elon musk – Techdirt (original) (raw)

Musk’s ‘Priority #1’ Disaster: CSAM Problem Worsens While ExTwitter Stiffs Detection Provider

from the not-such-a-priority-apparently dept

One of Elon Musk’s first “promises” upon taking over Twitter was that fighting child exploitation was “priority #1.”

He falsely implied that the former management didn’t take the issue seriously (they did) and insisted that he would make sure it was a solved problem on the platform he now owned. Of course, while he was saying this, he was also firing most of the team that worked on preventing the sharing of child sexual abuse material (CSAM) on the site. Almost every expert in the field noted that it seemed clear that Elon was almost certainly making the problem worse, not better. Some early research supported this, showing that the company was now leaving up a ton of known CSAM (the easiest kind to find and block through photo-matching tools).

A few months later, Elon’s supposed commitment to stomping out CSAM was proven laughable when he apparently personally stepped in to reinstate the account of a mindless conspiracy theorist who had posted a horrific CSAM image.

A new NBC News investigation now reveals just how spectacularly Musk has failed at his self-proclaimed “priority #1.” Not only has the CSAM problem on ExTwitter exploded beyond previous levels, but the company has now been cut off by Thorn—one of the most important providers of CSAM detection technology—after ExTwitter simply stopped paying its bills.

At the same time, Thorn, a California-based nonprofit organization that works with tech companies to provide technology that can detect and address child sexual abuse content, told NBC News that it had terminated its contract with X.

Thorn said that X stopped paying recent invoices for its work, though it declined to provide details about its deal with the company citing legal sensitivities. X said Wednesday that it was moving toward using its own technology to address the spread of child abuse material.

Let’s pause on this corporate-speak for a moment. ExTwitter claims it’s “moving toward using its own technology” to fight CSAM. That’s a fancy way of saying they fired the experts and plan to wing it with some other—likely Grok-powered— nonsense they can cobble together.

Now, to be fair, some platforms do develop effective in-house CSAM detection tools and while Thorn’s tools are widely used, some platforms have complained that the tools are limited. But these types of systems generally work best when operated by specialized third parties who can aggregate data across multiple platforms—exactly what organizations like Thorn (and Microsoft’s PhotoDNA) provide. The idea that a company currently failing to pay its bills to anti-CSAM specialists is simultaneously building superior replacement technology is, shall we say, optimistic.

The reality on the ground tells a very different story than Musk’s PR spin:

The Canadian Centre for Child Protection (C3P), an independent online CSAM watchdog group, reviewed several X accounts and hashtags flagged by NBC News that were promoting the sale of CSAM, and followed links promoted by several of the accounts. The organization said that, within minutes, it was able to identify accounts that posted images of previously identified CSAM victims who were as young as 7. It also found apparent images of CSAM in thumbnail previews populated on X and in links to Telegram channels where CSAM videos were posted. One such channel showed a video of a boy estimated to be as young as 4 being sexually assaulted. NBC News did not view or have in its possession any of the abuse material.

Lloyd Richardson, director of information technology at C3P, said the behavior being exhibited by the X users was “a bit old hat” at this point, and that X’s response “has been woefully insufficient.” “It seems to be a little bit of a game of Whac-A-Mole that goes on,” he said. “There doesn’t seem to be a particular push to really get to the root cause of the issue.”

NBC’s investigation found that Musk’s “priority #1” has become a free-for-all:

A review of many hashtags with terms known to be associated with CSAM shows that the problem is, if anything, worse than when Musk initially took over. What was previously a trickle of posts of fewer than a dozen per hour is now a torrent propelled by accounts that appear to be automated — some posting several times a minute.

Despite the continued flood of posts and sporadic bans of individual accounts, the hashtags observed by NBC News over several weeks remained open and viewable as of Wednesday. And some of the hashtags that were identified in 2023 by NBC News as hosting the child exploitation advertisements are still being used for the same purpose today.

That seems bad! Read it again: hashtags that were flagged as CSAM distribution channels in 2023 are still active and being used for the same purpose today. This isn’t the kind of mistake that happens when you’re overwhelmed by scale—this is what happens when you simply don’t give a shit.

Look, I’m usually willing to defend platforms against unfair criticism about content moderation. The scale makes perfection impossible, and edge cases are genuinely hard. But this isn’t about edge cases or the occasional mistake—this is about leaving up known, previously identified CSAM distribution channels. That’s not a content moderation failure; that’s a policy failure.

As the article also notes, ExTwitter tried to get praised for all the work it was doing with Thorn, in an effort to show how strongly it was fighting CSAM. This post from just last year looks absolutely ridiculous now that they stopped paying Thorn and the org had to cut them off.

But the real kicker comes from Thorn itself, which essentially confirms that ExTwitter was more interested in the PR value of their partnership than actually using the technology:

Pailes Halai, Thorn’s senior manager of accounts and partnerships, who oversaw the X contract, said that some of Thorn’s software was designed to address issues like those posed by the hashtag CSAM posts, but that it wasn’t clear if they ever fully implemented it.

“They took part in the beta with us last year,” he said. “So they helped us test and refine, etc, and essentially be an early adopter of the product. They then subsequently did move on to being a full customer of the product, but it’s not very clear to us at this point how and if they used it.”

So there you have it: ExTwitter signed up for anti-CSAM tools, used the partnership for good PR, then perhaps never bothered to fully implement the system, and finally stopped paying the bills entirely.

This is what “priority #1” looks like in Elon Musk’s world: lots of performative tweets, followed by firing the experts, cutting off the specialized tools, and letting the problem explode while pretending you’re building something better. I’m sure like “full self-driving” and Starships that don’t explode, the tech will be fully deployed any day now.

Filed Under: child safety, csam, elon musk, prevention
Companies: thorn, twitter, x

Trump NHTSA ‘Investigates’ Tesla Robotaxis Failing To Adhere To Basic Austin Traffic Laws

from the fox-watching-the-henhouse dept

Thu, Jun 26th 2025 05:24am - Karl Bode

So you may have seen that Elon Musk’s long-hyped Robotaxis have finally “launched” in Austin. And it’s going just about how you’d expect if you’re familiar with the fit and finish of Elon Musk promises.

