Cont: Musk, SpaceX and future of Tesla II

[dirtywick]

Newly released FBI emails show agent pushed probe of Musk over government emails

Newly released emails show an FBI agent sought to open a criminal investigation last year into Elon Musk over a government email initiative while Musk served as a special government employee leading efficiency efforts in the Trump administration, according to records released by Senate Judiciary...

flvoicenews.com

fbi agent pushed to investigate musk over communications related to doge

In a February 2025 email, then-FBI agent Kevin Gounaud proposed a criminal probe of Musk. Gounaud argued that Musk’s request that federal employees share weekly accomplishments by email “encouraged, abetted, aided, etc. thousands if not tens of thousands of government employees to violate government wide security policy and transmit sensitive government information.”

“And no, I’m not kidding,” Gounaud wrote.

Grassley said the emails fit a broader “wash, rinse and repeat” approach by federal law enforcement toward Trump and those around him.

“For almost a decade now, I’ve made records public showing how a number of now discredited law enforcement and intelligence officials schemed to take out Trump and other Republicans,” Grassley said in his opening statement. “And here we are, in 2026, still finding records from years ago showing even more evidence of targeting.”

of course grassley is presenting this as if fbi agents trying to investigate people close to the president as some kind of conspiracy to take them down and the fbi is still full of deep state agents working against the regime

 

[Trausti]

In a February 2025 email, then-FBI agent Kevin Gounaud proposed a criminal probe of Musk. Gounaud argued that Musk’s request that federal employees share weekly accomplishments by email “encouraged, abetted, aided, etc. thousands if not tens of thousands of government employees to violate government wide security policy and transmit sensitive government information.”

My goodness. Imagine federal employees being asked if that actually do anything for their generous taxpayer-funded salaries. The arrogance here is off the charts.

 

[a_unique_person]

My goodness. Imagine federal employees being asked if that actually do anything for their generous taxpayer-funded salaries. The arrogance here is off the charts.

You have no idea how security works, do you.

 

[Trausti]

You have no idea how security works, do you.

You really think that's why he objected? If simply asking someone who benefits from taxpayer largess "what would you say, you do here" causes offense, that person should be fired. They're supposed to be public servants, not public masters.

 

[Darat]

You really think that's why he objected? If simply asking someone who benefits from taxpayer largess "what would you say, you do here" causes offense, that person should be fired. They're supposed to be public servants, not public masters.

Did you not even read the quoted section in the post?

 

[dirtywick]

Universal Is Getting Cold Feet on Releasing the Elon Musk Documentary (Exclusive)

The Comcast-owned studio is not yet committing to rolling out Alex Gibney's movie that it paid millions to acquire for non-North American release before the political winds shifted.

www.hollywoodreporter.com

universal seems spooked about releasing musk documentary, may return the rights

The movie is set to premiere in U.S. theaters via the independent Bleecker Street as well as play the London Film Festival next month; both are media-rich affairs that a studio usually times with a release in the U.K. and even across the European continent. But Universal has made no such plans. Gibney did not immediately respond to a request seeking comment.

If Universal opts against releasing the movie, it would mark an extraordinary reversal at a moment when media companies are already under scrutiny for bowing to various forms of political pressure. Amazon backed out of releasing Artificial as it got into business with Sam Altman’s OpenAI, while ABC News and Paramount/CBS News each paid millions to settle lawsuits with the Trump administration many legal experts felt would be quickly dismissed.

 

[The Great Zaganza]

cowards.
it's not like Musk could do anything legal against a giant like Universal.
More likely, the C-Suite doesn't want the awkward moments when they meet Elon at the Eyes Wide Shut Parties.

 

[dirtywick]

Did you not even read the quoted section in the post?

to be fair it’s a little surprising. doge was otherwise so well run and successful

 

[plague311]

My goodness. Imagine federal employees being asked if that actually do anything for their generous taxpayer-funded salaries. The arrogance here is off the charts.

