these politically motivated intimidation tactics, with what he’s calling “Project Whirlwind.” This is a silly name for what appears to be a plan to open frivolous investigations into Democrats who criticize Trump or Musk, falsely claiming they are “threats.”
This is simple intimidation lawfare tactics of a political goon, given too much power. He kicked off this campaign with letters to Senator Chuck Schumer and Rep. Robert Garcia, claiming to be “letter of inquiry after request” which is not an actual thing.
The absurdity of Martin’s campaign is perfectly illustrated by his letter to Rep. Garcia. Garcia’s supposed “threat” consisted of calling Musk a “dick” on CNN and using an obvious metaphor about bringing “weapons to this bar fight” while discussing Congress’s role in protecting democracy. Any first-year law student could tell you this is constitutionally protected speech, yet Martin treated it as grounds for a federal investigation.
No one in their right mind would think that’s a threat, true or not. But Martin uses it to threaten Garcia with an investigation:
Dear Rep. Garcia:
As United States Attorney for the District of Columbia. I receive requests for information and clarification. I take these requests seriously and act on them with letters like this one you are receiving.
At this time, I respectfully request that you clarify your comments from February 12, 2025. During a live interview with CNN, when asked how Democrats can stop Elon Musk, you spoke clearly: “What the American public wants is for us to bring actual weapons to this bar fight. This is an actual fight for democracy.”
This sounds to some like a threat to Mr. Musk – an appointed representative of President Donald Trump who you call a “dick” and government staff who work for him. Their concerns have led to this inquiry.
We take threats against public officials very seriously. I look forward to your cooperation with my letter of inquiry after request. Thank you in advance for your assistance. Please respond by February 24, 2025. Should you have further questions regarding this matter, please do not hesitate to call my office or schedule a time to meet in person.
All the best.
If the Garcia investigation seems like overreach, Martin’s pursuit of Chuck Schumer ventures into the realm of the absurd. Martin is attempting to investigate five-year-old comments Schumer made during a rally at the Supreme Court in support of Roe v. Wade (before the Court overturned it) — comments that have already been publicly debated and for which Schumer previously apologized. Schumer’s comments were pretty mild, to be honest, and clearly did not rise to the level of true threats:
“I want to tell you, Gorsuch, I want to tell you, Kavanaugh, you havereleased the whirlwind, and you will pay the price,” Schumer said.
Martin’s choice of “Project Whirlwind” as a name — clearly meant to mock Schumer’s five-year-old “whirlwind” comment — reveals both the pettiness and political motivation behind these investigations. Martin sent a series of letters to Schumer demanding he explain himself, saying “no one is above the law.” Even while Schumer’s office did respond to Martin saying (accurately) that his comments were “not a threat to physically harm any person,” Martin still sent another letter nearly a week later falsely claiming that Schumer never responded. Hilariously, Martin says:
You have failed to respond which is a personal disappointment and professionally unacceptable.
Martin’s performative outrage over a “personal disappointment” would be comical if it weren’t so dangerous. His willingness to investigate five-year-old comments that resulted in exactly zero acts of violence demonstrates this isn’t about public safety — it’s about intimidation.
The real “professionally unacceptable” behavior here is Martin’s transformation of the DC US Attorney’s office into a political weapon aimed at critics of the administration. Indeed, not that they care, but Martin’s actions quite clearly violate the Trump Executive Order “ending federal censorship” which declares that no federal government employee should engage in “any conduct that would unconstitutionally abridge the free speech of any American citizen.”
There may be a silver lining to Martin’s amateurish, heavy-handed approach. As former Justice Department prosecutor Brendan Ballou points out, Martin’s obvious political motivations and incompetence might be his undoing.
Because of Martin’s inexperience, he will need to persuade someone in his office to carry out his projects. Thus far, he seems to have done a terrible job of ingratiating himself to others: Most recently, the office’s topcriminal prosecutor resignedrather than follow his allegedly improper orders. One former prosecutor in the office said, “He’s a fantastically bad manager—a tone deaf bully who inspires ridicule rather than trust.” Perhaps as a result, Martin’s officewide emails are often leaked,including a message complaining about leaks.
And this is where public discontent can play a role. The more unpopular Martin’s unethical or illegal schemes can be made, the less likely it is that he will find lawyers willing to implement them. The more unpopular his plans, the less likely he will be to receive the permanent position: If the Senate does not confirm Martin within 120 days of his interim appointment, the D.C. court may choose a replacement until the body acts.