There are about a dozen Robotaxis now operating; Model Ys with a human observer in the front seat to try and avoid calamity. And despite years of hype about this product, social media is filled with videos of Robotaxis engaging in all sorts of problematic and dangerous behavior, including routinely veering into the wrong lane, failing to accomplish basic turns, or responding poorly to unique situations.

The videos have apparently gotten the attention of U.S. auto safety regulators (or what’s left of them after Trump and his courts basically lobotomized all regulatory independence). In a statement to the press, the NHTSA said they’re monitoring the situation and have asked Tesla for more information:

“NHTSA is aware of the referenced incidents and is in contact with the manufacturer to gather additional information. NHTSA will continue to enforce the law on all manufacturers of motor vehicles and equipment, in accordance with the Vehicle Safety Act and our data-driven, risk-based investigative process. Under U.S. law, NHTSA does not pre-approve new technologies or vehicle systems — rather, manufacturers certify that each vehicle meets NHTSA’s rigorous safety standards, and the agency investigates incidents involving potential safety defects. Following an assessment of those reports and other relevant information, NHTSA will take any necessary actions to protect road safety.”

Granted even under previous administrations the NHTSA routinely failed to do its job, particularly as it pertains to the growing body count of Tesla’s “full self driving” misrepresentations.

But under the Trump administration, it’s all so much worse. Federal corporate oversight genuinely no longer exists. Several Supreme Court rulings have declared that U.S. regulators can no longer do basic tasks without the explicit direction of a Congress that corporations know is too corrupt to function. The rulings were the culmination of a multi-generational quest by corporate power to lobotomize corporate oversight (under the pretense they were “reining in regulators run amok” for the greater good).

Now, even if U.S. regulators do try to do their jobs, they have a very good chance of having enforcement efforts crushed by the Trump-heavy 5th or 6th circuits (see the 6th Circuit’s recent decision to vacate a long-percolating FCC effort to fine AT&T for spying on customer location data without consent). Any attempt to do anything to protect consumers, markets, or public safety will be bogged down in legal fighting for years, quite by design.

That’s before you even get to DOGE cuts (the NHTSA staffers responsible for investigating the safety risks of automation were literally fired by Elon Musk), the fact that Trump has fired Democratic commissioners at several agencies and stocked most of the others with a rotating crop of weird extremists and ass kissers.

Cumulatively, it’s not hyperbole to state that federal consumer, labor, environment, and public safety protection no longer functions in this new golden age of corruption. That’s fucking dire and deadly. You simply won’t see this reality made apparent by most U.S. journalists.

If you read press coverage of the Tesla Robotaxi problems (TechCrunch, CNBC, Reuters) — or any story where regulators are involved — they all kind of act as if it’s business as usual. A reader walks away from all of those stories believing the NHTSA is truly “investigating” things, might do something about it, and there’s somebody competent managing the store. That there’s really nothing new under the sun.

Corporate media is conditioned to downplay the way that corruption has hollowed out our federal regulators because it’s a policy affluent media ownership supports. But it also feels like a lot of consumer and business journalism suffers from a sort of normalization bias. This all results in long stories about business and consumer policy that don’t mention the train has gone completely off the rails.

The Robotaxi stuff aside, that’s resulted in a lot of oblivious Americans who have no real understanding that we’re going to see widespread concussive failure of a lot of stuff they take for granted. Much of it fatal.

In Austin that means little real oversight while Tesla conducts a dangerous public beta (without Austin public input or approval) using obviously half-cooked automation. We’ll be lucky if this doesn’t ultimately end in fatalities, which, if history is any indication, once again won’t result in anything even vaguely resembling accountability for the executives or companies involved.

Tesla memestock was up ten percent the day reports emerged that the Robotaxis are dangerously undercooked. As per tradition.

Filed Under: ai, austin, automation, consumer protection, driverless cars, elon musk, nhtsa, oversight, public safety, regulators, robotaxi, self-driving, texas
Companies: tesla

Trump’s FTC Turns Consumer Protection Into MAGA Protection Racket

from the everything's-corruption dept

When Andrew Ferguson made his pitch to Donald Trump to take over the organization, his one-page “pick me” plea talked about “ending” former FTC Chair Lina Khan’s “politically motivated investigations.” We pointed out at the time how hilarious it was that he then made it clear he fully intended to abuse the power of the FTC to, instead, launch “politically motivated investigations” on behalf of MAGA culture war interests.

Now we have two separate reports of the FTC going way further than just launching bogus “politically motivated investigations,” but also looking to use consent decrees for clearly partisan support. This isn’t just garden-variety regulatory capture. It’s the transformation of a consumer protection agency into a protection racket for Trump loyalists and billionaire friends.

We’ve joked in the past that it’s become something of a rite of passage for large internet companies that they end up with a 20-year FTC consent decree at some point. Almost always, this is because of some gross violation of privacy by the company, leading to promises not to be so negligent and to be a lot more careful going forward. For a lot of companies it’s kind of the cost of becoming big enough to matter. Some, like Elon Musk, constantly whine about how unfair these consent decrees are.

But now Ferguson is clearly looking to weaponize consent decrees to help friends and punish enemies.

The Meta Shakedown: Pay Up For Exercising Editorial Rights

First up, a story from the NY Post ostensibly about how the big tech billionaires all kissed Donald Trump’s ass… for basically nothing in return. Trump and his allies are still abusing regulatory power to punish these companies. But, buried in that piece is this bit of ridiculous news:

Trump’s team, sources told me, are now pushing for aggressive measures, including a potential consent decree as part of an FTC deal that could force Meta to pay restitution to conservative users and businesses harmed by content moderation that was ratcheted up dramatically during covid.

It’s kind of shocking how ridiculous and inappropriate that would be. First of all, courts up to and including the Supreme Court have already made it abundantly clear that content moderation is protected by the First Amendment, noting that it is the same as the type of editorial discretion that enables Fox News to only spew bullshit and rarely post stories critical of Donald Trump.

