Some of the heads of cabinets are confirmed. The vast majority of the people making up the cabinets are not.
Got a tip for us?
Let us know
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
OpenAI Swiftly Rebuffs Musk's Surprise $97.4 Billion Buyout Attempt
- Thread starter MacRumors
- Start date
- Sort by reaction score
It appears that you don’t even know what the cabinet is. Your statement makes no sense. There is no “heads of cabinets”. There is one cabinet whose purpose is to advise the president.
Everyone except the vice president and chief of staff require Senate confirmation (maybe one more?).
People like the Secretary of State, etc. are confirmed. The staff under them are not, which is the bulk of the government and what I was referring to.
The US Digital Services was an existing department that reports to the Executive Office. They are not elected officials. Now that it has been renamed to DOGE and asked to perform an audit, suddenly it is evil and people are using the "nobody voted for him" argument which is really silly. Not one single person ever complained about that before.
If you don’t know what the cabinet is, maybe you’re not as informed as you think you are. Especially since you don’t seem to know that an audit doesn’t involve shutting down congressionally authorized spending in violation of the law because you don’t like it.
Democrats aren’t against an audit. Again, we already have a government agency that does that.
Musk has too much power. Period. He bought his way into sensitive government data. He bought an election. He has already ignored multiple conflicts of interest. He controls one of the largest messaging platforms on the planet. He cut off Starlink access to Ukraine to prevent a military operation. He certainly can’t be trusted to control the leading AI developer on top of all that.
Watching what we are wasting money on absolutely proves that the existing audit system is broken and corrupt beyond repair.
DOGE doesn't shut anything down. They audit and make recommendations that may or may not be taken by the administration.
Money can be authorized by congress but it doesn't mean it is always spent (and in many, many cases not on what was authorized). I have seen this my entire career working with defense contractors and in health and human services. The system is badly broken and it's refreshing to see the crap we are spending money on being exposed.
If you think Altman can be trusted, you are naive.
Last edited:
Love how people initially thought Starlink didn't work and thought Elon was a scammer, but when people saw Starlink became essential to a country, cutting it off is something Elon shouldn't do.
Which is it? Starlink is a scam so cutting it off wouldn't matter? Or Ukraine should thank Elon for making Starlink possible, otherwise Ukraine would have had to surrender a long time ago?
You should check your facts on this one. In addition to Secretaries, Department Assistants Secretaries, Under Secretaries, General Councils, CFOs, and Inspectors General all require Senate confirmation. In addition, many Agnecy leaders require Senate confirmation. See Wikipedia article on Presidential appointments with Senate confirmation: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_...idential_appointment_with_Senate_confirmation
As for Musk vs Altman, I don’t know how much difference it makes to the average person. AI is going to change our lives in the next 10 years, and I am afraid of the concentration of too much wealth and power in a few people’s hands. Maybe that has already happened, and there is no turning back. Is Musk a better guy than Altman or visa versa…..well, that kind of misses the point.
He. Is. An. Imbecile.
No matter how good he may be at rocketships, his skill level there pales in comparison to how good he is at ripping people off.
AI will change lives, but I think the lack of control and transparency is going to matter far more than people's feelings about Musk or Altman. AGI could literally turn into something like Skynet as a worst case, but not so far fetched possibility. Researchers have resigned from Open AI because they don't believe they are acting responsibly. And going closed source and for profit only makes that worse.
Again, you don't know what you are talking about. The GAO identified $240 billion of wasted funds in 2022. Mostly through over-payments to vendors and other organizations. How is that corruption on the part of the GAO?
DOGE has identified congressionally funded programs that they disagree with. Those are very different things.
Well, since I specifically told you I don't trust him, what is the point of this statement?
Since I'm not one of the people that said those things, I don't need to justify them. But your attempt to brand me a hypocrite because other people said stuff doesn't address the point I was making about the excessive power that Musk already has that should preclude him from taking over the leading AI developer as well.
We have over 100k of people with the same social security number and people over 150 years old receiving benefits. Those things were discovered and reported by DOGE. So either the previous auditors are corrupt or grossly incompetent. Just one example of many and they are just getting started.
You forgot, "Or he's lying". Until he comes and says. "Oh yeah I got that wrong" later, or we see the ACTUAL evidence of his claims and if they are anything like his claims about the Hyperloop, Semi, Cybertruck or Roadster then........................