The public should continue to speak out—in articles, in protests, and in tweets. Former leaders of the U.S. attorney’s office should talk too. They may be reluctant to criticize Martin’s most egregious actions, for fear of seeming to politicize the work of the office. But that work is already being politicized, and former senior prosecutors can speak to returning the office to the best of what it was and can be again.
The MAGA movement’s hypocrisy is so blatant and so obvious that they don’t seem to care much if anyone realizes they’re absolutely and gleefully doing the very kinds of things they falsely accused the Biden administration of doing.
But for people who live in reality, it is important not to look away from what they’re doing and to call out the truth.
You might think — in a moment when democracy itself seems to be unraveling and the American experiment teetering on the brink — that Democratic leadership would focus on, oh I don’t know, preserving the basic functions of government. But no, they’ve decided that what we really need right now is to demolish the legal framework that makes online discourse possible.
(Forgive the lack of a profile image on that screenshot — at the time I made the screenshot literally every profile image on ExTwitter is just a gray circle, because things are operating greeeeeaaaat over there while the boss is away destroying the country).
Senator Dick Durbin, ranking member of the Judiciary Committee, has emerged with what can only be described as a masterclass in missing the point. In a press release that reads like it was written in an alternate universe where the biggest threat to democracy is… checks notes… website comment sections, Durbin announced his excitement about taking away Section 230.
This week, Durbin will join U.S. Senators Lindsey Graham (R-SC), Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI), Josh Hawley (R-MO), Amy Klobuchar (D-MN), and Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) to introduce a bill that would sunset Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act in two years. Section 230—and the legal immunity it provides to Big Tech—has been on the books since 1996—long before social media became a part of our daily lives. To the extent this protection was ever needed, its usefulness has long since passed.
Let’s unpack this for a moment. At a time when an unelected billionaire is effectively running the government via his own social media platform, Democrats have decided to partner with… squints harder… the very Republicans who’ve been helping enable this takeover, to eliminate the law that makes alternative social media platforms possible in the first place.
The thing is, this isn’t just regular old political malpractice — this is advanced political malpractice. We’ve known for years that these same Republican senators have been quite open about their plans to use Section 230’s removal as a weapon against speech they don’t like. It’s right there in their public statements! This isn’t some clever political chess move — it’s handing matches to an arsonist who has loudly declared his intention to burn your house down, while insisting it’s necessary to improve fire safety.
But Durbin’s fundamental mischaracterization of Section 230 as mere “legal immunity for big tech” betrays either willful ignorance or calculated misdirection. Section 230 is, at its core, a shield for speech – your speech, my speech, everyone’s speech. It protects individuals and small websites far more than it protects Silicon Valley giants. It’s what keeps you safe when you forward an email or share a post. It’s what enables sites for people to review doctors or mechanics or employers. It’s what makes it possible for Wikipedia to exist. It’s what enables the very digital discourse we need to maintain democracy.
The dumbest part: removing Section 230 would actually entrench Big Tech’s power, not diminish it. The giants would survive just fine — most cases against them would still fail on First Amendment grounds. But defending speech under the First Amendment is far more complex and expensive than Section 230’s straightforward protections. Meta, Google, and their ilk have armies of lawyers to handle this. Everyone else? Not so much.
This explains why Mark Zuckerberg has been practically begging Congress to eliminate Section 230. It’s not because he suddenly developed a burning passion for content moderation reform. It’s because he’s looked at the math and realized: “Hey, we can afford buildings full of lawyers. Our competitors can’t.” When Zuckerberg advocates for eliminating Section 230, he’s not confessing his sins — he’s pitching his business plan.
Without Section 230 “Big Tech” would be fine. First of all, in nearly all cases that are filed against websites would still lose, because almost all of these decisions are protected by the First Amendment. But — and this is the important part — having to defend it under the First Amendment is way more expensive. And takes way longer. Which means that smaller defendants, especially, will likely cave in to threats.
The end result? Big Tech gets bigger, smaller platforms disappear, and the “monopolies” that Durbin claims to be fighting become actual monopolies — now with congressional approval! It’s like trying to punish Standard Oil by making it illegal for anyone except Standard Oil to sell kerosene.
Durbin’s claim that Section 230’s “usefulness has long since passed” isn’t just wrong — it’s dangerous. The law is more vital now than ever, as demonstrated by countless cases where it’s protected essential online discourse. At a moment when we desperately need more venues for protected speech and democratic dialogue, Durbin is proposing to demolish the very framework that makes such dialogue possible.
The consequences would be predictable and devastating: a cascade of frivolous lawsuits designed to silence critics and suppress inconvenient truths. Without Section 230’s efficient dismissal process, even completely baseless legal threats become effective censorship tools. Think about it: if you’re running a small community forum and someone threatens to sue you because they don’t like a user’s post about their business, what are you going to do? Spend hundreds of thousands of dollars defending your First Amendment rights, or just take down the post? This isn’t theoretical — it’s basic economics.
