What would happen if Pedro Sánchez, overnight, decide Without counting the Parliament or any other control agency, I would give access to, what do I know, the Social Security, the Tax Agency and, ultimately, to the entire Government Payment System? His colleague would have total domain, for example, of that money that Hacienda must return after the income statement, of the salary of the complex of the official or the financing of health and education. Does it sound absurd, right? Or the less crazy. It is not difficult to assume the reaction that would raise, for example, in an opposition that even now speaks of “dictatorship.” Well This is what is happening in the United States. He has put it into practice in just two weeks in office Donald Trump. Your business? Elon Musk.
Among the multitude of executive orders that Trump signed on his first day back to the White House was one in which the United States digital service renamed, an organism created by Barack Obama to solve the endless errors of the Healthcare website. Gov, as Doge, the acronym in English of the new government efficiency department directed by the technological tycoon owner of Tesla, Spacex or the social network X. The alleged objective of Doge, which also takes its name from a famous meme on the Internet that led In a cryptocurrency, it is to find formulas for reduce government spending, reduce federal template and use technology to improve bureaucracy.
A bit The same strategy that Musk followed in what was previously Twitter. As soon as the company has 44,000 million dollars, the richest man in the world began an aggressive plan to cut expenses to the maximum. “In addition to not paying rent [de las antiguas sedes de la red social] and say goodbye, Twitter is auctioning high -end office furniture, kitchen equipment and other items that were used by the more than 7,500 full -time workers that came to have throughout the world, ”they wrote in Los Angeles Times. The approach is the same. Although they have not reached the auction, with the purpose of making mass layoffs in the personnel who work in the administration, Donald Trump and Elon Musk have offered all workers the option of renouncing their position but continuing to charge until the end of September. Otherwise, they will risk the cessations. Until this week, at least 40,000 employees would have accepted the offer. Trump had set on February 6 as the deadline to respond, but a court has temporarily blocked it until they can investigate the legality of the measure. It is not the only order of the Republican that the judges have the point of view.
It happens, however, that X is a private company and the United States, no. They have published this Friday a report that invites prevention. “So that no one should have to say this, but we are in a situation in which it is necessary to say, very high and clear, before it is too late to do something about it: the United States is not an emerging company. If you manage it as such, it will fail, ”writes the journalist Brian Barret.
At the moment, the Musk team, which has surrounded itself with young Tech Leales, has already penetrated the main agencies of the United States: the Office of Personnel Management, the General Services Administration and, worse, the Treasury Department. They are, the “institutions that, as a whole, function as the central nervous system of the US government.” Only the Treasury Department manages more than six billion dollars. According to Shahid, “”Musk’s team now has total access to the treasure payment systema vast infrastructure responsible for paying social security checks, the benefits of Medicare, tax reimbursements and government contracts, in essence, the financial arteries of the federal government. This unprecedented measure gives Musk’s non -elected agents the ability to monitor, delay or even block payments, which gives them de facto control over billions of dollars in government expenses without supervision, a level of power that could reconfigure the function itself of the State ”.
A few days ago, that the largest category in the Department of the Treasury, David A. LeBryk, had resigned from his position “after a confrontation with billionaire elonos Elon Musk for access to sensitive payment systems.” According to him Post“Musk doge -affiliated officials have been asking for access to the system [de pagos] from after the elections, […] requests that have been reiterated recently. ” A system on which “tens, if not hundreds, millions of people throughout the country”. From the Treasury, among many other things, the benefits of social security and Medicare, the salaries of the federal staff, payments to government contractors and the beneficiaries of subsidies and tax reimbursement are distributed. Access the system would give Musk the ability to obtain millions of personal data from US citizens. It should also be noted that Musk itself is a US contractor. Their companies have benefited from contracts with the government worth millions of dollars.
Senator Ron Wyden, who The New York Times Define as “the Democrat with the highest rank in the Senate Finance Committee,” Shipping, Scott Besent, worried about the latest news. “To put it without surroundings, these payment systems simply cannot fail, and any intrusion into them for political reasons can cause serious damage to our country and the economy. I am deeply concerned that, after the freezing of federal subsidies and loans earlier this week, these officials associated with Musk have intended to access these systems to retain payments to any program. I can’t think of any reason why political operators who have demonstrated flagrant contempt for law need to access these systems” In the letter, he also recalled that Musk could even access the data of companies that competed with his.
In the same line as WiredShahid warns of the consequences that this can suppose, if perhaps in a more crude language. “Loyal to Musk – describes – armed with executive orders instead of rifles, are destroying public administration, excluding officials from government systems and dictating policies from a meeting room transformed into a war room. Trump, a strong man in decline, is the decorative figure; Musk, the true leader of the Board. Treasury, national security, federal agencies, one by one, are falling under private control. In any other country, experts would call it a coup d’etat, a manual coup d’etat”.
The same opinion is shared by the historian and professor of Yale Timothy Snyder, who: “A couple of dozens of young people go from office office, civil and armed dresses only with flash units. Using technical jargon and vague references to Orders above, they manage to access the basic computer systems of the federal government. That coup d’etat is happening and, if we do not recognize it as what it is, it could succeed“.
