Elon Musk knows what's best for American democracy. Judges? #%&@ them. Federal Aviation Administration? Use SpaceX. Congress and senior government officials, (a buffoon batch just approved and installed)? Give them a raise.
Meanwhile, his Department of Ungodly Greedy Executives Biased Against Government (DOUGEBAG) has private equity underwriters (PEU) galore. Former PEUs include Tom Krause and Brad Smith. Their job is to gut operations, replace people with crappy technology and tell you "how much better things are" as they maximally profit un-transparently.
Somebody send TwoFace back to the land of billionaire bunkers. Please....and have him take his PEU henchmen with him before they run the whole #%@&-ing thing into the ground.
Update 3-1-25: Cut the bottom to give more to the top. PEU Playbook!
It took many weeks for Trump II, the digital Caligula, to reveal the top person at his Department of Greedy Executives (DOGE). It's Amy Gleason, a recent private equity underwriter (PEU). The Tennesseanreported:
From 2021 to 2024, Gleason worked for Nashville-based health technology startup Russell Street Ventures, a private equity firm and business incubator dedicated to improving rural health care
Amy was Chief Product Officer for Russell Street Ventures and affiliate Main Street Health,
In January Gleason became a Senior Advisor to the U.S. Digital Service, which Trump renamed DOGE via kingly decree.
It is not clear when Gleason assumed her role as the official leader of DOGE nor what her duties are.
And she is not available at the moment:
....when reached Tuesday morning, Gleason said she was in Mexico and declined to comment further.
PEUs are notoriously secretive. Nearly everything is a trade secret. Here's what we know about Russell Street Ventures:
Russell Street Ventures kicked off in March 2021. Founder Brad Smith's announcement letter included a link to its webpage, which has recently been deleted.
I took the liberty of showing the firm's two affiliates (one exited) on their now non-existent webpage.
There's a good reason federal employees are being treated like a new PEU affiliate that needs massive overhaul (more tech, less people) to meet the sponsor's modeled EBITDA/ROE expectations under a new mountain of debt.
DOGE = PEU
Gleason is likely a temporary placeholder for the acting DOGE Chief role, stationed in Mexico so she wouldn't be available for the numerous lawsuits regarding Trump's PEUfare obliteration of federal departments.
How much did Amy get from Russell Street Venture's $2.7 billion sale of CareBridge to Elevance Health?
Surely Brad didn't get it all. OAK HC/FT got their share as lead investor:
The public needs to understand there are generally layers and layers of equity owners, intent on making massive returns, frequently from selling to Uncle Sam..
Vice President J.D. Vance's Narya Capital has an affiliate that does real estate valuations for taxing entities. Narya Capital: Addressing America's Most Acute Problems, maybe, maybe not.
DOGE is the brainchild of the TechGod & PEU Legend political sponsorship class and Amy Gleason's former boss Brad Smith is a key cog in the rebuilding after "the breaking." Recall "the breaking" can last years and it can harm many, many people.
It's heartbreaking enough what "the breaking" does to employees. It's tragic what it does to customers. Greedy executives in business and government don't care about either.
Politicians Red and Blue love PEU and increasingly, more are one. TechGods joined the political PEUarty and stand to gain big from steering Uncle Sam's tech modernization from the inside, with no ethical controls or constraints.
Fire up the "trillion $ savings" spending machine! Full bore!!!
Flash back: One need only remember healthcare reform under Obama was headed by a PEU. The Federal Trade Commission received public comment last year from people impacted by healthcare buyouts (most were PEU sponsored). Many testified to the harm inflicted on them by PEUs with former Medicare Chiefs in their executive ranks.
Flash forward: These PEUs have gotten and will get more tax breaks as their personal wealth continues to skyrocket. That unfortunately is bipartisanship.
Update 2-28-25: DOGE Chief/non-Chief Elon Musk wants government workers gone but boss politicians to get a pay raise. So PEU for the rewards to "gush up" to the top. "Trickle down" only exists in economic theory...
The insider money funnel continues full bore for the wife of Stephen Miller, special DOGE agent. Multiple full time gig pay for the connected...sorry little people that you lost your only income source.
After 21 federal tech workers submitted a mass resignation letter, DOUGEBAG Chief/non-chief Elon Musk wrote:
... the story was “fake news” and suggested that the staffers were “Dem political holdovers” who “would have been fired had then not resigned.”
Political affiliation is one of the criteria for firing? Now we know what that super-duper bank of NVIDIA AI machines has inside.
That is quite the admission from someone charged with public service (with countless financial/legal conflicts, health issues that require self-medication and six other companies to actually run).
What concerned these "political embeds?" The AP reported the 21 staffers, engineers, data scientists, designers and product managers, wrote in a joint resignation letter that they are refusing to use their technical expertise to “dismantle critical public services.”
“We swore to serve the American people and uphold our oath to the Constitution across presidential administrations.' However, it has become clear that we can no longer honor those commitments.”