Second, the FTC has zero authority to regulate speech or force companies to pay damages for exercising their editorial rights. Consumer protection agencies don’t get to second-guess private companies’ editorial decisions, even when those decisions upset powerful political constituencies.

Third, the predicate for this entire scheme—that Meta was biased against conservatives—is completely fabricated. Study after study after study has shown that Meta strongly favored conservative users rather than targeting them. Indeed, it had a separate set of rules that allowed MAGA types to violate its rules more frequently before facing any consequences, while deliberately limiting the reach of more liberal voices. This is why the platform is dominated by MAGA voices and has been for years.

In other words, Ferguson wants to force a company to pay damages to people who broke that company’s rules, based on a completely false premise about bias, in direct violation of both the First Amendment and the FTC’s statutory authority.

That seems… bad?

But, of course, with Zuckerberg so desperate to suck up to Trump, watch him actually agree to this bit of nonsense.

The Advertising Racket: Pay Elon Or No Deal

The second example is a NY Times article regarding the FTC’s review of the potential merger between advertising giants Omnicom and Interpublic. There are plenty of legitimate reasons to be concerned about this deal leading to even more consolidation in the advertising market, but that doesn’t seem to be the major concern of the Ferguson FTC.

Instead, the agency wants to use the merger review as leverage to force these companies to buy ads on Elon Musk’s flailing ExTwitter platform:

A proposed consent decree would prevent the merged company from boycotting platforms because of their political content by refusing to place their clients’ advertisements on them , according to two people briefed on the matter.

This sanitized language obscures what’s really happening here: a protection racket for Elon Musk. As we’ve covered, Elon Musk is very, very mad that he drove away the majority of ExTwitter’s advertisers. But rather than look inward at what he did to cause that, he’s blaming everyone else—to the point that he is suing advertisers directly for not advertising on ExTwitter (while demanding others advertise or be added to the suit). He’s also been trying to encourage government officials to spin up “investigations” into advertisers who won’t advertise on ExTwitter, claiming (ridiculously) it’s an illegal boycott.

Courts at both the district and appeals court levels have rejected this theory as an obvious attack on protected First Amendment activity (i.e., advertisers saying they don’t want their brands associated with neo-Nazi reactionary nonsense).

But, the Ferguson/Trump FTC launched a similarly bogus investigation anyway, in an effort to abuse the power of the FTC to browbeat firms into giving Elon Musk cash (I assume, so long as Elon stays in Trump’s good graces).

So when the FTC proposes a consent decree preventing ad agencies from “boycotting platforms because of their political content,” it’s essentially telling Omnicom and Interpublic: “If you want this merger approved, you’ll agree in writing to buy ads on ExTwitter, whether your clients want them or not.”

This is textbook corruption: using regulatory approval as leverage to benefit a specific company that happens to be owned by someone (for the moment) in the president’s inner circle.

A Pattern of Regulatory Abuse

What connects these two schemes is how far they stray from the FTC’s actual authority. The agency is supposed to protect consumers from unfair or deceptive business practices and prevent anticompetitive mergers. It’s not supposed to act as an enforcement arm for aggrieved conservatives or as a collection agency for politically connected billionaires.

But, as with Zuckerberg, it’s entirely possible that the ad firms may agree to such a condition just to get the merger done.

Ferguson promised to end “politically motivated investigations” and instead launched obviously political shakedown schemes that would make Al Capone proud. The transformation is complete: an agency created to protect consumers from corporate abuse has become a tool for extracting tribute from corporations on behalf of powerful political interests.

This isn’t just garden-variety corruption or regulatory capture. It’s the systematic transformation of consumer protection regulatory tools into weapons of political retribution and personal enrichment. And it’s happening so brazenly that these officials barely even bother to hide their motives anymore.

The corruption is so brazen because they know no one will stop them.

The real tragedy isn’t just that this undermines the rule of law or corrupts important regulatory institutions. It’s that when everything becomes nakedly political, we lose the ability to distinguish between legitimate regulatory action and partisan hackery. It creates increased cynicism and distrust of government organizations. And, perhaps that’s part of the point.

Filed Under: 1st amendment, advertising, andrew ferguson, anti-conservative bias, bias, boycott, consent decree, content moderation, elon musk, free association, free speech, ftc
Companies: interpublic, meta, omnicom, twitter, x

The Trump Admin’s Dish Network Con Reaches Its Ultimate Conclusion: Failure, Bankruptcy, And Rich New Spectrum Holdings For Elon Musk

from the one-big-giant-head-fake dept

Mon, Jun 16th 2025 05:26am - Karl Bode

Back in 2019, the Trump DOJ and FCC cobbled together a dumb plan to try and hide the problems created by their rubber stamping of the competition-eroding T-Mobile and Sprint merger: they’d pretend they were helping satellite TV company Dish Network create a new 5G wireless network out of vibes and twine. As we noted back in 2019, the entire gambit was doomed to failure for a long list of reasons.

Dish never had any real experience building wireless networks. The Trump administration had no real interest in fostering competition (its “antitrust enforcer” at the time used his personal phone to help the companies dodge regulatory scrutiny). Multiple companies always wanted the spectrum Dish was collecting, and nobody in wireless really wanted to have to seriously compete on price.

Dish CEO Charlie Ergen, who had long been hoarding valuable spectrum, needed to pretend to the government he was serious about using it, and not just waiting for its value to appreciate so he could cash out later. The entire plan always seemed like a decorative con.

Fast forward to 2025 and the Dish 5G network is a joke nobody really uses, and Dish owner Echostar is now preparing for bankruptcy, precisely as we predicted all along.

Elon Musk’s Starlink wants a lot of the spectrum Dish is using in the 2GHz band. Verizon and AT&T would likely enjoy owning some of Dish’s other spectrum assets. So Trump FCC boss Brendan Carr is suddenly pretending to care about holding corporations accountable, and has launched a new inquiry into whether Dish is stringing regulators along (which I’d argue the Trump FCC knew was the plan all along).

Echostar has been missing millions of dollars of interest payments on its notes. Once it’s threatened by bankruptcy, it likely will find itself in a vulnerable position with the Trump FCC:

“A looming potential bankruptcy proceeding may force EchoStar back to the negotiation table with the FCC.”

