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The 24-Hour Reality Check: Musk’s Impossible Power Grab And America’s Crisis
"There are twenty-four hours in a day. This isn’t a matter of political opinion or technological disruption—it’s as immutable as the fact that two plus two equals four. No amount of genius, innovation, or reality distortion can create a twenty-fifth hour. This basic truth, so obvious it seems almost foolish to state, exposes something profound about our current constitutional crisis.
Consider what we’re being asked to believe about Elon Musk. That he is simultaneously managing Tesla, a global automotive manufacturer facing fierce competition and complex production challenges. That he is overseeing SpaceX, a company conducting human spaceflight and handling critical national security contracts. That he is running X/Twitter through a tumultuous transformation affecting global discourse. That he is developing experimental brain implants at Neuralink under federal investigation. That he is competing in the most sophisticated artificial intelligence race in human history through xAI.
And now, through the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), we’re asked to believe he is also reorganizing the entire federal government. His twenty-something operatives are gaining unprecedented access to Treasury payment systems. Career civil servants are being purged for following security protocols. Congressionally established agencies are being illegally shuttered.
This isn’t just implausible—it’s physically impossible. Each of these companies requires intensive, full-time executive attention. Tesla alone, with its global manufacturing operations and fierce competition in the rapidly evolving electric vehicle market, would fully occupy any normal CEO. SpaceX, dealing with literal rocket science and human lives, demands constant high-level oversight. Yet we’ve collectively suspended our disbelief, accepting an obvious fiction because we’ve been conditioned to believe in the mythology of the tech genius who transcends normal human limitations."
https://www.techdirt.com/2025/02/05/the-24-hour-reality-check-musks-impossible-power-grab-and-americas-crisis/ [techdirt.com]
Also: "Just months after we learned Chinese hackers had compromised US telecom systems through government-mandated backdoors, an inexperienced developer from Musk’s DOGE unit is pushing untested code directly into the Treasury’s payment infrastructure — a system that handles over $6 trillion in federal payments annually.
It seems reasonable to call it one of the most dangerous cyberattacks on the US government.
The Treasury Department wants us to believe everything is fine. When Senators Warren and Wyden — the ranking members of the Banking and Finance Committees — demanded answers about Musk’s team’s access to the payment system, Treasury responded with reassurances: just “read only” access, they claimed, with no ability to interfere with payments."