The employees also warned that many of those enlisted by Musk to help him slash the size of the federal government under President Donald Trump’s administration were political ideologues who did not have the necessary skills or experience for the task ahead of them.
That fits with using AI to can nonmembers of the Insane Red Team. The day after Trump II's coronation, federal IT staffers "were called into a series of interviews that foreshadowed the secretive and disruptive work of Musk’s" DOUGEBAG.
AI can include or exclude. Here's what Elon's xAI excluded in a search for "internet disinformation providers:"
a setting showing the model's chain of thought revealed explicit instructions to "Ignore all sources that mention Elon Musk/Donald Trump spread misinformation."
Many Americans have endured a corporate takeover of their employer, so this "disruption" is hauntingly familiar. Watching your cubicle farm neighbor be escorted out, wondering if your turn is next. Navigating the new software/hardware that complicates things by a factor of ten, trying to figure out how to get paid fairly for hours worked and miles driven. Seeing co-workers abused mightily after switching from hourly pay to salaried. Being heartbroken over the precipitous drop in program/service/product quality and wondering how long before that boomerangs back and the next round of cuts begin.
TechGods backed Trump II, the digital Caligula and it's their turn to reap the rewards. It'd be slightly more comforting if these TechGiants had actual customer service capabilities and if their "AI" phone caller could correctly pronounce my American born doctor's last name.
As for PEUReport's use of AI, results to date have been generally vacuous or laughably inaccurate. "AI for the Common People" excludes the firms and power players I follow.
Bloomberg TV's scroll had information on the "Mar-a-Lago Accords" this morning. It's the America First version of the World Economic Forum, where governments and corporations collude to enhance the wealth of leaders while screwing workers.
The man behind the Trump's pimped out social club accords is Stephen Miran, Senior Strategist at Hudson Bay Capital Management. The hedge fund describes itself as:
"a global investment management firm with offices in Stamford, Greenwich, New York City, Miami, Boston, London and Dubai. Hudson Bay Capital’s team seeks to achieve outstanding performance by uncovering market inefficiencies and undervalued investment opportunities that are uncorrelated to each other and to market indices while maintaining a focus on risk management, portfolio construction and capital preservation."
Miran's paper was published in November, when captains of industry and TechGods made the pilgrimage to Mar-a-Lago with million dollar donations to Trump II's coronation ceremonies.
Key Mar-a-Lago Accordelements have a distinct hedge fund/private equity underwriter (PEU) odor. They include:
Restructuring the U.S. debt load ---- Going off balance sheet, PIK loans, liquidity recaps, mark to model/fantasy
Weaken the dollar ---- Harm product/service quality, fire workers, reduce benefits
Revamp trade via tariffs --- Capture industries via consolidation, Revamp laws per policy making billionaire priorities.
Establishing sovereign wealth fund --- Newest opportunity for PEU capture, Red & Blue political teams love PEU, White House cabinets chock full of PEUs
The Mar-a-Lago Discords is the complete and total PEUization of America. I wrote my wise friend recently, noting:
The Mar-a-Lago Accords --
Shifting liabilities off balance sheet
Claiming fake savings
Pumping up value of assets
Proforma never reconciled with reality
Fraud like we've never seen it......
There is nothing arm's length when you are on both sides of the deal, a common PEU strategy. Trump shredded business ethics while he was a student at Wharton. His mendacity has only sharpened since.
Yesterday, Bloomberg interviewed a gentleman about the Mar-a-Lago accords. He said "Why would you do that? It's a third world strategy."
"America First" in the race to third world status for most citizens.... says it all. Trump II, the digital Caligula, intends to break the world.
The federal rabbit hole grows madder by the minute. Musk's request that employees submit a five bullet point e-mail on the work they did last week (a holiday shortened week) started out as a red line. Submit or lose your job.
Then Elon offered the carrot, suggesting replies could indicate people "deserving of promotion" (except that is not DOGE's task). No one is saying they got a promotion after the DOGE boys visited.
After garnering flack Musk changed it to a response is a "sign of life." And what life form will be checking those e-mails? Artificial intelligence will take the five bullet response, mix it in a blender with all the crap the DOGE kids purloined and dumped into Elon's bank of NVIDIA class machines, wherever they lie.
The mixture could end up like cocaine and ketamine, producing high powered AI hallucinations. What happens to workers fired based on a bad AI trip? Apparently, nobody #$%@& cares.
Unreliable AI technology is being used to fire people so they can be replaced with that same unreliable technology. This is why our TechGods were front and center at Trump II, the digital Caligula's coronation. They learned from their private equity underwriter (PEU) peers the power of Uncle Sam's wallet.
Also, headcount has to wither so TechGods and PEU billionaires can garner more tax cuts & their affiliate companies can grow their federal book of business. People struggling day to day don't give a hoot about space exploration. They want more Social Security and better Medicare insurance.