And that “negotiation” most likely ends with the FCC forcing Dish to sell its spectrum assets to Elon Musk, Verizon, and AT&T. Outlets like the Wall Street Journal will of course cover this unskeptically as if the FCC is doing a serious investigation and this is all very serious business.

But it’s all been the greasiest of cons. A half-assed network was built as cover for industry consolidation and spectrum hoarding. When it inevitably failed, it gets stripped for parts with the help of captured regulators in dutiful sway to a billionaire. Dish CEO Charlie Ergen sells his rich hoard of spectrum and heads off into retirement, while the company’s employees get shitcanned.

The wireless industry consolidates further, competition erodes, consumer prices continue to rise, and captured regulators and U.S. business leaders all ignore all of the problems they helped create, and we all forget about the half-decade-worth of fictions they leveraged to pull the wool over the press’ and public’s eyes. I’d still argue that all of this was very likely the plan from the start.

All very serious business and extremely innovative stuff in a very serious country full of savvy and very serious deal-makers.

Filed Under: competition, consolidation, elon musk, fcc, spectrum, telecom, wireless
Companies: at&t, dish, echostar, spacex, starlink, verizon

Elon Musk’s New Business Model For ExTwitter: Give Us Money Or We Sue

As you’ll likely recall, in late 2023, Elon Musk told advertisers to “go fuck yourself” and “don’t advertise” in response to a question about advertisers feeling uncomfortable placing their brands next to the kind of content that Musk was promoting via the ExTwitter algorithm. But the full context of the quote is interesting in retrospect:

“If somebody’s gonna try to blackmail me with advertising? Blackmail me with money? Go f—yourself.” He added, “Don’t advertise.”

Blackmail you with advertising, you say?

Because it sure looks like the blackmailing is now happening in the opposite direction. There had been some earlier reports hinting at this, but the Wall Street Journal has a big expose on how Linda Yaccarino and Elon Musk are telling advertisers if they don’t start throwing money at ExTwitter ads again, they’ll be added to the completely baseless lawsuit the company filed against advertisers.

The extortionate message is clear: buy our ads or we’ll cost you even more money in legal fees:

Late last year, Verizon Communications got an unusual message from a media company that wanted its business: Spend your ad dollars with us or we’ll see you in court.

The threat came from X, the social-media platform that has been struggling to resuscitate its ad business after many corporate advertisers fled over concerns about loosened content-moderation standards following Elon Musk’s $44 billion purchase in late 2022.

It worked. Verizon, which hadn’t advertised on X since 2022, pledged to spend at least $10 million this year on the platform, a person familiar with the matter said.

Fashion company Ralph Lauren also agreed to resume buying ads on X after receiving a lawsuit threat, people familiar with the matter said. All told, at least six companies that had either received lawsuit threats or were motivated in part by pressure tactics have struck ad deals with X, according to people familiar with the negotiations. The agreements include both firm ad-spending commitments and nonbinding targets.

In Elon’s world, the shakedown works in one direction only.

The article suggests this extortion racket may be “working,” with ad revenue reportedly ticking up for the first time under Musk’s tenure.

But “working” is relative when you consider what Musk promised investors: In his original pitch to investors, Musk promised 12billioninadvertisingrevenueby2028,plusanother12 billion in advertising revenue by 2028, plus another 12billioninadvertisingrevenueby2028,plusanother10 billion from subscriptions. Instead, he’s reduced to threatening companies with lawsuits to squeeze out marginal ad spending increases. It’s the business equivalent of a protection racket—and about as far from his original vision as you can get.

Notably left out of the WSJ article is the fact that at least some of the advertisers seemed to return to the platform due to a different—but equally stupid—reason: post-election sucking up to the Trump regime. There were multiple reports just after the election and early in the new administration, that advertisers were returning to the platform.

But, notably, in none of these stories is anyone returning to advertise on ExTwitter because they’re getting any particular value from those ads. Indeed, ad execs have made it clear how unappealing it is, since doing so may provide negative value, as no matter what they do it engages them in a culture war they’d rather not have anything to do with.

The WSJ report notes how the list of defendants in Musk’s lawsuit against advertisers seems to keep changing, most likely based on what kinds of deals are made:

Amazon, which had pulled much of its spending from X in late 2023, began spending more on ads earlier this year after months of negotiations that involved Amazon Chief Executive Andy Jassy.

Last November, while discussions were under way, X added Amazon’s Twitch Interactive to the lawsuit, according to people familiar with the matter. X notified the court last month that it dismissed its claims against Twitch.

What the WSJ piece doesn’t fully capture is just how fundamentally unsustainable this business model is. This isn’t a tech visionary disrupting advertising—it’s a failed CEO resorting to legal intimidation because he can’t deliver actual value to advertisers.

Think about it: Musk spent $44 billion promising to revolutionize social media, then drove away the very advertisers who were supposed to fund his grand vision. Now he’s reduced to what amounts to a protection racket, threatening lawsuits to extract ad dollars from companies that would rather spend their money literally anywhere else.

These fear-based advertising commitments are inherently fragile. Companies pressured into spending on ExTwitter aren’t getting meaningful returns on their ad investments—they’re just paying to avoid legal hassles. The moment Musk’s leverage weakens, whether through the lawsuit’s resolution, his political influence waning, or simply advertiser fatigue with being extorted, these deals will evaporate.

You can threaten all the lawsuits you want, but you can’t litigate your way to a sustainable business model. Advertisers who return based on intimidation rather than results are just waiting for the first opportunity to leave again. And you definitely can’t sue your way back to the $12 billion in annual ad revenue you promised investors.

The real story here isn’t about advertising strategy—it’s about the spectacular failure of ego-driven dealmaking that’s created a business model dependent on fear rather than value. That’s not innovation—that’s desperation masquerading as strategy.

Filed Under: advertising, elon musk, linda yaccarino, litigation, threats
Companies: amazon, twitter, verizon, x

Trump Administration Showers Palantir With Millions To Compile Data To Wield Against American Citizens

from the better-keep-an-eye-on-the-non-right-wing-radicals dept

Welcome to the expanded panopticon, American citizens. Thanks to a very small percentage of your fellow Americans, the president, whom a minority of the general public returned to power, is throwing millions at a private contractor to gather as much data on US citizens as possible for reasons it has left unstated.

