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Musk Connections: Unknown
Other Corporate Affiliations: Andreessen Horowitz-backed start up Comma.ai, Dupont Pioneer
DOGE Deployment: Chief Information Officer, Office of Personnel Management

Musk Connections: Former engineer at Tesla, Director of Electrical and Software Engineering at the Boring Company
Other Corporate Affiliations: Driver assist technology startup Comma.ai
DOGE Deployment: Office of Personnel Management

This week, the Trump administration is moving fast to dismantle the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB), abandoning several active enforcement cases against financiers ripping off consumers. The SEC paused its case against Trump ally Justin Sun and handed the crypto industry another victory. Elon Musk continues to have field day after field day, slashing agencies he doesn’t like and watching his businesses balloon in value since the election. Several Trump appointees (like CFTC Chair Nominee Brian Quintenz and acting administrator of the PHMSA Ben Kochman) have major conflicts of interests which will likely skew agency action towards the interests of corporations at the expense of the public. We also witnessed an instance of blatant bias in how legal actions are handled, with leniency toward Republicans.

Musk Connections: Unknown
Other Corporate Affiliations: COO Kukun; Director of Worldwide Marketing at Pepsi Cola International; Head of OEM Marketing at Microsoft
DOGE Deployments: Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD)

When Donald Trump nominated North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum to be his interior secretary, centrist to right-of-center “abundance agenda” advocates were jubilant. Politico reported, with typically amoral zeal, that Interior would be led by an “overnight rock star in the tech and energy worlds.” Burgum has a foot in both camps, as a former governor from fracking country with deep ties to fossil fuel executives like fracking magnate Harold Hamm, and a venture capitalist invested in software companies who sold his own software company to Microsoft for $1.1 billion in 2001.

Elon Musk isn’t the only billionaire puppetting the federal government. Sam Altman also has staff in his pocket. All it cost was $100,000

Some Notes on Centrists Blaming Everyone but Themselves

Given how much our antitrust enforcers have achieved for the American people in recent years, let’s hope the Maryland governor is wrong about which direction Kamala Harris is trending.

On May 28th 2024, the Revolving Door Project sent a letter to the office of Deputy Attorney General Lisa Monaco expressing concern over her recently reported off-the-record meeting with senior tech company executives. The Revolving Door Project called on DAG Monaco to publicly disclose who she met with, what was discussed, and permanently discontinue holding private meetings that may sow public distrust of the Department of Justice.

Today the Revolving Door Project and Fight For The Future released Congressional Appropriators & Big Tech, a special report detailing financial ties, revolving door moves, and other conflicts of interest between congressional appropriators (and their staff) and monopolistic companies like the Big Tech giants.

Facing an existential legal threat, the scandal-plagued software company has hired price-fixing monopolists’ favorite lawyers.