Free Republic

Elon Musk’s blowup with President Trump may have doomed Washington’s most potent partnership, but the billionaire’s signature cost-cutting project has become deeply embedded in Mr. Trump’s administration and could be there to stay.At the Department of Energy, for example, a former member of the Department of Government Efficiency is now serving as the chief of staff.At the Interior Department, DOGE members have been converted into federal employees and embedded into the agency, said a person familiar with the matter, who spoke on condition of anonymity out of fear of retaliation. And at the Environmental Protection Agency, where a spokeswoman said...

Musk and Gor disliked each other since before Trump reclaimed power on Jan. 20 — with the Tesla and SpaceX CEO describing Gor as “sleazy” during the transition and questioning his staffing picks. But the world’s richest man had the president’s ear and friendship through last week. Simmering behind the scenes was a grudge nursed by Gor over a March 6 Cabinet meeting, during which Musk “humiliated” him by slamming the pace of staffing the administration, said the sources, each of whom have interacted closely with Gor. “He was bragging to other people that he was going to get one...

PULSE POINTS:❓What Happened: The Office of Management and Budget (OMB) says its analysis of President Donald J. Trump’s “One Big Beautiful Bill” finds the legislation introduces historic fiscal reforms, achieving $1.7 trillion in mandatory savings and reducing the deficit by $1.407 trillion. This analysis contradicts a fiscal score released by the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) that claims the bill would increase the deficit by $2.4 trillion.👥 Who’s Involved: President Donald J. Trump, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO), the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), OMB Director Russ Vought, Elon Musk, and the U.S. Congress.📍 Where & When: The OMB’s top-line...

President Trump is planning on parting ways with all traces of Elon Musk — including the Tesla he bought at full price on March 11. The president is looking to now sell or give away his red Tesla, a White House official confirmed to The Post. The vehicle is currently parked in the White House parking lot and was intended for staff use. Trump made a big show of buying the Tesla weeks ago to support Musk, who was suffering from nation-wide attacks on Tesla vehicles and buildings. But Trump is still hot over his massive fight with Musk that...

The open acrimony between the two men comes after the billionaire denounced President Trump’s signature domestic policy bill as an “abomination.” President Trump and Elon Musk’s alliance dissolved into open acrimony on Thursday, as the two men hurled personal attacks at each other after the billionaire had unleashed broadsides against the president’s signature domestic policy bill. While meeting with Friedrich Merz, Germany’s new chancellor, in the Oval Office, Mr. Trump broke days of uncharacteristic silence and unloaded on Mr. Musk, who until last week was a top presidential adviser. “I’m very disappointed in Elon,” Mr. Trump said. “I’ve helped Elon...

Smart people can be really dumb. Sometimes it’s preferable to just be brilliant, rather than genius. For the majority of us in the middle of the Bell Curve, being smart-enough is sufficient to be commonsense conservatives. Elon Musk is in the genius category, and comes with some of the hazards associated with a high IQ. Indeed, he is capable of stupidity, sometimes in business (Tesla Cybertruck “Armour glass” demonstration and overpaying for Twitter, are just two examples). And sometimes in politics, as evidenced by calling the big, beautiful bill (BBB) a “pork-filled, disgusting abomination.” As stark as that criticism is,...

MEMPHIS — For decades, this storied American city has watched companies come but mostly go, its vacant storefronts and blighted buildings a reminder of its days as a thriving manufacturing hub and the painful decline that followed as those jobs vanished.As Paul Young, the city’s mayor, puts it, Memphis has been “the city people forgot about.”Then last summer, Memphis landed what Young and local business leaders called the city’s largest corporate investment in a generation — a “transformative” development for a place that has struggled to convince outsiders of its continued potential.The project was something every city dreams of, Young...

Tech billionaire Elon Musk — who spearheaded the cost-cutting efforts at the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) — said he was “disappointed” to see the massive legislative package of Republican priorities make it through the House. “I was, like, disappointed to see the massive spending bill, frankly, which increases the budget deficit… and it undermines the work that the DOGE team is doing,” Musk said in a preview of an interview set to air this weekend on “CBS Sunday Morning.” The bill — titled the “One Big Beautiful Bill Act,” adopting Trump’s slogan for the measure — passed the House...

Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton warned that Vice President JD Vance and Elon Musk are pushing America to boost its birthrate to “return to being a Christian nation.” On May 1, Clinton spoke at the Newmark Civic Life Series in Manhattan at the 92nd Street Y, New York. She argued that there is a “very blatant effort to basically send a message, most exemplified by Vance and Musk, and others, that, you know, what we really need from you women are more children… and what that really means is ‘You should go back to doing what you were born...