That private contractor would be Palantir, which has never shied away from the role of villain since its inception. And it only makes sense this administration would choose Palantir, what with the company’s founder being such a huge fan of Trump, fascism, and censorship.

Nearly a billion dollars are headed Palantir’s way, even as DOGE continues to strip funding from nearly every government agency it has decided to meddle with. That’s not a coincidence, as the New York Times reports.

Palantir’s selection as a chief vendor for the project was driven by Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency, according to the government officials. At least three DOGE members formerly worked at Palantir, while two others had worked at companies funded by Peter Thiel, an investor and a founder of Palantir.

Just more insiders doing some (horse) trading. Palantir has already received more than 100millionfromtheTrumpAdministrationsinceTrumptookofficeinJanuary.TheDefenseDepartment’soutlaydwarfsthe100 million from the Trump Administration since Trump took office in January. The Defense Department’s outlay dwarfs the 100millionfromtheTrumpAdministrationsinceTrumptookofficeinJanuary.TheDefenseDepartment’soutlaydwarfsthe113 million already allocated towards this project. The DoD has awarded a $795 million contract to Palantir, but has yet to actually start spending that money.

It obviously will end up spending it. But the main concern is the addition of Palantir software to a bunch of agencies not normally considered to be part of the federal government’s domestic spyware programs.

The push has put a key Palantir product called Foundry into at least four federal agencies, including D.H.S. and the Health and Human Services Department. Widely adopting Foundry, which organizes and analyzes data, paves the way for Mr. Trump to easily merge information from different agencies, the government officials said.

The administration and its surveillance partner are also seeking to infect the IRS and Social Security Administration with Palantir’s tech, adding to the massive haystack the Trump administration can use for whatever purposes it wants.

Given how this administration has handled itself since returning to office, it’s not that much of a stretch to believe this massive data collection will be used to help Trump and his compatriots find targets for arrest, deportation, or unconstitutional executive orders.

Mr. Trump could potentially use such information to advance his political agenda by policing immigrants and punishing critics, Democratic lawmakers and critics have said.

That’s obviously the point of this massive data pile, which removes silos that were put there for a reason. Stripping away these separations creates an extremely enticing target for malicious hackers, who always appreciate government contractors doing the dirty work of amassing personally identifiable information for them.

The only open question is whether Palantir’s expanded data collection will be exploited by malicious hackers or malicious administration members first. Rest assured, it will be abused by someone, and any legal recourse after the fact isn’t going to be able to undo whatever harms have been inflicted on Americans by this intermingling of data from multiple federal agencies.

Palantir, of course, couldn’t care less. Its statement on this disturbing development merely says that it’s proud to be a hammer but it can’t control what the administration decides are nails.

“We act as a data processor, not a data controller,” it said. “Our software and services are used under direction from the organisations that license our products: these organisations define what can and cannot be done with their data; they control the Palantir accounts in which analysis is conducted.”

This is obviously true. A contractor can’t control what the government does with the tools it provides. However, it can decide whether or not to provide the tools. Palantir will never choose otherwise, no matter who’s in office. And if it’s willing to aid a president determined to do bad things with the data it provides, it’s certainly willing to sell to other autocrats and human rights abusers elsewhere in the world. Ethics are a luxury this multi-billion dollar company apparently can’t afford.

Filed Under: defense department, dhs, doge, elon musk, health and human services, irs, mass surveillance, peter thiel
Companies: palantir

Appeals Court: Yeah, Of Course Ken Paxton’s Investigation Into Media Matters Was Bullshit

from the stating-the-obvious dept

A federal appeals court just delivered yet another reality check to Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton’s transparently retaliatory investigation into Media Matters — and the timing couldn’t be better, given that the FTC just opened its own bullshit investigation into the same organization for the same supposed “crime”: reporting factual information that made Elon Musk sad.

Here’s what happened: Media Matters published a single article documenting that big brand ads were appearing next to neo-Nazi content on ExTwitter. No one disputes this happened (no, not even Elon, though he does complain that they weren’t fully transparent in how they found those ads). But some advertisers paused their spending, which enraged Musk enough that he (egged on by Stephen Miller) convinced state officials in Texas and Missouri to weaponize their offices against Media Matters for the sin of accurate reporting.

This was in addition to Musk’s own filing of lawsuits in multiple countries against Media Matters (not to mention Musk telling advertisers to “go fuck yourself” if they didn’t want to advertise).

It should be pretty blatantly obvious why this is dangerous. When state prosecutors start investigating journalists for publishing inconvenient facts, that’s not protecting the public — it’s textbook government retaliation against speech.

Media Matters went to court to try to stop these investigations, and a district court judge blocked both Texas’ and Missouri’s investigations, calling out how they were obviously unconstitutional retaliatory attacks on Media Matters’ First Amendment protected speech.

Texas appealed to the DC Circuit. On Friday, the DC Circuit upheld the lower court opinion. The opinion was written by the 84-year-old Judge Harry Edwards, who basically says that the district court’s findings that this was an attack on First Amendment speech is obviously correct:

The First Amendment generally “prohibits government officials from subjecting individuals to retaliatory actions after the fact for having engaged in protected speech.” Hous. Cmty. Coll. Sys. v. Wilson, 595 U.S. 468, 474 (2022); see, e.g., Boquist v. Courtney, 32 F.4th 764, 774 (9th Cir. 2022). As the District Court correctly recognized, Appellees’ complaint is not focused merely on the chilling effects of the actions taken against them. Rather, the heart of Appellees’ claim is that the actions taken by Paxton are justiciable and warrant relief because they involve concrete and felt acts of retaliation against a media company and one of its investigative reporters for having exercised their protected rights of free speech.