Whatever arrogance there is here it fails in comparison to the asinine idea that, even most, government employees receive "generous taxpayer-funded salaries". The amount of government employees that leave for the private sector is ◊◊◊◊◊◊◊ crazy, and they aren't leaving for less money. Your implication that we government employees are getting rich is ◊◊◊◊◊◊◊ stupid on its face. Prove to me that government employees are compensated at a higher rate than their private sector counterparts. You won't, cause you can't. This is just another thing, in a long list of things, that you're perpetually, loudly wrong about because you refuse to educate yourself.

You really think that's why he objected?

Ah, yes, here we have "Trausti, the mind reader!" to tell us what is "actually" going on, amiright?

If simply asking someone who benefits from taxpayer largess

Another ◊◊◊◊◊◊◊ stupid statement. Employees of the government don't "benefit from the taxpayer". We wake up, we go to work, we do a job that is needed (usually for less pay than the private sector) and go home. That's not a "benefit" anymore than any other job. It's literally trading skills for pay.

"what would you say, you do here" causes offense, that person should be fired.

As others have said, you obviously have no ◊◊◊◊◊◊◊ clue how security works. This is weapons grade stupid.

They're supposed to be public servants, not public masters.

What does this even mean? I get that you're trying to make some point, but this sentence doesn't even make sense.

Why don't you take a backseat on this one, champ? I'm not sure that you have the skillset for this conversation.

 

[novaphile]

I have a personal theory, after a working lifetime in both public and private sectors...

People who wail on and on about the public servants who get paid for nothing, have never had a skill set sufficient to gain employment in the public service.

Having spent their entire lives, unable to make the grade, they complain that their betters are clearly stealing their salaries.

There is a small subset of the whining cohort who briefly got in, but were sacked for malfeasance or incompetence, and they're particularly bitter.

It's similar to the put-down: "good enough for government work".

The expression was created by individuals and organisations, that were not good enough to do government work.

Hence the hate.

 

[Roger Ramjets]

Source?

Focus2Move

 

[Roger Ramjets]

My goodness. Imagine federal employees being asked if that actually do anything for their generous taxpayer-funded salaries. The arrogance here is off the charts.

No, the arrogance is this:-

Musk announced the policy publicly on X, the social media platform formerly known as Twitter that Musk acquired in October 2022. “Consistent with President @realDonaldTrump’s instructions, all federal employees will shortly receive an email requesting to understand what they got done last week. Failure to respond will be taken as a resignation”

Your demand that federal employees be forced (under threat of dismissal) to prove that they 'actually do anything' is obnoxious. You think they go to work each a day and just twiddle their thumbs? Rhetorical question - of course you do - otherwise you wouldn't make that statement.

But this isn't the FBI, it's one agent suggesting Musk might be violating the law. He was wrong to do that of course, since...

Musk and the Office of Personnel Management asked federal employees to submit a bullet point summary of their accomplishments for the week. The email from OPM specifically directed employees not to include classified information, links, or attachments.

However I can understand his frustration. FBI agents have enough on their plate already, without having to send weekly reports on their 'accomplishments' without including any classified information. How was the reader expected to 'understand' what an agent had 'accomplished' when most of it might have to be redacted?

Note that this wasn't just directed at the FBI, it applied to all federal employees, ~2.7 million people. That means millions of man-hours being wasted on needless bureaucracy just to produce these reports. Analyzing them would waste even more resources. Well done DOGE!

Musk said this order was 'consistent' with President Trump's instructions. I'm not sure what he's referring to here, but even if he was basically just carrying out Trump's orders the implementation was ham-fisted - which is what you would expect from Musk. I don't blame him for that, I blame whoever put him in that role. Proximately that was Trump, but ultimately it was the American voter. People like you.