The end result is that it becomes that much easier to suppress dissent.
The timing of this crusade against Section 230 is particularly revealing. While democracy itself is under assault, while an unelected billionaire consolidates unprecedented power over government systems, Durbin has chosen to champion a proposal that would:
Make Big Tech even more powerful
Hand MAGA forces a powerful weapon for silencing opposition through legal harassment
Cripple the digital infrastructure needed for organizing democratic resistance
This isn’t just Durbin being out of touch — though at 80 years old, that’s certainly part of it. This is a catastrophic misreading of both technology and democracy that would be almost comical if it weren’t so dangerous. Here we have a Democratic leader eagerly collaborating with the very senators actively undermining democracy, on legislation that would further enable their authoritarian aims, while apparently convinced he’s doing something about “Big Tech.”
The Democrats desperately need new leadership, and not just because Durbin doesn’t understand how the internet works. They need leaders who understand that defending democracy requires actually defending the tools that make democratic discourse possible. Instead, we have Durbin, essentially proposing to solve the problem of book-burning by making it illegal to publish books. His Section 230 crusade makes it painfully clear: he’s not just the wrong leader for this moment — he’s actively making things worse.
Here’s a dumb thing that happened: Elon Musk’s ExTwitter just agreed to pay Donald Trump $10 million to settle a lawsuit that ExTwitter had already won. (Yes, you read that right: already won.) This is becoming something of a pattern in tech and media these days — call it the digital-age protection racket.
The plot twist was telegraphed back in November, when ExTwitter filed something with the Ninth Circuit that basically said “hey, don’t bother ruling on this appeal, we’re working on a settlement.” The appeal in question? Oh, just Trump’s absolutely batshit lawsuit claiming that Twitter (this was back in the pre-Ex days) violated his First Amendment rights by shutting down his account while he was president.
Let’s do a quick First Amendment refresher: The First Amendment stops the government from silencing speech. That’s it. That’s the whole thing. Private companies can moderate their platforms however they want. (This is not exactly a controversial interpretation — it’s First Amendment 101.) But in this case, Trump (who was the head of the government at the time of the events in the case) was suing the private company arguing that it somehow violated his First Amendment rights to ban his account, even if he had violated the company’s rules.
The case had not gone well for Trump. The judge in the case, James Donato, absolutely ripped it to shreds in dismissing it:
Plaintiffs’ main claim is that defendants have “censor[ed]” plaintiffs’ Twitter accounts in violation of their right to free speech under the First Amendment to the United States Constitution… Plaintiffs are not starting from a position of strength. Twitter is a private company, and “the First Amendment applies only to governmental abridgements of speech, and not to alleged abridgements by private companies.”
Now, Trump’s lawyers tried to get creative here. Their argument went something like: “Okay sure, Twitter is private, BUT…” (There’s always a “but” in these cases.) The theory was that it was actually state action because… well, because the Biden campaign (not even the administration — they weren’t in office yet!) had complained about Section 230 generally. And also because some Democratic members of Congress had opinions about Facebook (not even Twitter!) content moderation decisions. The judge was, let’s say, unimpressed with this legal theory:
Paragraph 55 is said to offer “examples of Democrat legislators threatening new regulations, antitrust breakup, and removal of Section 230 immunity for Defendants and other social media platforms if Twitter did not censor views and content with which these Members of Congress disagreed.” … The actual quotes do not live up to that billing. The statements attributed to “Bruce Reed, Biden’s Top Tech Advisor,” and Michelle Obama are of no moment because Reed and Obama were not legislators…. Other statements in Paragraph 55 pertain only to Facebook, and not Twitter. … (Senator Markey’s question and Mark Zuckerberg’s answer regarding Facebook’s algorithms and policies; Rep. Adam Schiff’s Tweet that “Facebook must ban” Trump). Then-Senator Kamala Harris is quoted three times for calling for “Trump’s Twitter account [to be] suspended” and calling on Dorsey to “do something about this Tweet” from Trump, but conspicuously missing is any threatening remark directed to Twitter….
So Trump did what losing plaintiffs do: he appealed to the Ninth Circuit. (And in what might be the most eyebrow-raising detail of this whole saga, he was represented by former Chief Judge of the Ninth Circuit, Alex Kozinski. Yes, that Alex Kozinski.) The oral arguments are available online, and… well, let’s just say the judges were not buying what Trump was selling. Judge Bybee, in particular, seemed personally offended by the legal theory, noting he couldn’t think of a single case that would support Trump’s arguments. (In judge-speak, that’s basically saying “what are you even doing here?”)