Or... Musk is wrong (for example, condoms to the Gaza strip.) Or... auditors have found problems that haven't been fixed. Or... these things have been reported on before. Or... massive systems aren't properly funded by Congress. Or... Musk is lying or purposely leaving out important context for political purposes.
But, again, to stay on topic, the amount of power that he has is simply massive. It would be insane to allow him to control more ways that information is promoted to the public.
Last edited:
Or he is right about most things and because he is on the wrong side of some people's political aisle, everything says will be discounted. $50 million in condoms was going to Gaza, just not the Gaze Strip but in Mozambique. Both are equally bad uses of our tax money with all the problems we have in our own country.
I do agree this is going off topic too much so I'll bow out of further comments.
Again, you're misinformed. The money that went to the Gaza Province was far less than $50 million (closer to $5 million IIRC) and was to fight the spread of HIV and other sexually transmitted diseases. Obviously, the US has a direct interest in curbing the spread of infectious diseases around the world, so that they don't make their way to us.
Which is kinda the point. Musk has abused the power that he has to spread misinformation for political purposes. Controlling yet another way that people will get information pushed to them in the future would make things worse.
I guess you are misinformed as well. According to the BBC: "Mozambique was awarded $83.5m for "prevention, care, support and treatment interventions within HIV and TB facilities and communities" for a programme running until September 2026."
Spend it on those issues in our own country.
Nope. I was talking about 2023 spending. You are referencing multi-year spending.
Again, controlling the spread of infectious diseases benefits our country. Congress considers it a good investment.
You are talking about multi-year funding for treatment and prevention of multiple illness for an entire country. (BTW - I am guessing that TB probably = Tuberculosis). This includes money for facilities and clinics. That is a far cry from $50M in one year for condoms alone in a single region of Mozambique that happens to be named Gaza. If DOGE is lying about this, what else are they making-up? Or maybe they aren't lying, they just might be incompetent college kids trying to make headlines. Either way, I am not reassured.
I am all for identifying government waste and improving efficiency. But, there need to be credible recommendations with associated budget cuts that would be passed by Congressional appropriation bills and signed by the President. That is the process set forth in the Constitution, and the GOP has the majority to do it. The process simply needs to be transparent (ie. Congressional hearings so constituents can let their representatives know what they think) and the data needs to be credible. Unilaterally cutting programs based upon half truths about spending that does not even exist will not engender credibility or trust in government.
Edit: What does all of the have to do with the topic of this thread? Everything. We are dealing with an oligarch (Oxford defines as "a very rich business leader with a great deal of political influence") who is attempting to buy the largest AI platform. What are the chances that he will use his government position to obtain subsides and tax breaks for his business at the expense of other government programs that serve a larger constituency? Without proper Congressional oversight and review, what are the chances that he will create false data and narratives to make cuts that are self-serving? Worth reading: https://fortune.com/2025/02/13/elon-musk-rich-taxpayer-expense/
Last edited:
Still no pushback from Musk or his fellow free speech absolutist on the government censorship of medical and academic research that conflicts with their politics.
How can you trust someone with the future of AI who refuses to stand up for one of his core values despite having the power to do so?
How can you trust someone with the future of AI who refuses to stand up for one of his core values despite having the power to do so?
This is the most messed up part of all of this
There is actually bipartisan support for identifying waste and improving efficiencies, and either way, the Republicans have the majorities to get things done.
How any of them are ok with just disregarding Constitutional processes and legal obligations is absolutely beyond anything I would have imagined.
You can not run any serious government with an "ends justify the means" rationale for one branch of the Government run amok
I really don't know how the US comes back from this to anything resembling "normalcy" as it's been known for the last 70+ years
Last edited:
I'm just showing you a credible source that backs up Elon's knowledge. You argued "He hasn't really got a handle on what he's talking about". I'm sure you don't like him, but that doesn't take away his knowledge on the matter.
I said people, not you. Don't put words in my mouth.
"Excessive power" came from Elon spearheading technologies that countries rely on. He specifically dictated that usage of Starlink must not be used to kill/for war. If Ukraine is going to ignore that rule, Elon has every right to turn it off. Don't like it, go use another provider. When it comes to AI, Elon is also applying the do not kill rule and should be trusted to control AI. He's one of the few asking for AI to slow down and for government to regulate AI, meanwhile others are speeding up AI development and taking safety risks.
Seeing how you mentioned that you never said Starlink is a scam, you must agree that Ukraine should thank Elon for being able to use Starlink.
you want the people who are causing waste to review/approve cuts to the waste? ridiculous.