Elon Musk admits he “got carried away” working inside Donald Trump’s administration as the unelected director of the so-called Department of Government Efficiency, where he implemented mass firings and radically cut federal spending.
“I think I got a little too involved in politics. I got carried away, frankly,” he told The Economist in a wide-ranging interview published Thursday, but offered few specifics on what he regretted.
But the world’s wealthiest man — who pumped millions of dollars into Trump’s campaign before he was deputized to oversee the president’s brutal cost-cutting operation — defended the work of DOGE and his dismantling of the nation’s global aid agency that he once promised to put through a “wood chipper.”
“We need to sort of take a close look at spending and make sure that money is being spent in sensible ways and that it is not wasted or spent on fraudulent activities. And I got a lot of flack for this, obviously,” he said.
I wonder if he can just see the writing on the wall, or if he was actually using a cannon to kill a fly? Maybe its that SpaceX isn't doing so hot? Maybe its the investigation related to tRump going on about how Musk "really knows those voting machines" and how they'll "never have to vote again".
Either way, people are dead because of him. We won't forget, and there will be an accounting for this.
111 Comments
MisterNeon@lemmy.world · 217 pts · 29d
I was a government contractor for four years. I made really good money, worked from home, and had really good benefits. A year ago, Elon and Trump decided to stop paying the contract I was on. Between outsourcing and AI, I couldn't find anyone to hire me. I had to work in a grocery store for six months with ten years of web development and project management experience. I start my job as a mailman on Monday. I'll never forgive them and forsake anyone associated with them. Until the seas dry and the land breaks, I wish suffering and damnation upon them.
Stormy@thelemmy.club · 134 pts · 29d
MisterNeon@lemmy.world · 57 pts · 29d
I hope your luck will be better than mine.
Stormy@thelemmy.club · 67 pts · 29d
MisterNeon@lemmy.world · 49 pts · 29d
I wish you weren't right.
SpaceNoodle@lemmy.world · -30 pts · 29d
Now kiss
edwardbear@lemmy.world · 9 pts · 28d
go outside, touch grass, re-evaluate
nkat2112@sh.itjust.works · 3 pts · 28d
Thank you.
firebyte@lemmy.world · 21 pts · 29d
Have you considered a lateral transfer?
Some countries, including Canada and Australia, will accept international applicants providing they meet certain criteria. Australia particularly offers pathways to citizenship too.
https://www.defence.gov.au/adf-members-families/military-life-cycle/lateral-recruits
MisterNeon@lemmy.world · 7 pts · 29d
Yeah sure, but I couldn't imagine them taking someone as mediocre and old as me.
I like Aussies and Canadians. I would do my best to be an ideal citizen.
firebyte@lemmy.world · 12 pts · 29d
You'd be surprised!
"The maximum age, as a general rule, is between 3 and 6 years away from the “Compulsory Retiring Age” for a specific role. It is encouraged that applicants conduct research pertaining to their role of interest."
So its role dependent for Australian Defence Forces, though is worth at least looking into.
Lydon_Feen@lemmy.world · 7 pts · 28d
A jail cell is too good for them.
They need to be dragged through the streets and end up like Mussolini. Or maybe Ceaușescu and his wife.
Just hope the dragging through the streets takes hours and they are conscious for all of it.
FoxtrotDeltaTango@sh.itjust.works · 3 pts · 28d
I wish them death and a eternity of pain and suffering in hell for their sins
starik@lemmy.today · 1 pts · 28d
Zawaj_Al_Qasirat@sh.itjust.works · -38 pts · 29d
I couldn't look at myself either if I was in the military, how disgusting.
DrakeAlbrecht@lemmy.world · 34 pts · 29d
I couldn't look at myself if I were a knee-jerk troll, so I guess we're even.
Tyrq@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 18 pts · 29d
One post from four months ago, and then a handful from the last day 🧐 seems we got a piece of shit sandbag account looking to rile people up
halcyoncmdr@piefed.social · 10 pts · 28d
Didn't Russia just get another infusion of cash from some sanction being lifted or something like that recently? Spinning back up sections of their social media farms now that there's funding again.