In fact, Judge Bybee got so worked up that he even yelled at Twitter’s lawyer for suggesting that maybe, hypothetically, a more coercive statement from the two top House and Senate officials might count as state action, as compared to the random legislator comments at issue in this case. “A huge landgrab,” he called it, if the court were to accept such an argument. (When a judge is telling the winning side they’re being too generous to the other side’s theory, you know things aren’t going well.)
The case was dead on arrival. It was quite clear that Twitter was going to win the case. Easily. And, I’ll note, that the oral arguments at the Ninth Circuit took place in October 2023, a year after Elon had taken over the company. Which means Elon’s own lawyers were still in court explaining why Trump’s lawsuit was nonsense.
However, the Ninth Circuit decided to hold off on ruling on the case at that time, because one of the claims involved Florida’s social media law, which had been challenged and dumped as unconstitutional by both a district court and the Eleventh Circuit, and a week before the oral arguments were heard in this case, the Supreme Court had said they’d review that law. That’s the case that became Moody v. NetChoice which the Supreme Court eventually ruled on last summer, making it clear that the First Amendment protects a company’s content moderation decisions.
That ruling would only help Twitter’s arguments against Trump’s. If Twitter’s defense against Trump was strong before, it was practically bulletproof after.
All this history matters for one simple reason: to understand just how completely, utterly doomed Trump’s case was. This wasn’t one of those “well, maybe if you squint at it sideways” kind of cases. This was a “lose at the district court, lose at the appeals court, and by the way, here’s a Supreme Court ruling that makes your position even more wrong” kind of case. The kind of case that law professors use as examples of what not to do.
But, of course, that was about the time Elon started supporting Trump. And so now Elon has “settled” the case, giving Donald Trump $10 million. For a case that pretty much everyone knows ExTwitter would win.
If this feels like déjà vu, it should. Just last month, Mark Zuckerberg and Meta pulled exactly the same move, writing Trump a $25 million check for a case that had been sitting on ice specifically waiting for Twitter to finish winning this case.
There’s really no way to pretty this up: The whole thing reeks of corruption. Sure, Elon and Trump are best buddies now. And yes, Elon has already funneled hundreds of millions of dollars into getting Trump elected. So maybe we shouldn’t be surprised that they’d settle this case just to get it behind them. But paying $10 million to make a losing case go away? That’s not a settlement — that’s a gift with a legal document as wrapping paper.
Between this and Meta’s $25 million payout last month, Trump appears to have discovered a profitable new business model: file legally dubious lawsuits against tech and media companies and wait for politically motivated settlements to roll in. The standard corporate excuse of “settling to avoid legal costs” rings particularly hollow here, given that ExTwitter had already incurred most of those costs and was on the verge of a clear victory.
What we’re witnessing is the emergence of a dangerous precedent in tech and media policy: companies with close ties to political figures can simply bypass their own content moderation policies through post-hoc protection payments. It’s a practice that not only undermines platform governance but also sends a troubling message about the relationship between these companies and political power.
The cynicism isn’t just warranted — it’s necessary. When companies start treating losing lawsuits as investment opportunities in future political favor, we’re way past the point where benefit-of-the-doubt makes any sense. This isn’t normal corporate behavior. This is what corruption looks like when it puts on a suit and pretends to be legitimate business.
Here’s a neat trick for saving taxpayers billions of dollars: just make stuff up!
I mean, sure, you could do all the hard work of actually finding government waste and fixing inefficient processes. But why bother when you can just… invent numbers? (This is not financial advice.)
The innovator of this approach — and I really should give credit where credit is due — is DOGE, the government agency that is totally, absolutely, definitely not run by Elon Musk (wink wink).
After there were complaints about the near total lack of transparency from the DOGE brats, Musk insisted that the website was super transparent, except at the time the website was empty. It has since been updated with what they claim are receipts, but if these are receipts, they’re complete nonsense. The topline claim is that DOGE has saved taxpayers $55 billion.
Let’s talk about math for a moment. (Not the complicated kind — just the basic ability to count zeros, which you’d hope the DOGE kids would be able to do.)
See, when DOGE claims they’ve saved $55 billion, you might expect that number to at least match the total of their own receipts. It doesn’t. Their own documents only add up to about $16 billion, which means they’ve somehow managed to inflate their headline number by more than 3x before we even start checking their work.
That’s quite a difference! (About $7.992 billion, if you’re counting.)