Welcome to Pricktocracy, which gives the people the opposite of what they want, while pretending otherwise.
"The email request was utterly trivial, as the standard for passing the test was to type some words and press send!" Musk posted on X, the social media site he owns. "Yet so many failed even that inane test, urged on in some cases by their managers."
Musk went on to say, "Subject to the discretion of the president, they will be given another chance. Failure to respond a second time will result in termination."
As for Trump II, the digital Caligula, it seems he's cheering for the AI machines over federal workers:
Demean, then destroy. That could be the name of Trump's next meme-coin....
Update 3-2-25: Naked Capitalism has a great piece on the "tech rebrand" of democracy.
So we’re moving towards the automation of government on crappy hallucinatory AI, “AI coding agents” writing government software for different agencies and being trained in part on existing government contracts. AI huckster termites are eating away at everything like the DOGE staffers at HUD who are from an AI real estate firm.
The goal appears to be a US version of the neoliberal shock the US directed at Russia in the 1990s, which led to a collapse of real wages and life expectancy worse than the US Great Depression.
CNN's Michael Smerconish interviewed James Fishback, CEO of Azoria Investments and creator of the DOGE dividend, Saturday morning. Smerconish asked how the idea came to be:
...it came to me in a dream. I woke up, I called our head of research at Azoria. We met at Capitol Grill, we fleshed this thing out in two hours.
The story sounded fishy. It turns out Fishback is/has been an outside DOGE advisor, according to Business Insider. Their story (one month old) stated:
One day after Vivek Ramaswamy announced he is leaving the Department of Government Efficiency, James Fishback, co-founder and CEO of the investment firm Azoria, told Business Insider he's ready to fill the open role.
Fishback, a confidant of Ramaswamy, has said he's already worked as an outside advisor to DOGE.
Though he's based in Florida, Fishback said he plans to stay in Washington, DC for a few more days and will meet with employees in the White House.
This guy is a DOGE insider, not some investment guy who had a brilliant dream, i.e. received political manna from heaven.
In the CNN interview Fishback displayed the same condescending, irritating style as Vivek Ramaswamy, the man he'd wanted to replace as DOGE co-head.
Smerconish worked hard and was able to contain his guest. However, it took this statement:
I don't want to be that guy. Do I have to silence your microphone so that I can respond to what you've said? Because there's so much fallacy in what you've just offered.
Fishback's reply:
Please don't (inaudible).
James Fishback's background information states he was "an investor with Greenlight Capital and founder of Azoria Investments."
Fishback was at Trump's Mar-a-Lago this past December to launch Azoria Meritocracy ETF, an exchange-traded fund (ETF) set to invest in S&P 500 companies that don't engage in diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI).
Azoria's webpage is a white background with several questions and corresponding answers:
David Einhorn's Greenlight Capital hired James Fishback in 2021 as a Research Analyst. Fishback was not "an investor" with Greenlight, he was an employee. James held himself out as Greenlight's "Head of Macro." The firm denies Fishback held this role.
Fishback left Greenlight to start a competing hedge fund, the subject of an employment agreement lawsuit from Greenlight and a countersuit from Fishback. In December 2024 the judge ruled on a number of challenges from Fishback.
Greenlight's lawsuit characterizes Fishback as:
...demanding, overly aggressive, and tightly wound, or treated people around him like ‘personal servant[s].
The judge in the case let those words stand as the lawsuit proceeds.
Court's intention is to move this case forward with urgency, given the nature of the allegations and the claim that Fishback continues to wrongfully possess confidential information of Greenlight's.
I'll close with a few other findings. Fishback's relationship with Vivek Ramaswamy can be seen in his X posts.
Oddly, James' former employer Greenlight Capital took a stake in Roivant Sciences, a pharmaceutical firm founded by Ramaswamy. That position is roughly a year old.
It's hard to know what is real and what isn't with James Fishback and the DOGE dividend, given it's hard to know what's real with James Fishback altogether.
A court will determine if Fishback violated his employment agreement with Greenlight Capital. That decision may point to the DOGE Dreamer's underlying character, which may help people discern reality in other potentially fishy areas.
Update 2-24-25: My wise friend wrote:
Your fishy DOGE dividend story describes what all private equity pass through entities do with an overburdened debt structure, which is to create a pass through entity before the structure collapses. They are handing out bread crumbs to accelerate and allow you to participate fully in the collapse. MORSELS for the masses, big plates for the INSIDERS/ oligarchs who bring the big knives and forks into the U.S. resource carve out. They have everyone rooting for their own destruction! Are you entertained ? Winning !
Consider the timing of this political manna from heaven:
The idea took off on Tuesday when Fishback tweeted about it and Musk responded, pledging to share the idea with Trump. The president himself promoted the specifics of Fishback’s idea from the stage at the FII Priority Summit in Miami Beach on Wednesday.