Zawaj_Al_Qasirat@sh.itjust.works · -23 pts · 29d
Sorry I don't support the
killerstroops.I wonder who's killed more innocent people Elon's funding cuts or the US Military.
blartcap_@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 21 pts · 29d
Interesting how you're more upset this one person was in the military than you are about anything Elon Musk has done, to the point that you're now mollifying Musk's actions in order to troll this one person.
Astronut@lemmy.zip · 14 pts · 29d
M aybe he’s
A
G oddamn
A sshole!
Stormy@thelemmy.club · 2 pts · 23d
blartcap_@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 2 pts · 23d
I just can't stand these fake leftists who just use terms they don't understand and outrage to look cool for other fake leftists on the internet.
Zawaj_Al_Qasirat@sh.itjust.works · -5 pts · 28d
If I was on a platform with Elon Musk, I would gladly tell him how disgusting he is.
It's interesting how an anarchist defends imperialist soldiers.
blartcap_@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 6 pts · 28d
You easily could be, he's very available on Twitter if you were actually so inclined. But instead you're more inclined to misread the pointing out the shortsightedness of your trolling of an individual as a different statement entirely. Just as you're more inclined to treat Musk with softer gloves if it means you can attack some random person for something that that doesn't even apply anymore.
Stormy@thelemmy.club · 0 pts · 23d
Wispy2891@lemmy.world · 22 pts · 28d
it's infuriating seeing the two assholes cutting everything and destroying the lifes of millions of people for literal pennies, then wasting trillions on a useless war that has only economic downsides, just because bibi asked it nicely
Prior_Industry@lemmy.world · 11 pts · 28d
Don't forget the tax breaks for the Uber rich.
velma@sh.itjust.works · 17 pts · 29d
I'm so, so sorry you're in this position. It isn't right.
Eat_Your_Paisley@lemmy.world · 11 pts · 29d
I've been in, or worked for the military for 26 years last month so I've seen some political things. While DOGE didn't kill my little 150 person org it wiped out a third of our experienced folks and eliminated all young folks we feed to the larger workforce.
The large over arching programs like USAID will be fairly easily put back together but the folks not in the DMV will be hard to luer back.
My command is fairly senior but two years ago I at 49 years old was about average, now I'm in the younger cohort, that's not good for any workforce.
Zawaj_Al_Qasirat@sh.itjust.works · -8 pts · 28d
How many kids have you killed or helped kill in your 26 years? Or did you perhaps refuel vehicles that lead to killing kids, fed some child killers to give them the strength to get through a day of child killing, or defended somewhere at home so killers could be deployed overseas to kill kids?
wheezy@lemmy.ml · 6 pts · 29d
Gonna be in the same place as soon as my daughter goes to public school. I really can't justify paying at a minimum $3000 for child care in my area AND not see my kid. My wife has a solid job in another industry that won't be touched by AI. Thankful for her.
Grats on the mailman job. Sincerely, I couldn't find a new job in software but it was also melting my mind being told I need to use AI all day long. I will happy to make less and do something else once the $36000 a year in childcare is not required. I have that privilege to wait after a decade in software thankfully.
Anivia@feddit.org · -7 pts · 28d
That sucks, but long term that would have been an inevitable outcome anyway. Web development experience is becoming a useless skill on the job market, as you have learned from first hand experience finding a job
mfed1122@discuss.tchncs.de · 1 pts · 28d
Really? I see a decent amount of six figure global remote frontend job postings
CrabAndBroom@lemmy.ml · 112 pts · 29d
Source
Fuck him.
781,343 deaths.
You don't just get to go "oops!" and walk away.
Nearly eight hundred thousand dead in the first year. Probably much more by now.
Almacca@aussie.zone · 35 pts · 29d
He's still 'a little too involved' in politics. He's flinging his shit around the UK and EU now, acting like he knows best.
Sounds to me like he's admitting culpability for his crimes though. Some prosecutor should get on that.
turtlesareneat@piefed.ca · 7 pts · 28d
Oh he's biding time. He sees what Trump did. He is going to come back as a politician after taking capitalism to its logical conclusion of "evil."