Now, to be slightly fair to the DOGErati — and I do try to be fair — there was indeed an incorrect document floating around that listed the contract as $8 billion. That document was corrected weeks ago, because, you know, reality. The actual payments were set at $8 million total over multiple years, with $2.5 million already paid out. So even if we’re being incredibly generous, the maximum possible savings here would be $5.5 million.
That’s 0.069% of what they claimed (a number that I’m sure would still get a snicker out of Musk).
But why let reality get in the way of a good story?
When reporters called this out, the DOGE team made a fascinating choice. Instead of fixing their error, they actually removed the correct document from their website and replaced it with the old, incorrect one. They are now deliberately posting false information to support the narrative.
The DOGE website initially included a screenshot from the federal contracting database showing that the contract’s value was $8 million, even as the DOGE site listed $8 billion in savings. On Tuesday night, around the time this article was published,DOGE removed the screenshot that showed the mismatch, but continued to claim $8 billion in savings. It added a link to the original, outdated version of the contract worth $8 billion.
This is not the work of anyone actually interested in establishing truth. It is the actions of people who want to push false claims to puff up their own work.
But wait, there’s more! DOGE’s creative accounting isn’t just about misplacing a few zeros here and there. It turns out they’ve discovered an even more innovative way to save taxpayer money: take credit for things that happened before they existed.
You might think I’m joking. I am not joking. Many of the other receipts don’t support the savings claims at all, and some of them are actually cost-saving measures implemented by… the Biden administration:
The group boasted that its “estimated savings” for American taxpayers is $55 billion so far, but the total it gave Monday adds up to just a third of that figure—and appears to claim credit for the closure of two government offices that were shuttered under Joe Biden.
Those closures are the National Archives centers in Hoffman Estates, Illinois, and in Fairfield, Ohio. DOGE’s site claims the latter location was a “True Termination – Agency Closed Office.” No other details are offered.
Those centers’ approximate closing dates wereannounced way back on Aug. 1, however, when Biden was still president.
This is a fascinating innovation in government efficiency. Step 1: Look at how the last administration (the one you claim was enabling all this waste, fraud, and abuse) was actually cutting costs and saving taxpayer money. Step 2: Claim you did it. Step 3: Add it to your total. (Not financial advice, though DOGE seems to be making it work.)
But even that’s not the best part. That same article notes that many of the contracts DOGE claims to have “cancelled and saved” were contracts that had already been fully paid out. This is like claiming you saved money on last year’s rent by deciding not to pay it today. The money’s already gone! But DOGE adds these amounts to their total anyway, because apparently that’s how math works now.
The cherry on top of this mathematical fantasy sundae? The Liar-in-Chief of DOGE, Elon Musk, has already amplified someone’s made-up claim that DOGE had saved $110 billion — a number that somehow manages to double their own already massively inflated figures.
It’s so easy when you just get to make it all up.
This is Musk’s standard operating procedure: despite having access to virtually unlimited expert resources and actual data, he consistently elevates random ExTwitter posts as gospel truth — as long as they align with his preferred narrative. The pattern would be almost comical if it weren’t now being applied to federal government operations.
It really feels like someone should ask him why he always falls for this shit.
Look, we should probably talk about fraud for a minute. (Not DOGE’s creative accounting — we’ve covered that. I mean the actual concept of government fraud that DOGE is supposedly investigating.)
It’s worth noting that the US government already has established, professional watchdogs with actual expertise in tracking down waste, fraud, and abuse: the Inspectors General (whom Trump illegally removed upon taking office) and the Government Accountability Office. These are people who know how to follow the money, understand federal contracting rules, and can tell the difference between waste and, you know, normal government operations. (A distinction that seems to elude the DOGE crew.)
DOGE seems determined to ignore these existing competent oversight bodies, perhaps because their methodical, fact-based approach doesn’t generate enough social media buzz with which to fluff Musk’s ego.
These existing mechanisms for addressing these issues are far from perfect, often hampered by bureaucratic constraints and political interference. And, who knows, at some point, perhaps the DOGE crew will actually come across some waste, fraud, or abuse and stop it. But when they do, that shouldn’t validate all the other nonsense they’re pulling in the meantime.
But the really dumb part is how Musk and DOGE keep using the word “fraud.” It’s a powerful word! It implies crimes and corruption and shadowy figures doing shadowy things. What DOGE has actually found, though, is… different spending priorities. When pressed on their fraud allegations, the only thing the White House can point to are programs that the Trump administration doesn’t like. Which, sure, you might not like every government program. But, that’s not fraud.
The White House also sent a list of dozens of Department of Government Efficiency “wins,” including canceled media outlet subscriptions and contracts for DEI initiatives, consulting and administrative expenses.
