Tech author and critic Paris Marx discusses the primary 100 days of the second Trump administration and the affect of billionaire Elon Musk on the helm of the Division of Authorities Effectivity, or DOGE, which has slashed authorities applications and the civil service. Marx says even after Musk gave lots of of thousands and thousands to Trump’s reelection marketing campaign, “it was exhausting to think about that he would actually play this outsized position within the precise governance of the nation.” Marx additionally warns that the DOGE playbook is prone to be exported to “the political proper in different nations to attempt to do one thing related with a DOGE group, form of wrapping it on this cloak of effectivity and … permitting this additional gutting of the state.” Marx additionally talks about how a number of Canadian tech executives just lately launched the initiative known as Construct Canada, with the objective of firing 100,000 federal authorities staff, growing immigration restrictions and constructing new oil pipelines, and concern about Musk’s DOGE strategy going international.
TRANSCRIPT
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AMY GOODMAN: Paris Marx, I additionally wish to ask you about Elon Musk, who you could have reported on extensively. As President Trump marked his one centesimal day in workplace, The New York Occasions full-page — full front-page headline, “There Have By no means Been 100 Days Like This.” I wish to ask you concerning the position of Elon Musk, the world’s richest man, in Washington over these hundred days. A brand new Senate report finds Musk and his companies might keep away from over $2 billion in potential authorized legal responsibility, because of cuts Musk enacted as head of the so-called Division of Authorities Effectivity, DOGE. When Trump was inaugurated, Musk was going through as much as 65 actions from 11 federal businesses concentrating on SpaceX, Tesla, Neuralink and xAI. Senate Democrats now say Musk has largely averted these actions, because of DOGE serving to him, quote, “evade oversight, derail investigations, and make litigation disappear every time he so chooses — on his phrases and at his command.” Paris Marx, inform us extra.
PARIS MARX: Yeah, it has been a extremely gorgeous hundred days, and even the interval earlier than that, proper? Earlier than Trump got here to energy, was reelected, you can see that Elon Musk was already making the shift to the fitting globally, you understand, by supporting different excessive right-wing events, after which, in fact, to get publicly behind Donald Trump, to offer lots of of thousands and thousands of {dollars} to assist his marketing campaign. However I believe even then, it was exhausting to think about that he would actually play this outsized position within the precise governance of the nation — proper? — heading up this company that appeared to have such broad energy, to start out going into these numerous totally different departments and businesses of the U.S. authorities, remaking it, laying individuals off, forcing choices on it. And what we have now seen as a part of that’s, you understand, this potential for Elon Musk to make use of this sort of profile that he has as this tech chief, this tech genius, no matter whether or not that’s true or not, to return in and form of assist legitimize this right-wing program that we had seen within the making for fairly a while — proper? — by Undertaking 2025 and the bigger form of Heritage Basis and these different right-wing teams of their ambitions.
However then, past that, you understand, as you had been saying there, one of many key items of this was not simply to put lots of people off, to kill sure departments or considerably scale back the capacities of others, but in addition to make sure that what comes out on the opposite aspect of that is way more helpful to Elon Musk, particularly, and a few elements of the tech trade, extra broadly, with the rollout of Starlink in many alternative businesses, the gutting of regulators who had been wanting into Elon Musk’s companies. And we see that, you understand, a bit of the tech trade needs to essentially see a remaking of not simply the aerospace trade, however navy procurement, as properly. And I believe that we’re beginning to see modifications in that area, too. So, it has been a extremely important hundred days. Clearly, there’s discuss now about whether or not Elon Musk goes to proceed. He’s talked about decreasing the period of time he spends there to 2 days every week. However even then, two days every week is numerous time to trigger quite a lot of havoc.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And this situation of Musk’s DOGE isn’t just centered in the USA, per se. You’ve reported, as an illustration, that a number of Canadian tech executives just lately launched the initiative Construct Canada. The web site lists as its targets constructing extra pipelines, firing over 100,000 federal staff in Canada and growing immigration restrictions. What do you see as the potential for this strategy of dismantling the liberal democratic state going international?
PARIS MARX: Yeah, so, I believe it’s a severe fear, proper? We frequently see issues that occur, say, in the USA ultimately get exported to different elements of the world. And I might not be shocked if one thing — if there’s not a push from the political proper in different nations to attempt to do one thing related with a DOGE group, form of wrapping it in this sort of cloak of effectivity and using know-how and issues like that, however truly permitting this additional gutting of the state, based mostly on what we’ve seen over the previous variety of a long time already, proper?
And so, in Canada, we have now seen tech executives explicitly say that they wish to see a DOGE. It’s attention-grabbing, truly. The pinnacle of Construct Canada previously few weeks got here out and stated, “No, our objective is to not construct a DOGE,” recognizing how that time period and that notion had been so toxified based mostly on what was occurring in the USA. However that didn’t additionally cease plenty of distinguished Conservatives at a latest Conservative convention in Canada to truly speak about how it could be simpler to roll out a DOGE in Canada. And there was even an government from Amazon there, a senior public coverage individual, who was explaining how Amazon and different cloud providers might be used to gather quite a lot of information on authorities that may help on this strategy of deciding which elements of the federal government, which applications must be eradicated, which I believe is a really worrying relationship to see, not simply with these Canadian tech executives. However individuals from a serious firm like Amazon being a part of these conversations in Canada in all probability reveals, you understand, nonetheless how shut this relationship between elements of the tech trade and the fitting wing are, particularly relating to these efforts.
AMY GOODMAN: Paris Marx, we wish to thanks for being with us, host of the podcast Tech Received’t Save Us. We’ll hyperlink to your newest article in your publication Disconnect, “Canada’s tech executives aren’t afraid of Mark Carney.” And we’ll hyperlink to your four-part podcast, Elon Musk Unmasked.
Subsequent up, right this moment is the fiftieth anniversary of the tip of the Vietnam Battle. We’ll communicate to the Pulitzer Prize-winning Vietnamese American author Viet Thanh Nguyen about Vietnam, Trump’s first 100 days and extra. Stick with us.
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