Musk, Elon

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      What’s at Stake in Wisconsin

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      Elon Musk sees the state’s Supreme Court race as a way of preserving Republicans’ power in Washington.About nine minutes into his time onstage in Green Bay last night, Elon Musk neatly explained why he — a billionaire technologist who is already distracted by a little project in Washington — had poured $20 million and hours of his time into a Wisconsin Supreme Court election.“What’s happening on Tuesday is a vote for which party controls the U.S. House of Representatives,” he said.The party that controls the chamber, he added, “controls the country, which then steers the course of Western civilization.”Anybody not currently serving in the House might consider that last part to be hyperbole. But Musk’s words revealed his stated motivation behind his involvement on behalf of the conservative candidate, Judge Brad Schimel: He sees it as a way of preserving Republicans’ power well beyond Wisconsin.He has a point. Democrats don’t talk about it in quite such existential terms, but they are widely expected to challenge the narrowly divided state’s congressional maps, which currently favor Republicans, if voters maintain a liberal majority on the Supreme Court.With Republicans holding a thin majority in the House now, any changes that make it easier for Democrats to win seats could have major consequences in midterm elections next year.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Elon Musk Says ‘Destiny of Humanity’ Rests on Wisconsin Judicial Race

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      Elon Musk framed Tuesday’s election for Wisconsin’s state Supreme Court in nothing less than apocalyptic terms, telling a crowd on Sunday night in Green Bay that the vote could ultimately swing control of Congress — meaning it could effectively “affect the entire destiny of humanity.”Mr. Musk revels in provocative, inflammatory rhetoric. But his remarks — and the visit itself, 36 hours before polls open for Election Day — reflected his extraordinary push to bolster Judge Brad Schimel, the conservative candidate for the State Supreme Court. The election, he said, is not “some kind of judicial thing that is not that important.”“What’s happening on Tuesday is a vote for which party controls the U.S. House of Representatives. That is why it is so significant,” Mr. Musk said, referring to the key role that judges could play in congressional redistricting. “And whichever party controls the House to a significant degree controls the country, which then steers the course of Western civilization. I feel like this is one of those things that may not seem that it’s going to affect the entire destiny of humanity, but I think it will.”The billionaire Mr. Musk, a close adviser to President Trump, dispensed two giant $1 million checks onstage to Wisconsin voters, following through with a well-worn gimmick despite an unsuccessful, last-minute lawsuit from Democrats that tried to put a stop to it.Mr. Musk and allied groups have spent over $20 million to help the conservative candidate, and he said on Sunday that he considered Judge Schimel an underdog. “We’ve got to pull a rabbit out of the hat — next level. We actually have to have a steady stream of rabbits out of the hat, like it’s an arc of rabbits flying through the air, and then landing in a voting booth.”Mr. Musk took the stage wearing his own headgear — a cheesehead hat popular with Packers fans, before signing it and tossing it into the crowd. More

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      Where Oligarchy and Populism Meet

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      More from our inbox:The Cruelties of Cash BailThalassa Raasch for The New York TimesTo the Editor:Re “It’s About Ideology, Not Oligarchy,” by Ross Douthat (column, March 23):Ross Douthat asks the right questions in this column: Why have Elon Musk and the other Silicon Valley hotshots swung hard behind President Trump? Why are they pouring money and energy into the MAGA movement? And why is Mr. Trump giving them free rein? But Mr. Douthat provides the wrong answer. It is not credible to think, as he suggests, that Mr. Musk has suddenly committed his life to lowering the deficit or shrinking the government.We know quite well what Mr. Musk and his tech-bro pals want: to translate their tremendous wealth into power, and use that power to remake the United States into a vehicle for the endless growth of technology and, not incidentally, of their own wealth and glory. There is ideology here, an Ayn Randian glorification of the noble creators. It is an ideology that amounts to oligarchy.Mr. Trump is seen as the vehicle for this transformation. His interests and those of the tech elite overlap, for now. Both want to fatally weaken the government and leave it open to a takeover. Mr. Trump sees himself as the new owner, while Mr. Musk and others want it run by the enlightened few. They will clash, but whoever wins, the American people will be the losers.Adam WassermanSanta Fe, N.M.To the Editor:Ross Douthat should take his cue on oligarchy from countries where it thrives. The central characteristic of these governments is rule of (a few) men rather than rule of law. The concentration of political and economic power is typically maintained not by a coherent ideology or by policies that explicitly favor the superrich, but by identity politics that divide people into “us” and “them.”In parts of Eastern Europe, oligarchs rely on a mixture of jingoism and ethnic nationalism fueled by external grievances and anti-immigrant and anti-L.G.B.T.Q. sentiment. These narratives justify the power of the oligarchs and maintain the system.Across the board, the rule of law unravels because it constrains the power of the oligarchs. Is America headed in that direction?We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      U.S. Institute of Peace Staff in U.S. Fired as Trump Seeks Nonprofit’s End

