Column: Elon Musk’s ‘shoot first, aim later’ style requires a fact check
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How very noble of Elon Musk to admit he makes mistakes.
On Tuesday, the man to whom President Trump has apparently ceded the presidency in exchange for $250 million in political contributions, conducted a bizarre Oval Office news conference where he admitted, sort of, that he is fallible.
Musk stood facing reporters as Trump sat nearly mute behind his desk, sidelined after a few opening remarks.
Musk was accompanied by X, the 4-year-old son he shares with the musician Grimes. As children often do, the little boy stole the show. But this was hardly a charming John-John Kennedy style display. It was utterly obnoxious.
X sat on Musk’s shoulders, poked his fingers into his daddy’s ears, picked his nose, wiped his finger on the Resolute Desk and told the president to “go away.”
A reporter asked Musk to explain why he allowed the Trump administration to wrongly accuse the U.S. Agency for International Development of sending $50 million to Gaza for condoms.
Elon Musk wants to ‘delete entire agencies.’ With Trump’s blessing, the billionaire consolidated control over large swaths of the federal government.
“Some of the things that I say will be incorrect, and should be corrected,” said the unelected bureaucrat who likes to rail against unelected bureaucrats. “So, nobody’s going to bat a thousand. I mean … you know, we will make mistakes, but we’ll act quickly to correct any mistakes.”
His nonchalant response immediately brought to mind the iconic scene in “Dr. Strangelove” where the war-happy Gen. “Buck” Turgidson — played by George C. Scott — suggests dropping a nuclear bomb on Russia.
“You’re talking about mass murder, General, not war!” exclaims President Merkin Muffley, played by the great Peter Sellers.
“Mr. President,” replies Turgidson, “I’m not saying we wouldn’t get our hair mussed.”
The states’ lawsuit claims that Musk has “roamed through the federal government unraveling agencies, accessing sensitive data, and causing mass chaos and confusion.”
How did the egregious lie about sending condoms to Gaza take hold?
On Jan. 28, during her first official briefing, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt announced to reporters that “there was about to be $50 million taxpayer dollars that went out the door to fund condoms in Gaza” before Trump and Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency stepped in to prevent “a preposterous waste of taxpayer money.”
A week or so later, Trump inflated the amount to $100 million and said the condoms were going to Hamas, an indefensible perversion of an already indefensible lie.
The State Department had been in talks with Elon Musk’s Tesla company to buy armored electric vehicles, but the plans have been put on hold by the Trump administration after reports emerged about a potential $400-million purchase.
Based on government reports, CNN’s Daniel Dale reported that in the fiscal year 2023, USAID “condom aid” totaled about $8 million globally. According to the agency, Dale found, Mozambique, which has a province called Gaza, received “about $5.4 million worth of non-condom contraceptives.” Despite Mozambique’s extremely high HIV infection rate — it ranks eighth in the world — the report included no mention of an allocation for condoms.
You could call the accusation a mistake, or you could more accurately call it a lie designed to generate outrage and mistrust about the many life-saving foreign aid programs administered by USAID.
This is the DOGE approach: shoot first, aim later, if at all.
Take the lie that Musk spread on X about federal emergency funds being used to house migrants in luxury hotels in New York City.
“The @DOGE team just discovered that FEMA sent $59M LAST WEEK to luxury hotels in New York City to house illegal migrants,” Musk posted on X. “Sending this money violated the law and is in gross insubordination to the President’s executive order. That money is meant for American disaster relief and instead is being spent on high end hotels for illegals!”
The Treasury Department’s Office of Inspector General is auditing security of the federal government’s payment system amid concerns over Elon Musk’s team.
And yet, the DOGE team had discovered nothing of the sort.
FactCheck.org, the New York Times and AP all checked out the luxury-hotel-for-migrants claim and discovered — surprise, surprise — that it was a falsehood.
No money for disaster relief misallocated, no money went to fancy hotels. Federal funds administered by FEMA — not disaster dollars — were sent to the city of New York, which spent an average of $156 a night on hotels for migrants, hardly a luxury rate. Nevertheless, FEMA unilaterally clawed back $80 million used to house migrants in New York City and fired four federal employees for doing their jobs.
Why let the facts get in the way of a story that can whip up anger at the government and support for Musk’s dubious DOGE?
Musk’s biggest lie is that he and his “nerd army” of young tech bros operate with transparency.
“I fully expect to be scrutinized and get, you know, a daily proctology exam, basically,” said the sophomoric billionaire who embodies my belief that great fortunes can infantilize their owners. “It’s not like I think I can get away with something.”
His stab at humility might be reassuring if anything in the actual record supported it.
Bluesky: @rabcarian.bsky.social. Threads: @rabcarian
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