SaveTheTuaHawk@lemmy.ca · 2 pts · 28d
And he wants to fund remaking the Odyssey with just white people.
artyom@piefed.social · 4 pts · 28d
We had to cut $400M in global aid and kill 800k kids in order to fund a pointless $50B war (and counting) that doesn't exist but also we already won, where we killed tens of thousands more (and counting).
InputZero@lemmy.world · 3 pts · 28d
The worst part is that he's the wealthiest person to ever exist. He has more than enough money to help. He could be telling everyone in his employment to begin to undo the mess he made, but he won't. He may donate a few million to a charity (that he owns) to build up some good will with the poors. The people he pays to be around him will tell him what a saint he is, caring for the poor. He'll feel good about himself again. While millions of children still die.
swordgeek@lemmy.ca · 57 pts · 29d
"Sorry everyone, just got swept up in the moment. No hard feelings, right?" -- A. Hitler
EmilieEasie@fedinsfw.app · 54 pts · 29d
Proposed headline: Elon Musk says, "PlEASe like me PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE every body I need you to like me I'll do literally anything l can be ultra whatever wing because I believe in nothing except that you should all like me plEASE LIKE ME"
Mouselemming@sh.itjust.works · 9 pts · 29d
I'll do anything except stop being a useless piece of shit who raped an entire nation
aramis87@fedia.io · 3 pts · 28d
The arguments I used to have with Musk fanbois on reddit ....
EmilieEasie@fedinsfw.app · 1 pts · 28d
Don't get me started on Reddit !
Linktank@lemmy.today · 36 pts · 28d
The fact that there isn't a well funded group actively hunting this man with the intent to mutilate him to death is somewhat shocking to me.
some_designer_dude@lemmy.world · 23 pts · 28d
For real. I’d help crowdfund it.
A404@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 0 pts · 28d
What good would killing him do? The wealth would just pass down to his children
CADmonkey@lemmy.world · 6 pts · 28d
The children would see an immediate close and personal reason to be better people?
treehugger6@lemmy.world · 36 pts · 28d
GreenBeard@lemmy.ca · 35 pts · 29d
If there were any justice, he would be convicted and face the death penalty. He's a menace to humanity.
homesweethomeMrL@lemmy.world · 10 pts · 29d
I mean, just regular Leavenworth will do.
DaddleDew@lemmy.world · 32 pts · 29d
Cool. Now pay back reparations for all the damage that you've caused. You can afford it.
zarathustrad@lemmy.world · 21 pts · 29d
Can the American People file a class action suit?
Take his entire net worth.
That's roughly $3,000 per person for all 341 million people.
A404@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 2 pts · 28d
The rich are above the law :<
NihilsineNefas@slrpnk.net · 31 pts · 28d
lemming741@lemmy.world · 6 pts · 28d
I can't find the one they printed 6 ft tall on the bus stop
BarneyPiccolo@lemmy.today · 30 pts · 28d
No forgiveness, no mercy.
kurmudgeon@lemmy.world · 30 pts · 28d
Elon Musk is a colossal fucking moron. A pure complete dipshit. Why people keep giving this stupid fuck money is beyond me. He is an egotistical, narcissistic, racist, elitist, bigoted asshole. Let's just all keep throwing $$$ at this piece of shit.
sns@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 26 pts · 29d
Only hundreds of thousands of children paid the price with their lives.
BedSharkPal@lemmy.ca · 15 pts · 29d
Millions...
Smoogs@lemmy.world · 26 pts · 28d
may this fucker be reincarnated into every last person who was denied USAID and died as a result this past year
if there is some form of spiritual punishement in the after life his consiousness gets to witness every suffering. in excruciating detail.
knife@lemmy.world · 12 pts · 28d
I'd settle for him being sent to prison
SalmonTractor@discuss.tchncs.de · 14 pts · 28d
Take all his money and assets, distribute them to every citizen in the US that isn’t a billionaire, and send him penniless into the streets. Prison is too good for him.
Edit: with zero access to social programs.