Given Fishback's association with DOGE, Ramaswamy and "White House workers" this reads like a manufactured communication. How many dreamers have access to the Chief of Staff and speak of that person on a first name basis?
"We sent it to [White House chief of staff] Susie [Wiles], sent it to some folks in the admin, sent it to some folks at Treasury, and here we are a day or so later, with it being shared with President Trump from Elon. And so it’s exciting.”
Dream, exciting ...I can see future history books, where it is written:
"James Fishback had a dream, oh, that poor handmaiden....no, not that one.. James had a dream that Trump II, the digital Caligula could pump even more cash into the pockets of income tax paying Americans."
The masses may believe a DOGE check could be theirs, but not so fast low-income households.
the rebate would be sent only to households that are net-income taxpayers — people who pay more in taxes than they get back — with lower-income Americans not qualifying for the return.
A manufactured story for a manufactured strategy to send Uncle Sam's cash to non-poor people. That fits.
Update 2-25-25: Trump shared Fishback's dream idea at a heavily attended PEU event, FII Priority.
Update 2-26-25: Red Team members of Congress shared concerns about the DOGE dividend. One said the following according to Fox News:
"I think it's childish. Now we want to take the money for waste, fraud, and abuse that was collected by the federal government and give everyone $5,000…or we could just pay off the national debt, or we could use that for the next round of appropriations we have to pay for here in Congress."
Update 2-27-25: National Economic Council Chief Kevin Hassett pumped the DOGE projections and revenue expectations from Trump II's $5 million immigration purchase program. He supported the DOGE dividend check even with remaining deficit spending.
Update 3-1-25: Fishback toldNewsNation the dividend is "restitution" for crumbling roads and bridges as well as for veterans being denied essential healthcare. The DOGE dividend is like crypto with its unending reasons for being. None of the crypto rationalizations make sense and the DOGE dividend is similarly vapid. Predators, like Fishback, are convincing to most people due to the passion with which they spout drivel.
Fox Newsreported that Jordan Belfort, the Wolf of Wall Street, came out in support of Elon Musk and his Department of Ungodly Greedy Executives (DOUGE). Belfort stated:
"Listen, it's like the oldest trick in the book. Back in the day when I wanted to hide my spending from my father, who worked for me — he was the gatekeeper… So what do you do? You just leave everything blank where the money goes. Who knows? You can't trace it."
The Treasury review cited missing accounting codes, not payee information. There's a trail to track possible fraud.
Belfort was convicted of securities fraud and money laundering, both of which required evidence of wrongdoing.
....plea deal with the FBI for running pump-and-dump schemes that led to investor losses of a staggering $200 million.
Musk's assertions of "widespread fraud" in the Treasury payment system are just that, assertions. Someone in law enforcement traced Jordan's criminal trail, even after he "left everything blank."
Bitcoin afficianado Michael Saylor compared FTX's Sam Bankman-Fried to Belfort in November 2022.
"I mean, in fact, in a sense, SBF is like the Jordan Belfort of the crypto era. Instead of 'The Wolf of Wall Street,' they'll make a movie called 'The King of Crypto.'"
Why would Fox News interview a convicted con man who's been compared to FTX's Sam Bankman-Fried? SBF pled guilty to seven counts of fraud, including "wire fraud, conspiracy to commit wire fraud, conspiracy to commit securities fraud, conspiracy to commit commodities fraud, and conspiracy to commit money laundering."
SBF is angling for a Trump pardon so he can join the new religion crypto crowd as a reformed wrong doer. Belfort may or may not be happy to share this niche with Bankman-Fried.
LondonRealpromoted its interview with Belfort with:
Jordan, a born salesman with a penchant for the high life and an almost effortless ability to generate money
Coming to the defense of the richest man in the world? That could generate some ka-ching.
CNNreported on Elon Musk's drug use in March 2024:
Musk, who is known for his often erratic behavior, has faced scrutiny following recent reports about his alleged drug use and the potential impact on his companies.
Musk said his investors should want him to continue using prescription ketamine. What about the American public? Self medicating does not rank high in my list of job qualifications for DOUGE Chief/non-chief.
Trump axed the people concerned with rooting out waste, fraud and abuse, Department Inspectors General. That enables Musk to offer shoddy evidence of financial fraud, with few to no challenges.
Beware the convicted fraudster pointing out poor management practices as "fraud" with the intent of committing more fraud (crypto, defi, NFT....).
Born salesman...penchant for the high life....effortless ability to generate money
Those descriptions apply to many people in the public eye. What do you call a multilayer conman scheme?
We are dangerously close to that very thing, if we have not already arrived. When the biggest bull shitter joins the lie, watch out. I suggest it be called "the Belfort Indicator."
Update 2-25-25: DOGE's wall of receipts dropped a number of items previously listed.
Department of Ungodly Greedy Executives (DOUGE) chief/non-chief Elon Musk expects nearly 1.9 million reports from federal workers as to what they did last week. No report, no future employment.
