On Elon and Trump

The Trump / Musk break up was always going to happen. Because they are just two raging narcissists determined to get whatever they want out of each other at the expense of actual people and communities. As soon as they stopped being useful to each other, well, drama that rivals Housewives started. It’s Tech Bro 101! It is Move Fast and Break Things: Government Edition!

There’s been a lot of coverage of the public crashout but I want to make 2 points:  

No, Elon Musk is not on our side. 

This whole breakup has prompted conversations and headlines about Musk becoming an ally to the left. Like what the helly is in this article? “Dems eye a villain-to-ally arc for Musk.” Elon Musk bought his spot in the federal government, swooped in, caused chaos and is now leaving in a huff because he didn’t get everything he wanted. In what world would the man who did a Nazi salute at a Trump rally be an ally to Democratic causes? We don’t need an ally like Musk, we need Democrats to get on the same page, listen to their constituents and do literally anything that doesn’t allow for more harms now or Tech Bro takeovers in the future.    

Girl, what about the data??

Last week, while the girlies were going back and forth on Twitter, the Supreme Court ruled that DOGE could have unfettered access to non-anonymized Social Security data. That’s millions of peoples’ information in the hands of a made up federal agency started by Musk. Even without him at the helm, Elon Musk has laid the groundwork for how DOGE runs. What’s the risk? Harvard’s Ash Center for Democratic Governance and Innovation laid the risks out earlier this year which included the DOGE “[providing or selling] data to foreign governments, data brokers, and/or private companies” and doxxing anyone deemed disloyal to this administration. These risks are too great to get lost in the shuffle of a Twitter fight (which, not gonna lie, is funny).

My takeaway from this whole thing: we can't focus on one hero, one ally, or one anything. We need to be building a strong movement to defend our communities and change the systems (not individuals) that are not working for us.