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    Many prominent Maga personalities on X are based outside US, new tool reveals

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    Many of the most influential personalities in the “Make America great again” (Maga) movement on X are based outside of the US, including Russia, Nigeria and India, a new transparency feature on the social media site has revealed.The new tool, called “about this account,” became available on Friday to users of the Elon Musk-owned platform. It allows anyone to see where an account is located, when it joined the platform, how often its username has been changed, and how the X app was downloaded.As soon as the update was rolled out, users found numerous Maga and rightwing influencers who presented themselves as patriotic Americans were operating from other countries.“This is easily one of the greatest days on this platform,” wrote liberal influencer Harry Sisson. “Seeing all of these MAGA accounts get exposed as foreign actors trying to destroy the United States is a complete vindication of Democrats, like myself and many on here, who have been warning about this.”The account MAGANationX, with nearly 400,000 followers and a bio reading “Patriot Voice for We The People”, is actually operated from eastern Europe, according to the Daily Beast. Another popular profile, IvankaNews, an Ivanka Trump fan account with around one million followers that frequently posts about illegal immigration, Islam and support for Trump, was revealed to be based in Nigeria.Another user also uncovered several additional cases. Dark Maga, a smaller account with roughly 15,000 followers, is run from Thailand. MAGA Scope, which has more than 51,000 followers, operates out of Nigeria, while MAGA Beacon is based in south Asia.Users on Reddit also joined the exposé effort, posting examples of accounts that appeared to misrepresent their origins. One Reddit user posted a screenshot of a woman who claimed to live in Texas but instead appeared to be located in Russia, though as of Sunday, the user named in the post appears to have a US location. Many in the comments posted other examples they found.Bots spreading misinformation and propaganda has been a long-running problem on Twitter, a problem that has been significantly exacerbated since Musk bought it in October 2022 and then renamed it X. Its AI chatbot, Grok, has also been found to frequently make and amplify false claims. More

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      JD Vance threatened to deport him. The ‘menswear guy’ is posting through it