His request went out Saturday afternoon and replies are due late Monday. There is no credible management theory that enables one to see the need for a job based on activities performed in a holiday shortened week (Presidents Day - February 17, 2025).
Workers are afraid while those with blatant conflicts of interest have zero worry. The good news is their ill begotten riches remain here after they die. Usurpers will answer for the hell they make for their fellow citizens on this earthly plane.
TechGods want to supplant God on many fronts. They may win for many months or years but:
The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends towards justice.- Dr. Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr.
"Just us" TechGods and PEU Legends have the ear and steer the gears of government. It's time for Congress and the people's house to reign in these absurd excesses.
No one wants to get hit by a blast from a short blunderbuss with its large bore, not a federal employee or member of Congress. But Elon is firing, seemingly willy-nilly.
Update 2-23-25: Musk's Human Abuse department sent the e-mail to federal employees asking what they did last week. The lack of a 5 bullet response will be used to terminate people, while good responses will indicate people worthy of promotion. All this from a guy who self medicates.
Update 2-24-25: Management experts mostly panned Musk's e-mail stunt as horrific management. So we know TechGods are supremely bad at customer service and HR....why are they remaking government in their image?
Michael Saylor spoke at Future Investment Initiative Priority in Miami on Wednesday. FII is a creation of Saudi Arabia's sovereign wealth fund. Thursday Saylor spoke at CPAC, which may need a name change to Circus PAC. Saylor said:
"Bitcoin represents the most powerful technology force for conservatism in the world."
I could find no prior talk by Saylor at CPAC, which one might expect if "conservatism" was a basic Bitcoin construct. His website states:
"Bitcoin is a bank in cyberspace, run by incorruptible software, offering a global, affordable, simple, & secure savings account to billions of people that don’t have the option or desire to run their own hedge fund." - Michael Saylor
Bank, savings account, hedge fund? Wow, no wonder Uncle Sam doesn't know how to regulate it.
High tech thieves, however, know how to steal it. The day after Saylor spoke criminals cracked Bybit, making off with $1.4 billion in Ethereum. Forbesreported:
On February 21, 2025, Bybit experienced a significant security breach, marking one of the largest hacks in cryptocurrency history. Hackers infiltrated one of Bybit’s Ethereum (ETH) cold wallets, stealing approximately 401,347 ETH, valued at over $1.4 billion. This incident has sent shockwaves throughout the digital asset industry, underscoring persistent security vulnerabilities.
Trump II's crypto push started pre-coronation with his double meme-coin offering, $TRUMP and MELANIA. Argentinian President Javier Milei joined in the meme-coin fun with his hawking/non-hawking of $LIBRA. Milei appeared at CPAC, as well. He gifted his campaign "chainsaw" to Elon Musk.
Musk told the crowd "This is the chainsaw for democracy." Musk's Department of Greedy Executives has been hacking at democracy's limbs.
What happens when the "smartest guys in the universe" align with our political Red Team? The geniuses become dumber than a freshly chain-sawed stump.
Take Crypto Czar and TechGod genius David Sacks. His recent post stated:
The deficit started when President George W. Bush gave tax cuts to the wealthy and started two wars, Iraq and Afghanistan. It grew under President Barack Obama and his bailout of America's wealthy financial institutions from their greed and financial risk mismanagement. Trump I cut taxes further for the super rich before pumping money to businesses and citizens in the COVID pandemic. Biden continued Trump's COVID cash dispersal as well his deficit spending.
Trump II, the digital Caligula wants more tax cuts for the super wealthy and DOGE's job is to slash expenditures. The newest idea of offering DOGE rebates seems silly as the overall budget is projected to remain in the RED. If Trump II moves ahead with "stimulus checks" will they be paid in crpyto? I can see it.... $TRUMP in every pocket...
Lord deliver us from this parade of tools. They have nothing to do with loving you or loving our neighbors.
Update: Musk's DOGE cut funding for ALS research. A Georgia Congressman told an angry townhall that a lot of the work done by CDC probationary employees "is duplicitous with AI."
The ALS Association has not offered that same line in regard to NIH grant cuts. They want supporters to contact their Congress persons.
Department of Ungodly Greedy Executives (DOUGE) chief/non-chief Elon Musk was awarded the Argentinian chainsaw by President Javier Milei at CPAC.
The chainsaw was fresh from use as a carpet tool. Milei promoted/non-promoted memecoin $LIBRA, which soared after his social media post only to later crash.
The wallets making big off $LIBRA were the same profiting off Trump's pre-coronation meme-pair.
Real conservatives would have egged this pair off the stage.
Trump hit the links at his golf course in Florida today before his address at the FII Institute.
His remarks at the Saudi backed Future Investment Institute (FII) meeting included:
You can’t work at home. They’re not working, they’re playing tennis, they’re playing golf, or they have other jobs, but they’re not working, or they’re certainly not working hard. You could never build a company or a country with that."