“Nothing they have identified is, to my knowledge, evidence of ‘fraud’ or ‘corruption.’ Fraud and corruption are crimes,” said Jessica Tillipman, associate dean for government procurement law at George Washington University. “This administration simply has different spending priorities than the last administration. But to label all of it as fraud or corruption is extremely misleading.”
Also, none of this takes into account what kinds of benefits the “canceled” spending brings to the US. The downstream effects can be massive. You can’t just claim that you “saved” your family thousands of dollars by not paying last month’s rent. That has consequences, which can do more damage.
This is Government Finance 101, but apparently DOGE skipped that class to instead share dank memes in Telegram chat groups. If you cancel a contract that helps collect taxes more efficiently, you haven’t “saved” the contract cost — you’ve just made tax collection less efficient. If you eliminate training that helps prevent costly mistakes, you haven’t “saved” the training budget — you’ve just guaranteed more costly mistakes.
If this playbook feels familiar, it should. As we warned last month, DOGE is running the Twitter Files strategy at an even more dangerous scale: Musk gets a crew of gullible simpletons to publish documents they don’t understand, which they claim are evidence of some grand conspiracy or fraud. They then let the narrative spread faster than fact-checkers can keep up. By the time experts can explain why the claims are nonsense, the damage is already done.
Could DOGE eventually stumble across some actual waste, fraud, or abuse? Sure, I suppose. But if they wanted to actually do that, this is the dumbest possible way to do it, and one that has real consequences which the DOGE team doesn’t seem to care much about.
At last week’s White House briefing, Musk claimed DOGE would welcome corrections when they make mistakes. Yet when confronted with actual errors — like that pesky $8 billion vs. $8 million difference — their response wasn’t to fix the mistake, but to deliberately showcase the incorrect information. It’s a perfect encapsulation of everything wrong with this approach: rather than leveraging actual expertise to address real government waste, DOGE is manufacturing outrage through mathematical sleight-of-hand. The real fraud isn’t in the government contracts they’re “investigating” — it’s in their own reporting.
I’m going to go out on a limb here and make a fairly wild suggestion: if you spend years calling yourself a “free speech absolutist” while decrying “government censorship,” maybe one of your first moves after taking over the government shouldn’t be demanding prison sentences for journalists who report things you don’t like.
But that’s just me.
At this point, the gap between Elon Musk’s free speech rhetoric and his actual behavior has become almost comically wide. He has sued and silenced critics over and over again. Just recently there was a report about how Tesla regularly sues customers and journalists in China if they’re critical of his cars.
Zhang Yazhou was sitting in the passenger seat of her Tesla Model 3 when she said she heard her father’s panicked voice: The brakes do not work. Approaching a red light, her father swerved around two cars before plowing into a sport utility vehicle and a sedan, and crashing into a large concrete barrier.
Stunned, Zhang gazed at the deflating airbag in front of her. She could never have imagined what was to come: Tesla Inc sued her for defamation for complaining publicly about the vehicles brakes — and won. A Chinese court ordered Zhang to pay more than US$23,000 in damages and publicly apologize to the US$1.1 trillion company.
Zhang is not the only one to find herself in the crosshairs of Tesla, which is led by Elon Musk, among the richest men in the world and a self-described “free speech absolutist.” Over the past four years, Tesla has sued at least six car owners in China who had sudden vehicle malfunctions, quality complaints or accidents they claimed were caused by mechanical failures.
And it’s not just China. In the US, Musk has developed what you might call a “comprehensive litigation strategy” against speech he doesn’t like. That’s a polite way of saying he files lawsuits, threatens critics, and generally tries to make life difficult for anyone who says mean things about him or his companies.
But this weekend, Musk outdid himself with two tweets, posted just hours apart, that perfectly encapsulate his free speech hypocrisy — while simultaneously highlighting his near total lack of self-awareness. First, responding to some nonsense that isn’t even worth explaining, Musk pointed out that one of the first things Hitler did upon gaining power was to “apply aggressive censorship.”
Then, less than six hours later, after CBS’ 60 Minutes posted an interview with a former (Republican) administrator of USAID calling out Elon’s “utter nonsense” claims about fraud at USAID, Elon declared that people at 60 Minutes “deserve a long prison sentence” for reporting on things in a manner he disapproves of.
Again, let’s be explicit here: this is Elon Musk, a federal government employee with unprecedented power and tremendous influence over the entire federal government at this moment, saying that journalists should be thrown in prison for a long time, because he doesn’t like their reporting. This isn’t just Musk being thin-skinned — it’s a billionaire currently running much of our government, trying to weaponize state power against the press, just because they called out how his claims about USAID were nonsense.