The opinion calls out how Paxton tried to pretend his investigation wasn’t retaliatory even as it quite obviously was:

Paxton additionally argues that Appellees’ complaint should be dismissed because it does not raise a justiciable claim. We disagree. Paxton has elided the compelling evidence of the campaign of retaliation against Appellees so as to mischaracterize the action before the court. This case is not simply about a pre-enforcement challenge to a non-self-executing CID, as Paxton would have it. Rather, Appellees have alleged present, concrete, and objective harms (not merely “chilling effects”) resulting from retaliatory government actions that have adversely affected their newsgathering activities and media business operations. Accordingly, Appellees have satisfied the injury-in-fact requirement of standing and may pursue injunctive relief for their First Amendment retaliation claim.

Here’s the most damning part: Judge Edwards points out that Paxton provided no argument at all “to dispute that the investigation was retaliatory.” In other words, a state attorney general couldn’t even be bothered to deny that he was abusing his office to punish journalists. That’s not legal strategy — that’s confession.

Instead of defending the legitimacy of his investigation, Paxton tried to hide behind procedural arguments, pointing to a case about challenging hypothetical future enforcement. But as Edwards makes clear, this isn’t about some potential future harm:

This case is quite different. Appellees in this case are not challenging a general government policy; rather, they are the specific targets of a retaliatory government investigation. Indeed, as noted above, Paxton readily declared that he was targeting Media Matters for investigation in a press release and interviews. Shortly thereafter, he then served the CID on Media Matters as part of the investigation. Thus, there is no hypothetical harm or a threatened future enforcement action because the retaliatory investigation has already begun.

The timing of this ruling is perfect because FTC Chair Andrew Ferguson just launched his own investigation into Media Matters for the exact same “offense” — accurate reporting that upset a billionaire. Ferguson should read this opinion carefully, because the DC Circuit just explained in very clear terms why using government power to punish journalism is unconstitutional.

But, of course, Ferguson probably doesn’t care. The cruelty is the point. These investigations aren’t meant to uncover wrongdoing — they’re designed to drain resources, chill reporting, and send a message to other journalists: step out of line and we’ll weaponize the state against you.

That’s how “free speech” works in the Trump admin.

The DC Circuit just told state prosecutors they can’t get away with this authoritarian bullshit. Now we’ll see if federal agencies got the memo.

Filed Under: 1st amendment, andrew ferguson, elon musk, free speech, ftc, ken paxton, retaliation, texas
Companies: media matters

A 23-Year-Old Crypto Bro Is Now Vetoing NSF Grants While Staring At His Water Bottle

from the seems-bad? dept

Picture this: You’re a researcher who has spent years developing a grant proposal, gone through layers of expert review, and received National Science Foundation (NSF) approval. Then some kid barely out of college — whose main qualification appears to be founding a company that puts ads on the blockchain — logs into a Zoom meeting, pays more attention to his fingernails than the discussion, and kills your grant with an uninterested thumbs down.

Welcome to science under DOGE.

This isn’t hyperbole. It’s exactly what prompted Alondra Nelson — a pioneering scholar at the intersection of tech, policy, and society who led the Social Science Research Council and headed the Office of Science and Technology Policy under Biden — to publicly resign from both the National Science Foundation and the Library of Congress. As she explained in a piece at Time Magazine, the DOGE/Trump assault on institutions is systematically destroying scientific inquiry and academic freedom.

The NSF’s investments have shaped some of the most transformative technologies of our time—from GPS to the internet—and supported vital research in the social and behavioral sciences that helps the nation understand itself and evaluate its progress toward its democratic ideals. So in 2024, I was honored to be appointed to the National Science Board, which is charged under 42 U.S. Code § 1863 with establishing the policies of the Foundation and providing oversight of its mission.

But the meaning of oversight changed with the arrival of DOGE. That historical tension—between the promise of scientific freedom and the peril of political control—may now be resurfacing in troubling ways. Last month, when a National Science Board statement was released on occasion of the April 2025 resignation of Trump-appointed NSF Director Sethuraman Panchanathan, it was done so without the participation or notice of all members of the Board.

Last week, as the Board held its 494th meeting, I listened to NSF staff say that DOGE had by fiat the authority to give thumbs up or down to grant applications which had been systematically vetted by layers of subject matter experts. Our closed-to-the-public deliberations were observed by Zachary Terrell from the DOGE team. Through his Zoom screen, Terrell showed more interest in his water bottle and his cuticles than in the discussion. According to Nature Terrell, listed as a “consultant” in the NSF directory, had accessed the NSF awards system to block the dispersal of approved grants. The message I received was that the National Science Board had a role to play in name only.

Meet Zachary Terrell, DOGE’s apparent authority on scientific merit. Fedscoop identified him as one of three DOGE operatives deployed to NSF. They had such little info on him that they didn’t even list any associations (unlike the other two DOGE kids at NSF). Terrell’s apparent qualifications for overruling decades of scientific expertise? A 2022 bachelor’s degree from Kansas State and a brief career in crypto.

Since graduating, Terrell has managed to found three companies, including “Spindl,” which Coinbase acquired earlier this year for its groundbreaking innovation of… putting ads on the blockchain. His LinkedIn profile lists his current government role as “Yeoman” — apparently the official title for “person who kills research grants while playing with water bottles.”

This is the expertise now trumping peer review at the NSF. Not content knowledge, not research experience, not even basic familiarity with how science works. Just the confidence that comes with being a 23-year-old techbro who thinks he knows better than any actual expert.

This is who Elon had sit in NSF board meetings, staring at his water bottle, and then giving the up/down vote on grants over the decisions of actual knowledgeable and experienced experts.

The pattern extends beyond NSF. Nelson also resigned from the Library of Congress following Trump’s firing of Librarian Carla Hayden over completely fabricated claims about “inappropriate books for children”—despite the fact that the Library of Congress doesn’t lend books and restricts access to those over 16.

What we’re witnessing isn’t just administrative incompetence — it’s the systematic replacement of expertise with ideology. Nelson recognizes this broader authoritarian pattern, along with the only logical response for herself.

The steady accumulation of procedural adjustments, each seemingly minor, stand to systematically and collectively alter the purpose and impact of our institutions. The dismissal of Hayden, who took the helm of the Library of Congress with a vow to extend its resources to all of us, represents not merely a personnel change but a statement about what kind of knowledge stewardship is deemed acceptable.

