And that 25 year old, Marko Elez, advocated for racism and eugenics in now-deleted posts on social media. It was a scoop by WSJ but that article is paywalled, but NPR has some quotes from there along with some other info.
The racist (yes, he called himself that) had to leave, but Musk was very unhappy about that. No surprise there.
>>>...Musk on Friday asked his followers if Elez should be reinstated after making "inappropriate statement" through "a now deleted pseudonym," and nearly 80% of respondents said yes. Musk also called for
The Wall Street Journal reporter to be fired, presumably for surfacing unflattering posts about a former member of his team. ...<<<
Unfortunately, DOGE seems to be continuing, with no real oversight and close to zero transparency.
>>>Elon Musk’s unceasing attempts to access the data and information systems of the federal government range so widely, and are so unprecedented and unpredictable, that government computing experts believe the effort has spun out of control. This week, we spoke with four federal-government IT professionals—all experienced contractors and civil servants who have built, modified, or maintained the kind of technological infrastructure that Musk’s inexperienced employees at his newly created Department of Government Efficiency are attempting to access.
In our conversations, each expert was unequivocal: They are terrified and struggling to articulate the scale of the crisis. . . .
“This is the largest data breach and the largest IT security breach in our country’s history—at least that’s publicly known,” one contractor who has worked on classified information-security systems at numerous government agencies told us this week. “You can’t un-ring this bell. Once these DOGE guys have access to these data systems, they can ostensibly do with it what they want.” . . .
Musk and his crew could act deliberately to extract sensitive data, alter fundamental aspects of how these systems operate, or provide further access to unvetted actors. Or they may act with carelessness or incompetence, breaking the systems altogether. Given the scope of what these systems do, key government services might stop working properly, citizens could be harmed, and the damage might be difficult or impossible to undo. As one administrator for a federal agency with deep knowledge about the government’s IT operations told us, “I don’t think the public quite understands the level of danger.” . . .
With relatively basic “read only” access, Musk’s people could easily find individuals in databases or clone entire servers and transfer that secure information somewhere else. Even if Musk eventually loses access to these systems—owing to a temporary court order such as the one
approved yesterday, say—whatever data he siphons now could be his forever. . . .
With a higher level of access—“write access”—a motivated person may be able to put their own code into the system, potentially without any oversight. The possibilities here are staggering. One could alter the data these systems process, or they could change the way the software operates—without any of the testing that would normally accompany changes to a critical system. Still another level of access, administrator privileges, could grant the broad ability to control a system, including hiding evidence of other alterations. “They could change or manipulate treasury data directly in the database with no way for people to audit or capture it,” one contractor told us. “We’d have very little way to know it even happened.” . . .
CNN reported
yesterday that a 23-year-old former SpaceX intern without a background check was given a basic, low tier of access to Department of Energy IT systems, despite objections from department lawyers and information experts. “That these guys, who may not even have clearances, are just pulling up and plugging in their own servers is madness,” one source told us, referring to an
allegation that DOGE had connected its own server at OPM. “It’s really hard to find good analogies for how big of a deal this is.” . . .<<<(emphasis added)