FoxtrotDeltaTango@sh.itjust.works · 3 pts · 28d
And make him work at McDonald’s as a minimum wage worker for the rest of his life
TwodogsFighting@lemdro.id · 3 pts · 28d
Man, they've already been denied aid, they don't deserve that shit.
FoxtrotDeltaTango@sh.itjust.works · 1 pts · 28d
Give Elon muskrat the death penalty
Sunflier@lemmy.world · 3 pts · 28d
FoxtrotDeltaTango@sh.itjust.works · 1 pts · 28d
Ok, sure why not
Kolanaki@pawb.social · 25 pts · 28d
"Sorry everyone. Fascism just makes me feel so good, ya know?"
Knock_Knock_Lemmy_In@lemmy.world · 8 pts · 28d
What about the Nazi Salute Elon?
Oh, you know. I just got carried away.
kibblebits@quokk.au · 24 pts · 29d
Hur Dee Hur. Forgot y’all’s was real people down in that k-hole of “the world is a simulation”
watson387@sopuli.xyz · 22 pts · 28d
Fucking asshole...
NekoKoneko@lemmy.world · 22 pts · 29d
Really? That's why you got flack?
Well, I can't speak for everyone, but you got flack from me not for making sure money is being spent in sensible ways. I gave you some flack for being a self-dealing, child-killing, own-fart-smelling, public data-stealing, ketamine-addicted Nazi fascist sociopath who not only wielded your deluded political persecution complex as a weapon for punishing innocent people, you did so without even giving them the dignity of your actual attention unaided by AI.
YouTalkinToMe@lemmy.wtf · 0 pts · 28d
Flack?
Enkrod@feddit.org · 0 pts · 28d
Giving flak means to give someone strong criticism, blame, or a hard time for a mistake or an unpopular choice.
From german "FLugAbwehrKanone" (anti-aircraft-gun).
Or were you obsessing over the little spelling error?
YouTalkinToMe@lemmy.wtf · 0 pts · 28d
LifeInMultipleChoice@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 21 pts · 29d
This article tries to make him sound better than he was too. "where he implemented mass firings and radically cut federal spending."
He didn't radically cut federal spending. Federal spending isn't down, he just fired people and the money stayed the same really.
Let's say the CDC that is struggling to track this parasite presumed in lettuce(cyclosporiasis) which was tracked since 1997. Why, well Kennedy told them not to track it anymore in July 2025. July 2026, largest number of cases ever recorded.
The CDC fired ~3200 people, roughly 25% of their staff. Yet the budget request for the CDC in 2026 isn't really any different than 2025, 2024 etc. Maybe a fair comparison would be comparing the 2018, 2019 time period during Trump's first admin to now, the CDC budget is essentially the same when you adjust it for inflation over that time.
Full federal budget estimates look like
2024 budget: 6.8 trillion
2025 budget: 7 trillion
2026 we are at 5.52 trillion including June with 6 months left
So it surely doesn't look like he "radically cut federal spending"... He just radically cut federal employment, and they are still spending the money.
Sunflier@lemmy.world · 11 pts · 29d
He radically cut spending alright. He radically cut spending on ensuring the wellbeing of the not-rich. The spending is now just all going to the Epstein class.
left_is_best@feddit.online · 4 pts · 28d
These people are eugenicists. They are trying to kill us. The ones they can't kill will have their wealth siphoned from them to fund this balooning, kleptocratic federal deficit. They are looting the near-dead body of the empire so they can transcend nations, and us, the blood, flesh and bones, will be left to rot. We have one, maybe two chances left to defeat these people peacefully.
minorkeys@sh.itjust.works · 20 pts · 29d
Strange way of saying gross incompetence.
mojofrododojo@lemmy.world · 9 pts · 29d
yeah, was that before or after the second hitler salute? just trying to gauge things
Polyphilic@lemmy.ca · 19 pts · 28d
Apparently whats sensible isnt monitoring threats to food production, of disease outbreaks, its bombing Arabs...
I hate this timeline
Lucidlethargy@sh.itjust.works · 18 pts · 28d
If this guy ever chokes on a fish bone and dies, the grand, grand, grand majority of people who react in any way will be celebrating.