 

[arthwollipot]

"Time spent making this list: $400"

 

[dirtywick]

Musk said this order was 'consistent' with President Trump's instructions. I'm not sure what he's referring to here, but even if he was basically just carrying out Trump's orders the implementation was ham-fisted - which is what you would expect from Musk. I don't blame him for that, I blame whoever put him in that role. Proximately that was Trump, but ultimately it was the American voter. People like you.

i mean, you only expect musk to be following trumps orders in a ham fisted way because he's a dumbass. and i do blame him for that, he should have known he was completely out of his depth and just stayed out of it. but it was never about doing the right thing to begin with so why would he care if it went good or bad. then he went and screamed with a chainsaw with javier milei, who is himself also a dumbass and ruining his own economy. so these guys all ◊◊◊◊◊◊◊ suck.

 

[Roger Ramjets]

i mean, you only expect musk to be following trumps orders in a ham fisted way because he's a dumbass. and i do blame him for that, he should have known he was completely out of his depth and just stayed out of it. but it was never about doing the right thing to begin with so why would he care if it went good or bad. then he went and screamed with a chainsaw with javier milei, who is himself also a dumbass and ruining his own economy. so these guys all ◊◊◊◊◊◊◊ suck.

Musk isn't a dumbass, he's neurodivergent.

A Portrait of Elon Musk

[Isaacson's book] is a remarkably frank, unvarnished account of the life and character of Elon Musk. It recounts the good, the bad, and the ugly. It paints the portrait of a genius, a man with an incredibly strong will and the ability to multi-task. A visionary, a leader, and a hands-on, detail-oriented engineer. But also, a complicated man with a lot of baggage. Musk has an obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) and a self-confessed Asperger’s syndrome. Moreover, empathy is not in his DNA, and he does not even attempt to acquire it.

Would you hire a person with those qualities and no experience in government to 'find' trillions of dollars in waste? I wouldn't. But Donald Trump did. Would you still hire them after they pranced around on stage with a chainsaw to illustrate how they intended to do it? I certainly wouldn't, but Donald Trump did, and 77 million voters approved. I don't blame the person who was unsuited to a job for applying for it, especially when their unsuitability was plain to see. That's the employer's fault.

You say it was 'never about doing the right thing', but Musk's falling out with Trump over the 'Big Beautiful Bill' shows you are wrong. He truly believed - as do the majority of people - that significant government waste exists, and that reducing it is the right thing to do. Musk just wasn't the right person for that job, same as 99.9% of us aren't (despite what we might think).

 

[dirtywick]

Musk isn't a dumbass, he's neurodivergent.

that may be but he’s definitely a dumbass and it’s been well documented

A Portrait of Elon Musk

Would you hire a person with those qualities and no experience in government to 'find' trillions of dollars in waste? I wouldn't. But Donald Trump did. Would you still hire them after they pranced around on stage with a chainsaw to illustrate how they intended to do it? I certainly wouldn't, but Donald Trump did, and 77 million voters approved. I don't blame the person who was unsuited to a job for applying for it, especially when their unsuitability was plain to see. That's the employer's fault.

You say it was 'never about doing the right thing', but Musk's falling out with Trump over the 'Big Beautiful Bill' shows you are wrong. He truly believed - as do the majority of people - that significant government waste exists, and that reducing it is the right thing to do. Musk just wasn't the right person for that job, same as 99.9% of us aren't (despite what we might think).

lol pull the other one

 

[3point14]

Yeah, no, that's not what he said at all. More specifically, when he's talking about dramatically limiting the search space, he isn't talking about legality at all. He's talking about no searching the tree that results from bad moves. We already know how to not search illegal moves, that's trivial, but it's not enough to make Chess solvable. Throwing away bad move trees is the hard part, but if you can do it well enough (not a given), maybe it would be enough to solve chess.

Then there's no reason to take offense from any of Musk's posts.

How do you know it's a bad move if you don't search the tree resulting from that move?

 

[The Great Zaganza]

"You can't be loony and rich. You've got to be eccentric if you're rich."
Terry Pratchett,

 

[GlennB]

How do you know it's a bad move if you don't search the tree resulting from that move?

Amen. The immediate loss of a piece is generally a bad thing but can be a winning thing. Only analysis of subsequent moves will tell.

 

[Ziggurat]

How do you know it's a bad move if you don't search the tree resulting from that move?

I said from the start that this is the hard part.