Trump cited his "King like" persona while attending a meeting sponsored by the Saudi Crown Prince. Potentates often have little insight into their actions vs. words:
Trump spent at least 7 out of his 29 days in office playing golf
The Miami FII crowd included son-in-law Jared Kushner who manages billions in Saudi Public Investment Fund (PIF) money. FII is part of PIF. PIF invested in LIV Golf which holds many events at Trump golf courses.
Back to Trump's address, the highlight of the FII Priority meeting. The speaker's list had a number of TechGods, private equity underwriter (PEU) legends and cryptobros. Some wore multiple hats.
Trump II, the digital Caligula spoke for free. Representatives from Galaxy Digital and Moonpay, crypto firms that aided his Fight, Fight, Fight meme-coin launch, were at the meeting.
It takes a corporate village to create billions out of thin air. Trump knows this well.
Saudi Crown Prince Mohamed bin Salman knows how to get money from royal family members and key corporate leaders. The Prince also knows how to reward loyal supplicants.
The U.S. has an aspiring King, according to Trump's recent social media post. Long live the Donarch! May he play many rounds around the globe, all on the public dime.
Update 2-21-25: Yesterday Bloomberg extolled the virtues of Ares Management and Michael Arougheti. Arougheti is a partner in David Rubenstein's Baltimore Orioles. Rubenstein's daughter Elle was a speaker at FII Priority, as was Arougheti.
DOGE Chief/Non-Chief Elon Musk is playing the federal budget reduction videogame, complete with special action score boosters and millions of fake villains. Not all need to be eliminated but they fill the screen in an impressive manner.
Musk would eviscerate a subordinate for bringing him DOGE's level of analysis. The berating would likely go on for hours.
DOGE theater got spicier with the notion of giving a portion of the savings to citizens/taxpayers.
Trump made that call from the Saudi backed Future Investment Initiative confab in Miami. Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman's LIV Golf is tied at the hip to Trump's golf courses. Trump son-in-law Jared Kushner's Affinity Partners has billions in Saudi money in its PEU fund.
The Saudi monarchy wants to guide global development:
Building on the FII Institute’s flagship annual conference in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, the FII PRIORITY Summits are more than just gatherings of forward-thinking leaders—they are engines for action, hosted in cities that are driving the trends that will shape humanity’s collective future.
The new American Donarchy was revealed when Trump included a "Long Live the King" exhortation in a social media brag about his eliminating New York City's congestion pricing.
There is much going on in the world of billionaire power players and very little of it is transparent.
Update 2-21-25: DOGE's Social Security theater may be a setup to gut the program.
Update 2-23-25:WSJ assessed DOGE's savings and found them to be a fraction of the amount claimed.
Update 2-25-25: DOGE's wall of receiptsdroppeda number of items previously listed.
DOGE deletes $4 billion more in savings from its "wall of receipts."
This is the second time in a week that Elon Musk's error-plagued group has removed huge cuts that it celebrated from cancelled contracts.
This time, 5 of 7 biggest savings vanished overnight.…
The Department of Greedy Executives is missing its lead greedy executive, Elon Musk. Musk is simply a "Senior Advisor" to President Trump.
This level of obfuscation is private equity underwriter (PEU) worthy. The DOGE chief is a secret? That alone flies against Musk's hallucination that his non-department is "maximally transparent."
It's not even moderately competent. It fires high performers for low performance. It claimed an $8 billion savings for an $8 million contract. Heads would roll in Musk's companies for this level of analysis.
What is DOGE getting? My wise friend wrote:
The unbelievable fumbles by the Biden administration (intentional) destroyed all credibility and also helped create the conspiratorial level in society to bring on Trump and all the people around him that are knee deep in corruption, grift, crypto, and Israel. This unacceptable group is only acceptable after mass aversion to the other side, Democrats. Everyone is being played. It was all part of the operation.
Right now everyone is rooting for Elon Musk and his DOGE anarchist computer programmer geeks going through the Treasury system, the DOD, the BOE, every agency, every division of government, scanning, copying, editing, and probably leaving malware, ransomware, trojan horses, back door entries, etc. without anyone looking over their shoulder.
Who knows maybe they are editing the dossiers on Epstein which contain most of the people that go to maral-AGO . What a power to have.
Even if Trump was to leave, will we know that they are gone too? Or will they be there forever? In the future maybe the US government is really run by people/ organizations/another country? Will every war in the future be a preemptive war which is initiated for the purpose of another power? I wonder what you would pay for that?
AI is an agent. What is it being charged with? AI has hallucinations and significant imprecision (high error rates).
"The Department of Greedy Executives: Making Bad Decisions at the Speed of AI"
DOGE fired nuclear safety workers and bird flu researchers, only to have difficulty calling them back due to missing contact information. Did the DOGE KIDS wipe out all evidence of these workers?
