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Anonymous ID: 7daf82 March 10, 2025, 9:54 p.m. No.22739443   🗄️.is 🔗kun   >>9452 >>9454 >>9592 >>9634

DOGE team is only 100 people across all agencies: Elon claims $4 billion in savings per day

 

-DOGE chief Elon Musk said that he is running his businesses “with great difficulty,” as shares of his automotive firm Tesla suffered their worst drop in a half-decade.

-Musk also said during an interview on Fox Business that he expected to remain in the Trump administration for another year.

-Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency is engaged in a broad effort to reduce federal government spending and employee headcount.

-Musk called Sen. Mark Kelly of Arizona a “traitor” after Kelly tweeted on X about a visit to Ukraine.

 

DOGE chief Elon Musk said Monday that he is running his businesses “with great difficulty,” as shares of his automotive firm Tesla

suffered their worst drop in a half-decade, and as his social media company X experienced several outages.

 

Musk also said during an interview on Fox Business that he expected to remain in the Trump administration for another year.

 

Tesla’s stock has fallen every week since Musk joined the Trump administration as head of the Department of Government Efficiency, which is engaged in a broad, controversial effort to reduce federal government spending and employee headcount.

 

The electric vehicle company has lost more than 50% of its market capitalization, equal to nearly $800 billion.

 

“It will be fine long-term,” Musk wrote in a tweet replying to a post on X that noted Tesla’s biggest single-day stop drops in history.

 

On Monday, Musk said there are currently more than 100 people on DOGE’s team, positioned in nearly every government agency.

 

He said that the number might increase to 200.

 

“Unless we’re stopped, we will get to $1 trillion of savings,” Musk predicted.

 

Musk’s estimates of savings have been challenged, and DOGE has deleted some of the largest purported savings that it listed on its website.

 

Since DOGE began its efforts, federal government employment fell by 10,000 jobs in February, according to data released Friday by the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

 

In addition to Tesla and X, Musk’s other businesses include the space exploration company SpaceX and the neurotechnology company Neuralink.

 

In Monday’s interview, Fox Business host Larry Kudlow said that as head of DOGE, “You’re giving up your other stuff.”

 

“How are you running your other businesses?” Kudlow asked.

 

Musk replied, “With great difficulty,” and chuckled.

 

“Yeah, I mean,” Musk sighed.

 

“I’m just here trying to make government more efficient, eliminate waste and fraud, and so far we’re making good progress, actually,” he said. “Our savings at this point exceed $4 billion a day. So it’s very significant.”

 

Tesla shares close regular trading down more than 15.4% on Monday.

 

Musk blamed the outages that X experienced Monday on “a massive cyberattack” from internet protocol addresses originating in the Ukraine area.”

 

He did not provide any evidence for that claim.

 

Musk earlier Monday in a tweet directed at Democratic Arizona Sen. Mark Kelly wrote, “You are a traitor,” after the senator posted about a visit he made to Ukraine over the weekend.

 

“Everyone wants this war to end, but any agreement has to protect Ukraine’s security and can’t be a giveaway to Putin,” Kelly had written, referring to Russian leader Vladimir Putin, who ordered his nation’s invasion of Ukraine three years ago.

 

Kelly, who is a former U.S. Navy pilot and NASA astronaut, fired back at Musk’s attack.

 

“Traitor?” Kelly wrote. “Elon, if you don’t understand that defending freedom is a basic tenet of what makes America great and keeps us safe, maybe you should leave it to those of us who do.”

 

The back-and-forth between the two men comes as the Trump administration pressures Ukraine to reach a ceasefire with Russia, and to accept concessions that include giving the United States a stake in Ukrainian mineral resources and a willingness to cede territory to Russia.

 

https://www.cnbc.com/2025/03/10/musk-tesla-doge-stock-market.html

Anonymous ID: 7daf82 March 10, 2025, 9:55 p.m. No.22739447   🗄️.is 🔗kun   >>9592 >>9634

Top Washington Post columnist, Ruth Marcus, resigns

 

A top political columnist for The Washington Post resigned today, accusing Post chief executive and publisher Will Lewis of killing her column that criticized owner Jeff Bezos's drive to overhaul the opinion pages to focus on his libertarian priorities.

 

Post columnist and Associate Editor Ruth Marcus, who has worked at the paper for four decades, says she can no longer stay there.

 

"Jeff's announcement that the opinion section will henceforth not publish views that deviate from the pillars of individual liberties and free markets threatens to break the trust of readers that columnists are writing what they believe, not what the owner has deemed acceptable," Marcus wrote in a resignation letter obtained by NPR.

 

More than 75,000 digital subscribers canceled in the 48 hours after Bezos revealed his intentions late last month, which included an edict that the paper would not print opposing views; then Opinions Editor David Shipley stepped down after vainly trying to dissuade Bezos from his course.

 

Marcus confirmed to NPR she had resigned and the authenticity of the letter but declined further comment.

 

"Will's decision to not …run the column that I wrote respectfully dissenting from Jeff's edict - something that I have not experienced in almost two decades of column-writing - underscores that the traditional freedom of columnists to select the topics they wish to address and say what they think has been dangerously eroded," she wrote.

 

"We're grateful for Ruth's significant contributions to The Washington Post over the past 40 years," a spokesperson for the paper said in a statement shared with NPR. "We respect her decision to leave and wish her the best." The Post did not address her allegations against Lewis.

 

In late October, Bezos killed a planned endorsement of Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris. That sparked 300,000 digital subscribers to cancel in the days that ensued.

 

And it raised questions about Bezos's motivations to his critics, who note that he is the executive chairman of Amazon and founder of Blue Origin, which together have billions of dollars of business with the federal government.

 

"What presidential endorsements actually do is create a perception of bias," Bezos wrote in a opinion piece explaining his decision. "A perception of non-independence. Ending them is a principled decision, and it's the right one."

 

Bezos has also moved closer to President Trump since the election, traveling with his fiancée to Mar-A-Lago to dine with the Trumps, paying $1 million toward his inauguration fund, sitting on the inauguration platform with other tech titans during the swearing in ceremony, and dining with Trump again late last month in Washington.

 

Amazon studios have approved two deals for documentaries involving the Trumps, one of which includes a $40 million payout to Melania Trump, according to Puck News.

 

All this led to critical columns about the endorsement decision in the Post's own pages and multiple resignations by editorial board members and by contributors to the wider opinions section. Shipley, while still editor, killed a cartoon late last year by Pulitzer Prize-winner Ann Telnaes showing Bezos among the media and tech figures abasing themselves before Trump; she resigned. A deluge of veterans have taken jobs at competing news outlets.

 

The Post's top news editor, Matt Murray, blocked reporters from covering the fallout at the newspaper, as NPR has reported.

 

Bezos' decisions about the opinion pages led veteran journalists who have been a part of the Post for decades to cut ties, including Associate Editor David Maraniss and former Senior Managing Editor Cameron Barr.

 

In her resignation Monday, Marcus said she had served at the Post as a reporter, deputy national editor, editorial writer, deputy editorial page editor before becoming a columnist and associate editor.

 

"I love the Post," Marcus wrote at the end of her resignation letter. "It breaks my heart to conclude that I must leave. I have the deepest affection and admiration for my colleagues and will miss them every day. And I wish you both the best as you steer this storied and critical institution through troubled times."

 

https://www.npr.org/2025/03/10/nx-s1-5323136/washington-post-editor-ruth-marcus-resigns