To watch these changes unfold without naming them for what they are is to participate in a collective amnesia about how knowledge infrastructures shape power relations. Like the shopkeeper in an authoritarian society described by Vaclav Havel in his essay “The Power of the Powerless,” who participates in his own oppression through small daily acts of complicity, placing a party slogan in his window not out of conviction but out of habit. To remain on advisory boards that have been stripped of meaningful advisory function is to become that shopkeeper, to lend legitimacy to a process that has been systematically delegitimized.

As she rightly notes, it’s much more powerful for her to make the statement by publicly resigning and calling this out, than adding legitimacy to illegitimate activities:

What then, is the responsible course of action? For me, the answer now lies in refusal, the withdrawal of participation from systems that require dishonesty as the price of belonging. My resignation represents such a refusal, not a surrender of responsibility but an assertion of it.

The NSF helped create GPS, the internet, and countless innovations that define modern life. Now it’s being run by someone who thinks blockchain advertising represents the cutting edge of human knowledge.

And Nelson is right to speak out on how terrifying this is:

The aim of my resignation is to break free of powers that seek to limit knowledge and silence voice. To signal that certain boundary lines have been crossed. To insist that advisory roles must expand knowledge and be more than appendages to predetermined decisions.

Filed Under: academic freedom, alondra nelson, carla hayden, crypto bro, doge, elon musk, free speech, library of congress, nsf, science, zachary terrell
Companies: coinbase

Another Judicial Hit Against Musk And DOGE; And Where Things Stand On Holding Them Accountable

from the incremental-progress dept

Elon Musk may claim he’s leaving the government, but regardless of whether he or anyone DOGE leaves the damage has been done, and their potential legal exposure to it remains. And with this decision earlier this week, some of the litigation pursuing it made headway.

As we’ve written before, Judge Chutkan has had Musk and DOGE’s number for months, noting early on in this case, New Mexico v. Musk, one of the first challenges brought directly against them, that it appeared they had been acting without constitutional authority as it vandalized the federal government. Nevertheless, despite these suspicions she declined to enjoin them because it was then not clear that the states could plead adequate irreparable harm. And then her award of expedited discovery was overturned on appeal because the government’s motion to dismiss was still pending. There is now a ruling on that motion, and in a brand new decision she has allowed the case against them to continue.

It is an important ruling in an important case, although at this point maybe not in the way it originally seemed when first filed. It was first filed as a vehicle to get DOGE out of the government altogether, and before they had the chance to do much more damage. Unfortunately the TRO was denied. Nevertheless, the dicta in the decision denying it observed that DOGE was probably acting unlawfully, and that language may have helped judges addressing other, more agency-specific cases challenging Musk and DOGE issue orders constraining what DOGE can do. However, none have managed to remove the DOGE blight completely, which has still been rampaging across the government (and even beyond!) breaking things, which then all require separate lawsuits to address and only after plenty of damage has already been done (and likely unlawfully). And this decision, at such an early stage, will not remove it either, although it does move us all one step closer to its potential eradication (even if Musk or anyone DOGE leaves under their own power, it might not be enough to contain the scourge without a court ensuring that the door is locked behind them adjudicating relief from the mess they’ve already made).

And it is notable in at least two other ways. One relates the issue of “ratification,” which has been confounding courts. It comes up when DOGE has done something destructive within an agency but then the agency personnel legitimately endowed with power make it seem like what DOGE did was actually their doing. Courts are still struggling to figure out what to do with all this wrongfulness, because there may be a slight but important legal difference between DOGE causing damage with absolutely no lawful authority versus agency officials causing damage by misusing the authority they do lawfully have. (This is why it appears that hybrid cases suing both DOGE and the agency officials may be the most successful because they target both actors.)

This case, however, targets only Musk and DOGE (and Trump initially, although this decision did dismiss him). But it is still useful and important. Not only because, if DOGE were squashed, there would then be no DOGE actions for any agency official to ratify. But it may also bear on the ratification issue because courts are starting to realize that if DOGE is acting unlawfully then it would be impossible for any agency official to legitimately ratify what it has done. Unfortunately the DC Circuit has yet to see things that way, but in this decision Judge Chutkan explained how an earlier case where it had accepted ratification as a way of excusing DOGE was inapplicable here. First she explains what happened in that case:

Alternatively, Defendants argue that, even if Musk directed others to take the “complained-of-actions,” States fail to establish that the actions “were not formally approved by a relevant agency actor with proper authority.” MTD at 23. Defendants insist Andrade v. Regnery, 824 F.2d 1253 (D.C. Cir. 1987) thus bars States’ claim. MTD at 24.

In Andrade, the D.C. Circuit held that the termination or demotion of federal employees under a reduction in force (RIF) program did not violate the Appointments Clause because a duly appointed officer with the statutory responsibility for demoting or firing employees ratified all actions taken in connection with the RIF before it went into effect. 824 F.2d at 1255–57. Even though unappointed staff planned and largely executed the RIF, it “did not abridge the requirements of the Appointments Clause” because a duly appointed official had “final authority” on the day it took effect and was “the legal architect” of the RIF. Id. at 1257. The D.C. Circuit explained that “it is an everyday occurrence in the operation of government for staff members to conceive and even carry out policies for which duly appointed or elected officials take official responsibility.”

But even if the government were correct, that ratification should sink this case because it would explain and legitimize all the complained-of harm, it couldn’t be grounds for dismissing the case yet:

The D.C. Circuit made that determination following summary judgment proceedings and with the benefit of a factual record that clearly established a duly appointed official ratified the contested actions. Id. at 1255–56. At this juncture, the court lacks a factual record and must accept States’ allegations as true. Iqbal, 556 U.S. at 678. States allege that Musk and DOGE personnel, not a relevant agency actor with proper authority, took the challenged actions. Compl. ¶¶ 60, 64–225. The court cannot accept Defendants’ contrary claim that agency actors signed off on all decisions.