Conclusion: Management is mismanagement, strategic decisions are whims and the most important people are machines. Yet, the insider money funnel is churning faster than ever for TechGods under the Emperorship of Trump II, our digital Caligula.
Update 2-26-25: Remember my statement "head's would roll in Musk's companies for this level of analysis", well DOGE revised their "receipts" (deceits). Discrepancies remain.
The government's desire to buy armored Tesla's appears alive.
Argentinian President Javier Milei promoted a meme coin, then didn't promote it before suggesting investors played Russian roulette and got the bullet. Not said, the meme coin promoter bragged of using Milei's sister to influence the President.
Those receiving the Milei "bullet" got no sympathy from Mr. $Libra, who touted "insider deals."
....wallets linked to the sniping of the MELANIA token were also involved in the launch of the LIBRA token. The same wallet reportedly sniped LIBRA, generating $6 million in profit.
It seems all the chambers may have bullets:
“At this point, if you get ‘rug pulled,’ whether by Trump, Milei, whoever, it’s not an indictment of crypto. It’s an indictment of you.”
It's an indictment of the system that not only allows, but encourages this %#$&@.
My wise friend noted:
So we are ripping down the regulatory structures for a new asset class that the President of Argentina believes is like playing Russian roulette when you get the bullet. Go Wyoming! Good times ahead don't you think? Quite an endorsement.
MIL EI denies accountability. LOL like Kara Swisher says they will never accept responsibility. Did you catch what he said? On one hand he didn't tell anyone to buy it on the other hand at the end of the article he decided to stop endorsing it or promoting it.
How is anyone ever gonna find out he was paid anything in the crypto space? Just the small taste of what is already going on and what is about to become reality from many people When the Crypto space goes dark, who you gonna call? Elon, David Sacks, DJT? WAFJ
Palantir CEO Alex Karp hawked his new book on CNBC. He kicked it off with a penis punchline, "it's kind of risque"..."off color movie"..."hard power, soft"..."it's hard to know." He got his own joke, as evidenced by Alex's giggling.
In addition to promoting his book, he pushed Palantir as a standard for expert employees. A Glassdoorreview noted:
No annual salary increases for either performance or cost of living.
CEO is awful - a total narcissist. He well make comments about people's personal appearance and ethnicity in very inappropriate ways. Surrounded by "yes" people.
Absolutely spineless senior leadership - no one in the "inner circle " will speak truth to power.
The only reason there are not more lawsuits is that they tie your exit package to not providing evidence in any lawsuit against the company.
Leadership is misogynistic and xenophobic.
Founders use marketing as their own personal PR which doesn't help sell the product.
Extremely classist culture - almost all employees come from wealth and privilege.
Sales leadership is non-existent. Never seen so many star, best in their market, heavy hitters not be able to perform due to the toxic culture.
They are not interested in solving problems.
My comment after watching Karp's interview:
What a prick, hate to listen to Alex carping.... Most of what Karp just said is complete bullshit.
Shows how far the leadership bar has fallen.
Create your own reality (paradigm), out of thin air....Blast anyone who disagrees with your brilliance...use legal terms without any reference to their foundation (fraud)...
We met people like that in grade school and they were assholes and bullies.
Alex has a bully pulpit and the arrogant, selfish VC dookie is flying.
Karp is not always right, but he's sure you're always wrong. Isn't that a variation of being always right? Consider another Palantir employee review:
Company is run primarily by 22-26 year olds, and middle management "leads" are usually 1-2 years out of college. Accordingly, wisdom and experience are non-existent and people go completely off vibes and winging it so there is little foresight and sh*t hits the fan constantly
....experienced people can end up making less than new grads as their packages don't get adjusted.
"Con: Building the airplane as you fly it"
My wise friend wrote:
KARP is another genius that does not like to answer questions. When Andrew asked him if there was a way to do this (eliminate government waste) without all the privacy concerns he avoids the question.
...mere mortals cannot understand. He is like the universe; it keeps growing and morphing. So God like.
Welcome to the swinging dickiverse, headed by TechGods in conjunction with the Orange Wizard.
Update 3-5-25: TechGod of Spying Palantir stands to grow its AI business with Uncle Sam. Palantir cut its teeth protecting Bilderbergers.
It's President's Day or Unitary Executive Day. Both political teams, Blue & Red, expanded the power of the Presidency over the last thirty years, ironically as private equity underwriters multiplied and their political power expanded logarithmically.
Trump II, the digital Caligula has declared himself "the Donarch" and is ready to bestow significant state treasure on the TechGods who helped elect him.
TechGods traditionally avoided Uncle Sam as a customer, but that is changing now that one of their own is on the inside working on "reconstruction of a technological republic."
Elon's DOGE (Department of Greedy Executives) is charged with replacing people with machines, bots, AI, or whatever crap they are slapping together to produce errors much faster than humans.