Administration officials and members of billionaire Elon Musk’s U.S. DOGE Service — aided by local and federal law enforcement agencies — seized the institute’s privately owned headquarters in March and summarily removed its leaders.“The President’s efforts here to take over an organization outside of those bounds, contrary to statute established by Congress and by acts of force and threat using local and federal law enforcement officers, represented a gross usurpation of power and a way of conducting government affairs that unnecessarily traumatized the committed leadership and employees of USIP, who deserved better,” Howell wrote in her 102-page opinion.The judge said...

Harry Potter and Monty Python and the Holy Grail actor John Cleese suggested in a now-deleted post on social media, that White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller be suspended by his neck over comments made regarding habeas corpus. “I see Stephen Miller says he is actively thinking about suspending ‘habeas corpus,'” Cleese wrote in a now-deleted post on X. “As this has been the keystone of the Rule of Law for centuries, I’d like to suggest that we actively think about suspending Stephen Miller… Preferably by the neck.”

Neil Young is facing criticism for a new song he wrote about “fascists” buying Teslas. The 79-year-old singer-songwriter debuted the song, reportedly titled “Let’s Roll Again,” at the Light Up the Blue charity concert in Los Angeles over the weekend. “If you’re a fascist, get a Tesla / It’s electric, it doesn’t matter / If you’re a Democrat, taste your freedom / Get whatever you want, taste your freedom,” Young could be heard singing in clips circulating on social media. “Come on Ford, come on GM / Come on Chrysler, let’s roll again,” the song continued. “Build something special that...

Tesla started a formal process to find its next CEO last month, amidst declining public opinion about billionaire Elon Musk, according to a bombshell report from the Wall Street Journal. “Board members reached out to several executive search firms to work on a formal process for finding Tesla’s next chief executive,” the Journal reported Wednesday night, citing people familiar with the matter. “The board narrowed its focus to a major search firm … The current status of the succession planning couldn’t be determined. It is also unclear if Musk, himself a Tesla board member, was aware of the effort, or...

Following the Tesla Q1 earnings call and a profit drop of 71%, Elon Musk has announced his imminent departure from the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE).A longtime hero of the left due to his work on global warming initiatives — solar panels and electric vehicles — Elon Musk began to fall out of favor initially when he bought Twitter, announcing that he wanted to defend “freedom of speech.” He became an absolute enemy of the left when he joined the Trump administration as the titular head of the Department of Government Efficiency.In the initial months of Elon’s work with DOGE,...

The Hennepin County Attorney’s Office has decided not to file criminal charges against a 33-year-old man who admits inflicting more than $20,000 in damage to six Teslas in Minneapolis over a few-day span last month.

The Hennepin County Attorney’s Office has decided not to file criminal charges against a 33-year-old man accused of inflicting $21,000 in damage to six Teslas in Minneapolis over a few-day span. Instead, the office will file for Dylan Bryan Adams, of Minneapolis, to be entered into an adult diversion program meant for first-time, low level offenders. “Our main priorities are to secure restitution for the victims and hold Mr. Adams accountable,” said Hennepin County Attorney’s Office spokesman Daniel Borgertpoepping, in a statement. “As a result, we will file for pre-charge diversion to best facilitate both of those goals. This is...

The acting commissioner of the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) was replaced Friday, only three days after assuming the role, as his appointment triggered a power struggle between Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and Elon Musk of the Department of Government Efficiency, the New York Times reported. Gary Shapley was replaced after Bessent complained to President Donald Trump that Musk circumvented Bessent’s office to secure the position for Shapley, the NYT reported. The outlet cited people who said they were familiar with the situation. Shapley was a longstanding IRS agent who accused the Biden administration’s Department of Justice of dragging out its...

Can you imagine what would have happened if President Donald Trump 45 had the kind of people in his cabinet in the 2020 Summer of Love that he has now? I often think about this. When I hear of another of another Tesla bomber being busted by the feds, however, it gives us a pretty good idea of what those days might have been like. Trump didn’t make it to the White House in 2020. The overwhelming majority of those violent rioters who torched multiple U.S. cities, destroyed other peoples’ property, did billions of dollars in damage, and were responsible...

HAT TIP to Elon Musk sycophant, Mario Nawfal, who gleefully writes: “Elon’s DOGE just teamed up with Palantir — the AI data company co-founded by Peter Thiel — to help the IRS build a massive “mega API.”What’s a mega API? Think of it like a giant, turbo-charged plug that lets computers talk to each other. This one would let the IRS finally access all of its scattered, ancient tax data in one place.For 3 days straight, Palantir’s tech geniuses, DOGE officials, and IRS engineers have been locked in a digital war room, trying to modernize a system that still faxes...

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) assured attendees at one of his “Fighting Oligarchy” rallies Saturday they are “making Donald Trump and Elon Musk very nervous” as he laid out a string of grievances with the current Washington administration. The 83-year-old senator spoke to his supporters as they gathered in the Gloria Molina Grand Park in Los Angeles alongside guests including politicians, union representatives and musical acts.