Washington: The rapid acquisition of the two US government agencies of Elon Musk has enabled the billionaire of South African-born American to keep unprecedented control over the US 2.2 million federal workforce and to launch the government’s dramatic revival.
The world’s richest man and a colleague of President Donald Trump, 53, has created a new center of power in Washington in two weeks as it executes the initiative of cutting the cost of Trump to reduce the size of the US government. .
Tesla’s CEO and SpaceX founder, Musk, has worked rapidly since Trump’s inauguration of Trump, which deploys teams of current and former employees of his companies as its agents.
Musk’s actions have promoted a wave of nervousness between government employees and public protests in Washington and sometimes threatened to oversee Tram’s agenda.
Trump’s up-down trade war with neighboring Canada and Mexico shut down the USAID, agency for international development, USA, with the attempt of Musk for space on front pages this week.
Musk’s efforts are part of a large -scale government restructuring by Trump, who fired hundreds of civil servants in their first steps towards reducing bureaucracy and establishing more loyalists.
American “is an extraordinary centralization of power in someone who lacks top-level security approval and is not subject to any Senate confirmation process,” Don, a professor of Ford School of Public Policy at Michigan University Mionihan said.
“Musk has given unprecedented and centralized control of the basic plumbing of the government,” he said.
However, Kasturi is operated in the joy of Trump. The President told reporters on Monday that the billionaire had to take approval from the White House for any of his work.
“Elon cannot and will not do anything without our acceptance, and we will approve it, where suitable; Where it is not appropriate, we will not. But he reports. ,
Asked when they talk about the possibility of firing, they are more concerned about, an employee of general service administration who manages federal property and services, said: “Kasturi. No one is really talking about Trump. ,
Trump has kept Kasturi in charge of what both people call the government’s efficiency department. Despite its name, it is not a department, Musk does not draw a government salary, and Dog’s composition immediately attracted the cases of government unions, guards and public interest groups.
In fact, the one who makes Dog is not clear. The Trump administration has not released the list of Dogi’s employees. Nor is it said how they are being paid, how many have entered each agency, and are they government workers. The question raises the question of whom they are accountable – as head of Kasturi or Trump Executive Branch.
Musk and his Dogi Lieutenant have captured the office of Personnel Management and General Services Administration with their computer systems.
The OPM is the Human Resource Branch of the US government, which oversees 2.2 million government employees. From there, emails have been sent in the last week, offering to federal employees to give up financial incentives. GSA oversees most government contracts and manages federal property.
Sources told Reuters that at least four current and former Kasturi colleagues are part of a team, which has closed OPMs with some senior managers from their computer system. Musk visited the GSA last Thursday, an official said, while his team members moved to the agency.
On Friday, a musk team gained access to the payment system of the US Treasury Department, which sends more than $ 6 trillion per year on behalf of federal agencies and includes personal information of millions of Americans who pay social security, tax refunds and Other monies get from the government.
Michael Linden, former President Joe Biden’s management and budget in the budget, former President Joe Biden’s administration, a senior officer, a powerful agency, who oversees the federal budget, said that he reached the payment systems by Musk’s colleagues, extraordinary potentials to him Gives power.
Linden said in an interview, “They can get to pay and choose from the federal government.”
Neither Musk nor the White House immediately responded to the request of the comment.
Trump repeatedly stated that the federal bureaucracy is bloated and disable, and needs to be reduced. He also accused several federal workers of being a liberal ideology to thwart their agenda.
Musk is more than its right
“Those of us who have worked in Elon’s companies can see their fingers, what is happening inside the federal government,” Thomas Molin said, a former SpaceX Senior Avionics Engineer. “This is a very seat-off-the-pant relationship with the loyalists of Elon, who scrambles to execute every whisper and desire as fast as possible.”
Governance experts say that Kasturi has already gone beyond the mandate given by Executive Order Trump, Trump signed the establishment of Dogge on 20 January.
That order made it mandatory to maximize government efficiency and productivity to modernize federal technology and software. ” Other orders to hire cold and recruitment say that Doggies should work with other agencies to make recommendations.
Musk and his colleagues are much more than that only make recommendations.
Dogi’s employees clashed with more security officials than access to sensitive information at USAID’s Washington Headquarters and are heavy in the agency’s downsizing.
Fear is catching many civil servants, and they have taken on Redit, signal and Facebook to report on what is going on inside their agencies. They also warns that Dogi personnel are doing watermarking and otherwise embedding identities such as additional vacancy in email to track suspicious leakers.
Musk critics including Democratic MPs have accused him of hostile acquisition of the government. Federal activist unions filed a lawsuit to block the access of Musk to sensitive computer systems.
A Democrat from Maryland, American representative Jamie Ruskin, “We do not have a fourth branch of the government called Elon Musk, told reporters during a protest outside the USAID headquarters.
‘fork in the road’
After buying a social media company in 2022, when he killed the Twitter workforce, an email was sent to all government employees named “Fork in the Road”, using language musk, which he was resigned. , Plan to pay workers through September. Until 6 February.
Another email encouraged government employees to search for more productive jobs in the private sector. Federal staff unions have urged workers not to take the proposal, warning that it may not be legal, as it is not clear how the payment will be funded.
Unions representing employees on Tuesday filed a lawsuit to block the administration’s plan to offer the purchase, even an American official told the Reuters that more than 20,000 employees were planning to leave. Were.
Nick Bedner, an associate professor of law at Minnesota Law School, said it was deeply related that Kasturi and his colleagues have such a great power on federal personnel and federal payments “when they have little accountability.”
It was also extraordinary that Musk, whose companies have many contracts with the US government, were placed in a situation that would raise so many questions about the conflict of interest.