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      Derek Guy was a relatively unknown menswear writer with 25,000 followers on Twitter in 2022. Now, in 2025, Guy has 1.3 million followers on the platform, now called X, where this week both the vice-president of the United States and the Department of Homeland Security posted threats to deport him from the US – the country he has called home since he was a baby.“Honestly didn’t expect this is what would happen when I joined a menswear forum 15 years ago,” Guy quipped on X on Monday. “Was originally trying to look nice for someone else’s wedding.”The threats targeted at Guy, a fashion writer known for lampooning the sartorial decisions of rightwing figures, including JD Vance, marked another alarming escalation in the White House’s ongoing project to mass deport millions of immigrants – raising the prospect of an administration wielding deportation as a weapon of retribution against its critics.But Guy’s story also laid bare the transformation of X. In a few short years, the platform has become a place where Maga and other far-right influencers not only rule the roost, but can see their trollish posts perhaps dictate policy. X may now be a sincerely dangerous place for some users to post their thoughts.It all started with Elon Musk. After taking over Twitter in 2022, the world’s richest man oversaw the implementation of an algorithmic “for you” tab that pushed content from a bizarre array of influencers on users. Through a fateful quirk in the algorithm, Guy was among the platform’s new main characters, his incisive commentary about men’s fashion suddenly ubiquitous on people’s feeds. Guy, who got his start years earlier commenting in menswear forums before launching a blog called Die, Workwear!, was suddenly being profiled in GQ and interviewed by Slate. Everyone started calling him the “menswear guy”.Musk later rechristened Twitter as X, further loosening moderation on the platform, and restoring the accounts of users previously banned for bigotry or harassment. X became even more of a far-right haven, with white supremacist and neo-Nazi accounts risen from the dead. Meanwhile Guy was frequently going viral, namely for posts teasing prominent Maga figures for their ill-fitting suits – bringing attention to the wrinkles on Trump’s trousers, and the “collar gaps” on Stephen Miller’s suit jackets.By 2025, of course, Trump and Miller were back in the White House, pursuing a campaign promise to “remigrate” millions of everyday people out of America. In recent weeks they appeared to ramp up this ethno-nationalist project, with disturbing footage emerging online of masked, heavily armed Ice and DHS agents abducting Latino people from schools and courthouses, or kidnapping them off the streets, often separating them from their children.Guy felt compelled to stand up and be counted.In a long post on X, he recounted his family’s harrowing story of escaping war in Vietnam, a journey that ended with his mom carrying him across the US border while he was still an infant. Guy revealed that he was one of millions of undocumented people living in the US.“The lack of legal immigration has totally shaped my life,” he wrote. “It has made every interaction with the law much scarier. It has shaped which opportunities I could or could not get. It has taken an emotional toll, as this legal issue hangs over your head like a black cloud.”He was sharing his story to “push back against the idea that all undocumented immigrants are MS-13 members”, he wrote. “I know many people in my position and they are all like your neighbors.”Guy’s post sent far-right influencers on X into a feeding frenzy. “JD Vance I know you’re reading this and you have the opportunity to do the funniest thing ever,” a user named @growing_daniel wrote about Guy’s announcement. (@Growing_Daniel appears to be the founder of a tech startup called Abel, that uses artificial intelligence to help police write up crime reports.)Vance did see the post, replying with a gif of Jack Nicholson from the movie Anger Management, slowly nodding his head with an intense, menacing look. A short time later, the official account of the Department of Homeland Security joined the fray. The federal agency quote-tweeted a post from another far-right account, which noted Guy’s undocumented status, with a gif from the movie Spy Kids, showing a character with futuristic glasses that can zoom in on a subject from a great distance.The message to Guy was clear: we’re watching you. Vance and DHS did not respond to the Guardian’s requests for comment about the posts.Prominent far-right figures were ecstatic. “IT’S HABBENING,” posted Jack Posobiec, a Maga operative with more than 3 million followers on X. Michael Knowles, the prominent Daily Wire pundit, posted a photo of El Salvador’s president, Nayib Bukele, wearing a blue-and-white sash over his suit jacket. “Hey @dieworkwear,” Knowles wrote to his one million followers, “what are your thoughts on this outfit?” The subtext of Knowles’s tweet was also clear: Bukele has partnered with the Trump administration to hold immigrants deported from America, with no due process, in El Salvador’s most notorious gulag.Guy was aghast at the response. “The cruelty in today’s politics feels horribly corrosive,” he wrote. “Bringing up that hard-working immigrant families — undocumented, yes, but not violent criminals — are being ripped apart based on immigration status doesn’t bring compassion or even pause, but gleeful cheers.”Longtime critics of X pointed to the deportation threats as evidence of the platform’s perils. “…It’s been turned into a political weapon for people who wish to use it to harm others,” noted journalist Charlie Warzel, the author of a recent Atlantic essay arguing for people to abandon X. “It’s not the marketplace of ideas – you do not have to participate in this project! very simple!”For now, Guy – who politely declined to comment to the Guardian about this week’s saga – is still on X, using all of this week’s attention for what he sees as good causes.“ICE raided a downtown LA garment warehouse, arresting fourteen garment workers,” he wrote. “Many of those detained were the primary breadwinner for young children and elderly relatives. Would you consider donating to help these families?”He also took time to taunt those calling for his deportation. When an account belonging to a luxury wristwatch dealer chastised him for “disrespecting” immigration laws, Guy responded with a one-thousand word history of how the flow of immigrants and refugees across borders over the past two centuries led to the creation of Rolex, among other luxury watch brands.He also replied directly to Vance’s post threatening to deport him. “i think i can outrun you in these clothes,” Guy wrote, posting a photo of the vice-president seated at a political conference, his ill-fitting suit pants riding up to his calves. “you are tweeting for likes. im tweeting to be mentioned in the National Archives and Records,” Guy added.Guy then told the vice-president where immigration agents could find him: “Here is my house,” the “menswear guy” wrote, posting an image of a Men’s Wearhouse storefront.

      This article was updated on 14 June 2025 to correct that the movie the gif of Jack Nicholson was from was Anger Management, not The Departed. More

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      Trump v Musk: 10 ways they can further hurt each other