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      Nearly all of the U.S. Institute of Peace’s staff members in the United States were fired on Friday, a sharp escalation of the Trump administration and Elon Musk’s DOGE team’s efforts to eliminate the government-funded independent nonprofit, according to current and former staff members and termination notices obtained by The New York Times.The late-night firings of about 100 workers at the organization dealt it a severe blow as Trump officials have sought to exert control over the nonprofit and to dismantle it. Earlier this month, the administration and Mr. Musk’s team gained access to the institute’s building in a dramatic showdown, with the help of private security and local law enforcement.The White House did not answer questions about whether the administration planned to entirely eliminate the institute, which was created by Congress 41 years ago to support diplomatic solutions to global conflicts. But a spokeswoman suggested that President Trump saw no purpose to the institute’s work.“President Trump ended the era of forever wars and established peace in his first term, and he is carrying out his mandate to eliminate bloat and save taxpayer dollars,” the spokeswoman, Anna Kelly, said in a statement on Saturday. “Taxpayers don’t want to spend $50 million per year on a publicly funded ‘research institute’ that has failed to deliver peace.”Dozens of U.S.-based staff members received a late-night email to their personal addresses from an acting head of human resources telling them their employment had ended as of Friday. The Times reviewed the emails, which asked staff members to sign a separation agreement with restrictions on seeking legal recourse over their firings.The Trump administration first targeted the institute in a February executive order that called for the institute’s work and its staff to be reduced to its “minimum presence and function required by law.”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Specter of Auto Tariffs Spurs Some Car Buyers to Rush Purchases

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      “Prices are going to shoot up now,” one shopper said. But some dealers said that economic concerns might be keeping people away.Ziggy Duchnowski spent Saturday morning car shopping along Northern Boulevard in Queens with two goals in mind.He wanted to find a new small car for his wife, and he hoped to strike a deal before the new tariffs that President Trump is imposing on imported cars and trucks affect prices.“The word on the street is prices are going to shoot up now,” said Mr. Duchnowski, 45, a union carpenter who voted for Mr. Trump, holding the hands of his two small children.The tariffs — 25 percent on vehicles and parts produced outside the United States — will have a broad impact on the North American auto industry. They are supposed to go into effect on April 3 and are sure to raise the prices of new cars and trucks.They will also force automakers to adjust their North American manufacturing operations and scramble to find ways to cut costs to offset the tariffs. And for now at least, they are spurring some consumers to buy vehicles before sticker prices jump.Analysts estimate that the tariffs will significantly increase the prices of new vehicles, adding a few thousand dollars for entry-level models to $10,000 or more for high-end cars and trucks. Higher prices for new vehicles are also likely to nudge used-car prices higher.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Spartz, Republican Lawmaker, Faces Anger at Town Halls Over Musk Cuts and Hegseth

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      House Republicans have been told by their party’s leadership to avoid town halls after Democrats and others began to seize on the events to vent frustration with the Trump administration.Representative Victoria Spartz, a third-term Republican from suburban Indianapolis, decided not to heed the warning this weekend — and was met with fury over cuts to the federal government’s services and work force.On Friday and Saturday, Ms. Spartz hosted gatherings with constituents. And each day, she found herself in hostile territory.She was booed, jeered and scolded over the Signal scandal at the Defense Department (she acknowledged the Trump administration needed to do a “better job”), and the Homeland Security Department’s efforts to deport immigrants without due process (she declared that unauthorized immigrants were entitled to “no due process”). And she was accused of standing idly by as Elon Musk and his Department of Government Efficiency steered cuts to government services (she said the Trump administration was trying to stop fraud).She faced chants of “Do your job!” At times, the events turned into shouting matches. Some of the exchanges have circulated widely on social media.“You don’t have to scream,” she pleaded at a crowded town hall in Westfield, Ind., on Friday night. The event lasted for two interruption-filled hours.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Appeals Court Allows Musk to Keep Pushing Steep Cuts at U.S.A.I.D.

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      A federal appeals court on Friday allowed Elon Musk and his team of analysts to resume their work in helping to dismantle the U.S. Agency for International Development, clearing the way for them to continue while the government appeals the earlier ruling.The decision by a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit came as the Trump administration was taking its final steps to effectively eliminate the agency after steadily chipping away at its staff and grant programs for weeks.The appeals court panel said that whatever influence Mr. Musk and his team in the so-called Department of Government Efficiency had over the process, it was ultimately agency officials who had signed off on the various moves to gut the agency and reconfigure it as a minor office under the control of the State Department.Earlier this month, Judge Theodore D. Chuang of U.S. District Court for the District of Maryland wrote that Mr. Musk, in his capacity as a special adviser to President Trump who was never confirmed by the Senate, lacked the authority to carry out what Mr. Musk himself described as a campaign to shut down the agency.Judge Chuang pointed to public statements by Mr. Musk in which he described directing the engineers and analysts on his team, known as DOGE, to do away with U.S.A.I.D., previewing his plans and announcing their progress along the way.On X, the social media platform he owns, Mr. Musk wrote in February that it was time for U.S.A.I.D. to “die,” that his team was in the process of shutting the agency down, and at one point that he had “spent the weekend feeding U.S.A.I.D. into the wood chipper.”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      What We Know About the Trump Administration’s Cuts to the Federal Work Force

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      <!–> [!–> <!–> [!–> Confirmed cuts* At least 49,110 Employees who took buyouts About 75,000 More planned reductions At least 171,080 <!–> –> <!–> –> <!–> –><!–> [–><!–> –><!–> [!–> <!–> Confirmed reduction so far, by agency [–> U.S. Agency for International Development More than 99% Voice of America (U.S. Agency for Global Media) More […] More