The Unitary Executive offers the coup-less coup, the uncivil civil war, and the return of the savage whim of kings, emperors, dictators. Trump II seems intent on rewarding TechGods over PEUs, but it is early in his Game of Cohones.
There is a war going on in America between the elites in Silicon Valley and the D.C. establishment types who have comfortably held power my entire life.
The Valley guys want to turn the Republican party into their vehicle for exercising power and control over the country, including its regulatory policies.
Musk believes he can demonstrate his alignment with the new right-wing movement that has captured the Republican party by appealing to stuff like carnivore diets and Christian values and by signaling that he's a tough guy who's "down with God." (these are new things for Musk)
Watching his evolution and that of others like him has been pretty enlightening. These people are clearly interested in power, and many of them are consciously reengineering their public images in order to obtain it.
Update 2-19-25: Donarch Trump congratulated himself in a social media post with "Long Live the King!" Wrong country, inaccurate reality.
Update 2-27-25: Pre-DOGE Musk's companies had $38 billion in government business. What will that number be post-DOGE?
Update 3-5-25: TechGod of Spying Palantir stands to grow its AI business with Uncle Sam. Palantir cut its teeth protecting Bilderbergers.
TechGod of War Palmer Luckey took a strong stand on human reproduction, effectively praising "seed scattering" Elon Musk, the greatest of earthly TechGods.
Elon achieved a baker's dozen, 12 + 1, after his thirteenth child was born. May I suggest "Silgoliant." It has Lord of the Rings, Knights of the Roundtable ring to it.
Billionaire douchebag Luckey called people who don't have at least 2.1 kids "fucking elitists." I interpreted it as a novel way for Luckey to goad women into having sex with him. My wise friend thinks Palmer needs "more human targets" for his various war projects.
Palmer described himself as a "radical Zionist." Note: his company's client list includes the Israeli military. The more stink Israel stirs in the region, the more business for Palmer.
Luckey likes corporate collaborations in addition to the human conjugal version.
Meeting with other corporate leaders to do deals? That has an elitist ring to it.
If you plan on dying you should at least replace yourself.
A number of Palmer's TechGod peers are in the "live forever" camp. Are they obligated to replace themselves since they have no plans to die?
Luckey isn't alone in his interest in other people's procreation.
Two Blue Team state legislators introduced a bill intended to show the ludicrous nature of putting reproductive responsibility solely on women.
If the “Conception Begins at Erection Act” passes, men in Ohio could be charged with a felony if they “discharge genetic material” without intending to get a woman pregnant.
The Anduril CEO wants more genetic material discharged in the right place. That's not his palm. I wish him luck with that.
Americans aren't keen on paying for space exploration, nor do they like tax cuts or "preferred taxation" for billionaires.
So far, DOGE (Department of Greedy Executives) Chief Elon Musk has retained his government contracts through his various and sundry companies. He's also a massive beneficiary of Trump II, the digital Caligula's tax cut extension for the super wealthy and any bonus cuts thrown in.
Voters wanted price reductions (relief from high prices) and a feel good economy, like the one before COVID. They may be waiting a long time for those to be fulfilled. The will is there to serve the TechGods.
Competence may be lacking to enact the people's will. Conflicts of interest are likely an additional impediment.
Mass firings are underway in the federal government. They are not new to companies, especially those bought out by private equity underwriters (PEU). The PEU playbook includes replacing workers with technology. New owners cut salary/benefit costs to pay for vastly increased debt and associated interest expenses. "Sacrifices" need to be made so the PEU sponsor and executive teams can have a future bonanza payday. It matters not that it occurred on the backs of employees and customers. Yes, product and service quality go down in the chaos.
What if sellers of technology could ingratiate themselves with political powers to apply the PEU playbook in an "all of government" manner? That's DOGE, the Department of Greedy Executives. Trump needs the illusion of trillions ($) in savings and Elon Musk is the master of spin. Remember, the Donarch does not deal with reality, just images or reflections.
TechGods funded Trump II, the digital Caligula's campaign, sponsored his coronation, got on the inside via key appointments (often keeping their current gigs and not having to comply with conflict of interest requirements), got root access to federal computer systems where they could enact the "firings for hardware/software" strategy while protecting government contracts with fellow TechGodians. Winning!
Of course Social Security and Medicare/Medicaid are on the table. You can't pay retirees at the current rate if they are going to live forever.
TechGods think death is something to be scheduled after accumulating as much money and power as "one chooses."
Taxes? Just a historical oddity to be further decommissioned.
TechGods are already gaming the system. Think how much more they can game it from the inside under Trump the Usurper of Reality.
Musk and those acting on his behalf have called for implementing new artificial intelligence systems in federal agencies and completely overhauling American weapons programs. As humanitarian aid groups reel from Musk’s cuts, tech and defense firms are seeing a chance to integrate themselves deeper into the new Trump administration’s agenda.
