Elon Musk Hits FAFO Stage of DOGE
Elon Musk is about to find out the cost of his DOGE folly with Donald Trump, as it is Musk who has been ordered to show up in court and defend himself.
When Donald Trump appointed Elon Musk the head of DOGE, I wrote that Musk should beware.
Trump gave Musk all of the power and authority to wreak havoc on the United States and violate Americans’ privacy (for Trump), in exchange for letting Musk kill all of the various government investigations into his schemes.
But with Donald Trump, there’s always a catch.
The way Musk was appointed and then not appointed and then given the keys to the castle by Trump without any oversight or Senate vetted authority was always clearly legally dubious. It was so brazen and stupid and arrogant and greedy that only a true psychopath would try it. And only a true sociopath would fall for it (see also: Kristi Noem).
Fall for it Elon Musk did.
And now, Elon Musk’s posts bragging about his DOGE (Department of Government Efficiency) power on the social media site he destroyed are being used as evidence against him in a lawsuit over the lack of Senate confirmation for Musk while he seized power over entire agencies to eliminate them, engaged in mass firings, and more.
The lawsuit could trigger a reversal of DOGE’s self-proclaimed victories, even though DOGE did not do what it claimed was its primary goal. For example, Trump sent Musk to “investigate" fraud at Social Security, and found nothing.
US District Judge Tanya S. Chutkan ruled on Monday that Musk has to defend himself against the lawsuit, which alleges that the South African Nazi-saluting head of DOGE unlawfully seized too much power. She did not grant the entire motion to dismiss. Bummer for the guy who carried a chainsaw into the 2025 Conservative Political Action Conference bragging about his power to make “cuts” to the entire US government.
(Musk loves a goofy, awkward, on the nose prop, much like his cringe moment of posting a photo of himself carrying a sink into Twitter after he took it over, with the capture “Entering Twitter HQ – let that sink in.” Creative genius he is not.)
Plaintiffs have already shown that Musk acted seemingly with the rubber stamp of Trump, had “almost ‘unchecked’ discretion” and received “minimal supervision” reporting only to Trump.
Chutkan “did not buy the US government’s defense that Musk held no office formally established by law—and therefore did not need Senate confirmation and cannot be alleged to have exceeded his authority under the Constitution’s Appointments Clause,” Ashley Belanger explained in Ars Technica.
“Nobody thinks, for instance, that the White House Chief of Staff or White House Counsel are officers in any fashion, despite the fact they may exercise tremendous influence across the government,” the government’s motion to dismiss said.
Chutkan called the defense “disquieting.”
The Judge pointed out that the defense’s argument is that because his office was “unlawfully created, and the power was unlawfully seized” he is not subject to the Appointments Clause.
It’s so mafia, so Trump, so Musk, so stupid, so arrogant and so anti-American.
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