But then she made a separate and likely more important point about how far ratification could actually go to exonerate DOGE’s offenses:

Moreover, Defendants improperly invert Andrade’s holding. They read Andrade to hold that Musk can lawfully direct actions by agency actors, so long as those actors were duly appointed. MTD at 22–23. But Andrade addressed the “everyday occurrence” of “staff members” carrying out policies adopted by “duly appointed or elected officials.” 824 F.2d at 1257. The apt analogy would be an appointed agency head directing Musk to carry out a policy, not the opposite. States allege that, rather than subordinate himself to duly appointed officials, Musk “reports only to President Trump,” Compl. ¶ 71, removes agency officials that stand in his way, id. ¶¶ 84–85, 137–38, or obtains compliance through threats and intimidation, id. ¶ 95. Andrade did not resolve whether an individual who has not been duly appointed may direct the actions of appointed officials, and extending its holding to encompass that scenario would be particularly inappropriate in the face of allegations that agency actors obeyed Musk’s directions to avoid legal action or termination.

The issue remains unresolved, and this language is also likely dicta, but it makes an important point. Agency officials have a lot of legitimate power but statutes, like the APA and other more agency-specific statutes, constrain that power, so there’s a limit to what they could do on their own volition (like, for instance, not close down their own agency). But the record seems to be showing that they are making these moves not of their own volition but at Musk and DOGE’s direction, and our constitutional order prevents them from legitimizing what Musk and DOGE have done via that path. The agency-specific cases will address that there was no lawful way to impose the harms that have ensued, but this case is about Musk and DOGE having tried to wield unlawful power to cause it. Those efforts are still wrongful even if they are not the only thing wrongful that happened to lead to the harm. And what the court seems to be suggesting here is that because the APA (etc.) forbade these actions, and yet they happened anyway, it helps show that Musk and DOGE were indeed the cause.

Which is another reason why this case is important, because Musk and DOGE ultimately need to be held personally liable for the resulting harm of how they exercised their lawless power. The decision summarizes much of it what they have done to date:

While it would have been nice if personal liability could have been pursued earlier, to at least scare the minions away from helping Trump and Musk complete their destructive mission, the litigation that will eventually pursue it may be stronger with a judicial finding that Musk and DOGE’s actions were indeed illegal. And not something that any of them can escape even if they voluntarily stop – while it’s great if Musk or any DOGErs give up their access to government systems and services and stop causing even more harm, they should still be liable for the harm they have already caused.

And this decision in this case gets us one significant step closer to that day where they may have to pay.

Filed Under: administrative procedure act, appointments clause, doge, donald trump, elon musk, liability

Republicans Rewrite Infrastructure Broadband Grant Program To Give Elon Musk Billions, Potentially Delaying Deployments By Years

from the fixing-things-by-breaking-them dept

Fri, May 30th 2025 05:37am - Karl Bode

So you might recall that Republicans recently have been making a gigantic stink about how the $42.5 billion in broadband grants included in the infrastructure bill hadn’t actually connected anybody yet. I pointed out in detail why things have been admittedly slow; a big reason being that we had to completely remap broadband access after decades of corruption and incompetence.

After whining endlessly about the slow cadence of this particular broadband grant program (the Broadband Equity, Deployment, and Access program, or BEAD), Republicans, earlier this year, began making changes to it that largely helped giant telecoms and Elon Musk.

They’re eliminating requirements that resulting broadband be affordable for poor people. They’re eliminating already fairly decorative labor and climate build requirements. And most importantly, they’re rewriting the language so less money goes to local, high-capacity fiber ISPs, and more money goes to Elon Musk’s congested, expensive, Ozone-layer-depleting Starlink satellite broadband service.

The changes are, ironically enough, likely to cause some major additional delays in people actually getting broadband as states are forced to retool their compliance strategies after years of planning. One organization, the Benton Institute for Broadband and Society, estimates that the changes could result in up to a two year additional delay in people getting broadband:

“Mandated changes—if they come from either Congress or the U.S. Department of Commerce—could force states to rerun their entire BEAD sub-grantee selection processes. The resulting delays will cost ISPs across the country hundreds of millions of dollars in time and resources to plan for the new program guidelines and reapply for awards.”

Again, very ironic that Republicans would spend much of the last year complaining about delays in this program, only to introduce massive new delays. And not delays that are actually beneficial to the public, but delays that mostly help their buddies at AT&T/Comcast/Verizon and Elon Musk.

Apparently under the belief he was helping matters, Ezra Klein recently jumped into the broadband debate to make the unoriginal observation that government should make big promises and deliver on them. But his analysis of broadband was simplistically puerile; most of it seemed based on Republican angst, and ignored the real progress made on affordable fiber via ARPA and other initiatives.

Klein also ignored that a major reason BEAD moved slowly was due to corruption and telecom lobbyists trying to weaken and change the bill to their direct benefit (softening speed definitions, weakening map coverage, preventing competitors from getting grants). Corruption is something Klein’s new book tends to downplay as a primary issue of concern, despite its starring role in U.S. dysfunction.

BEAD was never going to win any awards for government efficiency. The bill was passed in 2021, yet states were only just starting to finalize deployment plans. But again there were some good reasons for this; creating a vast coalition of federal and local governments tasked with completely remapping broadband access, then vetting applicants to ensure they could deliver — takes a little time.

The great irony is that most of these delays were the direct result of government not wanting to repeat mistakes in past broadband government subsidy programs. Such as the FCC’s Rural Deployment Opportunity Fund, which was a giant boondoggle under the first Trump administration because the government didn’t do its homework on broadband mapping, or grant applicant credibility.

BEAD’s slower cadence was a direct result of fighting corruption and trying (with mixed results) to do things the right way. It was on the cusp of delivering real-world affordable fiber when Republicans showed up to fix things. By, again, making the resulting, reconstituted program take longer and deliver less. Ingenious. We are truly living in the golden age of populist abundance.

Republican (and Ezra Klein’s) angst over the slow speed of the BEAD broadband grant managed to get the press all hot and bothered for months. I’d wager that this angst curiously won’t be repeated now that pointless new delays were introduced by Republicans to the direct benefit of Elon Musk.

Filed Under: abundance, bead, corruption, elon musk, ezra klein, fiber, grants, high speed internet, infrastructure bill, satellite