It is difficult to think of a more obvious First Amendment violation than that. The framers literally wrote the First Amendment to prevent exactly this kind of government intimidation of the press. Though they probably didn’t anticipate a scenario where a tech CEO would be effectively running the government while simultaneously controlling the one of the world’s largest social media platforms. But even ignoring the legal side, it shows how inherently censorial Musk is, and how he’s willing to abuse his power to create threats against and chilling effects on journalists.
The irony of Musk decrying Hitler’s censorship while simultaneously threatening journalists with imprisonment would be amusing if it weren’t so dangerous. His complete lack of self-awareness would be comical if he didn’t wield such significant power over both government operations and global communications platforms.
The sequence here is almost too perfect: First, Musk warns about Hitler’s censorship tactics. Then, he threatens to jail journalists for critical reporting. Finally, using his control of a global communications platform, he starts blocking tools that journalists and government employees use to communicate securely. He is what he claims he’s fighting against.
Elon Musk is no free speech absolutist. The pattern is clear: Musk’s version of “free speech” has always been about amplifying voices he agrees with while systematically suppressing those he doesn’t. His platform encourages certain forms of controversial speech – particularly those targeting marginalized groups – while actively working to silence legitimate criticism and reporting.
And, hell, just as I was finishing this article, ExTwitter provided yet another example of Musk’s censorial impulses: (once again, as this seems to happen pretty regularly) blocking links to an internet service Musk doesn’t like. The platform is now blocking links to Signal, according to Matt Binder, and confirmed by many users.
Elon Musk’s social media platform, X, is currently banning links to “Signal.me,” a URL used by the encrypted messaging service Signal. The “Signal.me” domain is specifically used by the service so that users can send out a quick link to directly contact them through the messaging app.
X, formerly Twitter, is blocking users from posting a “Signal.me” link through DM, public post, or even in their profile page. When trying to post a Signal link, users receive a variety of different “message failed” prompts depending on what version of the X platform they use (i.e. X for web, X for iPhone, etc.)
And for posts that already had a Signal link, well, ExTwitter tells you it’s unsafe:
The timing here requires a bit of unpacking. Government employees have apparently been using Signal to tell journalists about how Musk’s DOGE crew is wreaking havoc across federal agencies. Now, if you’re running both the government and a major communications platform, and you discover people are using an encrypted messaging app to leak stories about your… let’s call it “innovative approach to federal management,” you have some options:
You could address the underlying concerns about your management
You could try to stop the leaks through normal government channels
You could declare the messaging platform itself “unsafe” and block it entirely on your social network
Musk, naturally, appears to have gone with option 3. Because when you control both the government apparatus AND the means of communication, why choose just one form of censorship?
It’s the kind of move that would make those 20th century censors he was just criticizing say “now that’s efficiency!” Though they might suggest he also throw in some book burning for good measure. But hey, there’s always tomorrow’s DOGE directive for that.
Here’s a silly thing that happens sometimes: A powerful person says something obviously false, and everyone pretends not to notice. This is the plot of “The Emperor’s New Clothes,” where an entire kingdom maintains a collective delusion until one child (who, importantly, hasn’t yet learned the sophisticated art of lying to yourself) points out that hey, the emperor is naked.
The story endures because it captures something fundamental about institutional lies, they don’t actually require sophisticated deception. They just require everyone to agree, collectively, to not say the obvious thing. (George Orwell had some thoughts about this too — in Nineteen Eighty-Four, the ultimate flex of authoritarian power isn’t making you believe lies, it’s making you actively deny what your own eyes tell you.)
Here’s the thing about institutional lies though: They can go on for quite a while, but they tend to have a breaking point. And that breaking point often comes when someone says something so obviously, comically false that it forces everyone to confront the absurdity.
This is probably why authoritarian regimes tend to get more ridiculous over time, not less — they keep having to make increasingly outlandish claims to maintain the fiction.
Which brings us to DOGE, Elon Musk, and what might be the most brazen example of institutional gaslighting we’ve seen in recent memory.
Yesterday, the Justice Department filed a declaration claiming Elon Musk isn’t running or employed by DOGE. The audacity of this claim would be almost comical if it weren’t so dangerous. As Cathy Gellis just pointed out a little while ago, this declaration actually makes their potential Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (CFAA) violations worse, but that’s almost beside the point given the sheer brazenness of the lie.
Let’s go through some of the receipts.