Imagine being that much of a piece of shit.
SaveTheTuaHawk@lemmy.ca · 4 pts · 28d
More like drown in a hot tub after too much ketamine.
ElcaineVolta@kbin.melroy.org · 17 pts · 29d
oh that's okay, we have a prison cell for that.
b161@lemmy.blahaj.zone · 17 pts · 28d
He murdered millions.
dasrael@lemmy.zip · 15 pts · 28d
I'd love to see a mob get carried away with him in return. That sure would be amusing to watch. I highly doubt justice will ever be dispensed his way otherwise.
SabinStargem@lemmy.today · 3 pts · 28d
I would like Musk's head to be mounted on a chainsaw, with his stupid cheese hat.
billwashere@lemmy.world · 14 pts · 28d
Yeah I wish he got carried away… in a pine box.
Cheeseballll1@lemmy.world · 8 pts · 28d
PoS deserves a burlap sack.
P1k1e@lemmy.world · 3 pts · 28d
Screw that, leave his bits for the rats
Cheeseballll1@lemmy.world · 3 pts · 28d
Rats don't deserve that.
P1k1e@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 28d
They don't have to eat it. Maybe they can give it to their OWN parasites
FoxtrotDeltaTango@sh.itjust.works · 13 pts · 28d
Let’s fucking kill him!!!!
green_goglin@thelemmy.club · 3 pts · 28d
D_C@sh.itjust.works · 12 pts · 28d
Those are some insightful comments from the world's first Nazi trillionaire white supremacist.
Folstar@lemmus.org · 12 pts · 28d
Reminder: The USA passed the False Claims Act in 1778 and later developed a full legal framework for combating fraud in 1863 with the Lincoln Law. Fraud at the federal level had a solution that worked time and time again for CENTURIES.
Gonzako@lemmy.world · 12 pts · 28d
Hate it when the immigrant billionaires come and makes everyone's life worse
Uranus_Hz@lemmy.zip · 12 pts · 29d
He needs to be carried away.
SnarkoPolo@lemmy.world · 12 pts · 28d
They got everything they wanted. The country is in a death spiral toward Somalia-style libertarianism, and it can't be stopped.
JoMiran@lemmy.ml · 11 pts · 29d
I mean this honestly, "from your mouth to God's ear", but...
SaveTheTuaHawk@lemmy.ca · 2 pts · 28d
Nothing will happen. Give me one example in US history where any wealthy person or President was held to account.
BarneyPiccolo@lemmy.today · 11 pts · 28d
He's a Pirate, and he deserves a Pirate's fate.
Sunflier@lemmy.world · 10 pts · 28d
Redditmodstouchgrass@lemmy.zip · 3 pts · 28d
YarHar.png
Jaysyn@lemmy.world · 11 pts · 28d
He belongs in federal prison.
SaharaMaleikuhm@feddit.org · 6 pts · 28d
Get him the Epstein cell!
Polisheocket@lemmy.zip · 11 pts · 28d
He ruins thousands of lives with layoffs and says whoops? Hate that man,
godsammitdam@lemmy.zip · 10 pts · 28d
Sorry Elon, we're still going to take all your ill gotten gains and prosecute the fuck out of you and your billionaire bitches if I can do anything about it
You should be thankful that's the moderate position.
FartsWithAnAccent@fedia.io · 9 pts · 29d
These assholes should get carried away to jail.
SCmSTR@lemmy.blahaj.zone · 5 pts · 28d
No consequences WOOOOOO rrrrngrrrrraaaAAAAHHHHHH
kevin2107@lemmy.world · 5 pts · 29d
This dumbass just lost half a trillion and I hope the other 750 Billy left goes down the gutter. I'll never own a fucking tesla I'll never buy starshit or any other shit service/product this idiot tries to unload on the American people.
CharlesDarwin@lemmy.world · 3 pts · 28d
I think dumbass is seeing the pendulum swinging back and the metaphorical blades being sharpened.
AllNewTypeFace@leminal.space · 1 pts · 29d
“Well, if it isn’t the consequences of my actions”
Almacca@aussie.zone · 6 pts · 29d
What consequences?