On November 12, Donald Trump clearly announced that Elon Musk would run DOGE:
I am pleased to announce that the Great Elon Musk… will lead the Department of Government Efficiency (“DOGE”). [DOGE] will pave the way for my Administration to dismantle Government Bureaucracy, slash excess regulations, cut wasteful expenditures, and restructure Federal Agencies – Essential to the “Save America” Movement. “This will send shockwaves through the system, and anyone involved in Government waste, which is a lot of people!” stated Mr. Musk.
Sure, some things have changed since that November announcement — Vivek Ramaswamy, mentioned in the same release, was kicked off the project before inauguration. But Musk’s leadership of DOGE? That’s been constant, obvious, and repeatedly demonstrated through both his actions and his own statements.
And then there are DOGE’s day-to-day operations. Just last week, Rolling Stone reported on how DOGE’s staff — a collection of what can only be described as extremely online wannabe edge lords — have been running around Washington with all the subtlety of a kid who just discovered 4chan and thinks it’s actually cool. Their go-to move when they don’t get what they want? Threatening to call their boss. And who might that boss be? Well:
When security officials, for instance, at several departments and agencies have responded that they need to check to ensure these young Musk allies have proper clearance to view sensitive databases, DOGE staff have routinely erupted in fury.Some have told these security officials that if they don’t give them what they want immediately, they’ll call Musk’s cell phoneand give him the officials’ names — and have the richest man in the world call and yell at them, or get them reprimanded or fired.
“Do I need to call Elon?” one DOGE member barked at a federal security officialwhile demanding access to sensitive information at one agency this month, a source familiar with the exchange tells Rolling Stone.
This has happened repeatedly since the dawn of the second Trump administration — at the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), the Treasury Department, at the Office of Personnel Management, and elsewhere. It has become a cruel punchline within the federal bureaucracy, four sources familiar with the matter tell Rolling Stone,that “some child” from the DOGE team “will threaten to call Elon Musk, if you don’t do what the child wants,”as one federal career official describes it.
This isn’t the behavior of staff working for an “advisor” or someone uninvolved with DOGE. This is the conduct of employees who know exactly who their boss is. And who (rightly assume) that everyone they’re talking to also knows who their boss is.
Which, by the way, creates an interesting situation: If the Justice Department’s declaration is true and Elon really isn’t running DOGE, then federal employees should immediately stop bowing down to these threats. After all, why would anyone need to worry about a call from someone who (according to the DOJ) has no official role or authority over the DOGE team? In fact, given this declaration, shouldn’t security officials be asking DOGE staff who actually has the authority to override their security protocols? (Good luck getting an answer to that one.)
But of course, everyone knows exactly who’s really in charge. And Musk hasn’t exactly been subtle about it. I mean, when Elon gave his White House briefing last week, he spoke so much about DOGE and what he was doing via DOGE that the Elon fanboy account “Elon Clips” listed out 17 “DOGE actions” that Elon discussed. And then Elon retweeted it.
Just days ago, Elon tweeted a picture of himself sitting behind a “D.O.G.E” sign, in response to a Congressional Rep expressing concerns about DOGE:
And now we’re supposed to believe he has no role with DOGE? This isn’t just a lie — it’s an insult to our collective intelligence, a demand that we deny what we’ve all witnessed with our own eyes.
Like the emperor parading naked through the streets, this lie is both absurd and revealing. The Justice Department isn’t just asking us to believe a falsehood — they’re demanding we participate in an obvious fiction, testing who will stay silent and who will speak up.
Of course, Trump/Musk trolls will celebrate this as the ultimate troll, as if deliberately lying to a federal court is just another epic meme. But that’s exactly the point: this isn’t about humor or owning the libs or whatever excuse they’ll manufacture. It’s about whether we’ll collectively accept a lie so brazen it makes a mockery of truth itself.
This declaration isn’t just an attempt to shield Musk from accountability for DOGE’s actions — it’s a test of our willingness to deny reality itself. And like that child in Andersen’s tale, we need to state the obvious: Elon Musk runs DOGE. Everyone knows it. He knows it. His staff knows it. Donald Trump knows it. The Justice Department lawyers who filed this declaration know it. The federal judges who will read it know it. And they know we know it too.
That’s what makes this moment so clarifying. It’s not just about whether Elon runs DOGE (he does). It’s about whether we’re willing to pretend he doesn’t. Whether we’ll nod along as the emperor parades down the street, stark naked, insisting he’s wearing the finest clothes anyone has ever seen.
You can choose to believe the lie if that’s important to you. But I think I’ll stick with the kid in the story. The emperor is naked, Elon runs DOGE, and no amount of legal paperwork can change what we’ve all seen with our own eyes.