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      The falling-out between the world’s richest person and the president of the world’s largest economy will have consequences – for both of them.Elon Musk, as the boss of multiple companies including Tesla, and Donald Trump, who has benefited from Musk’s support in his journey to the White House, have had a mutually beneficial relationship up until now.Here are 10 ways in which Musk and Trump could hurt each other if they fail to broker a peace deal.What Trump could do to MuskCancel government contracts related to Musk’s businessesResponding to Musk’s criticism of his tax and spending bill, Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform on Thursday that cancelling the billionaire’s government contracts would be a straightforward way to save money.“The easiest way to save money in our Budget, Billions and Billions of Dollars, is to terminate Elon’s Governmental Subsidies and Contracts. I was always surprised that Biden didn’t do it!” Trump said.In 2024, the New York Times reported that Musk’s companies – which include electric vehicle maker Tesla and rocket company SpaceX – have over the past year been promised $3bn across nearly 100 different contracts with 17 federal agencies.Investigate Musk’s alleged drug useThe New York Times and the Wall Street Journal have made allegations of heavy drug use by Musk, raising questions about Nasa requirements for its contractors – including SpaceX – to maintain a drug-free workforce. The Times alleged that Musk has received advanced warning of the tests. SpaceX has been contacted for comment.Responding to the Times allegations on X last month, Musk wrote: “to be clear, I am NOT taking drugs!” In 2024 he said he sometimes used ketamine on a doctor’s prescription.Challenge Musk’s immigration statusSteve Bannon, a Trump ally and influential “alt-right” figure, told the Times on Thursday that Musk’s immigration status should be investigated.“They should initiate a formal investigation of his immigration status, because I am of the strong belief that he is an illegal alien, and he should be deported from the country immediately,” Bannon said of South Africa-born Musk, who is a US citizen.Use general presidential powers against MuskWhen Trump was elected, observers pointed to the myriad ways in which a Musk-friendly White House administration could benefit the financial interests of the world’s richest person. That benign environment, which includes awarding of government contracts and directing federal agencies giving Musk’s businesses an easier ride, could of course be turned hostile.Richard Pierce, a law professor at George Washington University and a specialist in government regulation, told the Guardian at the time: “All federal regulators and prosecutors work for the president. He can tell them to do something or not to do something with the understanding that he will fire them if they disobey.”Ostracise Musk from the Maga movementTrump, as the leader of the “Make America great again” vanguard, can close doors on Musk. The Republican congressman Troy Nehls excoriated the billionaire on Thursday, telling him: ““You’ve lost your damn mind.” He added: “Enough is enough.”Musk can handle such opprobrium and, given his considerable wealth, he is an important source of funding for Republican politicians.What Musk could do to TrumpTurn X against the White HouseMusk used his X platform, and his more than 220 million followers on it, to rally support for Trump’s victory in the 2024. It also provided a platform for rightwing views that helped publicise the Maga agenda.Theoretically, Musk could at least use his own X account to criticise Trump with as much regularity as he pumped the president’s policies (the Tesla chief executive is a prolific user of his own platform).However, this also depends on Musk’s influence with the US electorate. Five out of 10 US adults say they have an unfavourable view of Musk, according to the Pew Research Center. But it should be noted that seven out of 10 Republicans or Republican-leaning adults hold a favourable view – he’s not going to sway many Democrats who dislike Trump anyway.Form a new political movementMusk, who is worth more than $300bn (£220bn), could divert his considerable financial resources away from the Republican party and start a new political entity. Musk spent $250m on getting Trump elected in 2024, signalling his willingness to invest heavily in politics.On Thursday he posted a poll on X and asked: “Is it time to create a new political party in America that actually represents the 80% in the middle?” More than 80% of the 4.8 million respondents voted “yes”.Create geopolitical problems with his businessesThe Starlink satellite broadband platform, owned by Musk’s SpaceX, is playing a key rule in Ukraine’s fight against a Russian invasion, while China is an important manufacturing and consumer base for Tesla. Through his businesses, Musk also has political contacts around the world and is regularly photographed in the company of global leaders. However, any damage Musk causes to Trump’s international standing or interests will have to be balanced with any knock-on effect on his own businesses.Create problems for NasaNasa has a close relationship with Musk’s SpaceX, with the company’s Dragon spacecraft being used to transport the agency’s astronauts to and from the International Space Station. Musk immediately pledged to decommission Dragon in the wake of the Trump spat on Thursday – before quickly signalling an about-face. Nonetheless, SpaceX is a crucial part of Nasa’s ISS operations.Tell-all on TrumpMusk has been a fixture of Trump’s inner circle for a considerable period of time and, as the contents of his X account show, he is capable of taking multiple damaging swipes at people. However, members of Trump’s inner circle will have had the same access to Musk, whose personal life is becoming a media staple. More

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      Trump v Musk: the two worst people in the world are finally having a big, beautiful breakup | Arwa Mahdawi

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      If you paid attention during physics class you will remember the third law of ego-dynamics. Namely: when two egos of equal mass occupy the same orbit, the system will eventually become unstable, resulting in an explosive separation and some very nasty tweets.To see this theory in action please have a gander at the dramatic collapse of the Donald Trump and Elon Musk bromance. The news has been a nonstop horror show for what feels like forever. Watching two of the very worst people in the world direct their nastiness at each other is extremely cathartic.While I won’t contain my glee, I will collect myself long enough to go over the backstory. First, as you know, Musk spent $277m to help get Trump elected. If this happened somewhere else we would call it corruption and the US might invade the country to install democracy. But this is the US we’re talking about, so it was fine.After Musk donated all those quids, Trump provided the quo. Musk got his Doge gig, through which he weakened all the agencies that were regulating his businesses in the name of saving the US a load of money.This is the point where things started to go wrong and Musk’s reputation started to tank. Over the years the billionaire had managed to convince a depressingly large number of people that he was some sort of genius rocket man with anti-establishment views. Once he became part of the establishment, however, and started slashing federal jobs, a lot of people started to get annoyed with how much influence he had over their lives.Musk may be a space cadet but even he could see how much he was destroying his brand. It didn’t help, of course, that Tesla shares were dropping.So a week ago he did the sensible thing and announced that he was leaving his role with the Trump administration. Rather more interestingly, however, the “first buddy” publicly criticized Trump’s marquee tax bill. Whispers of a rift between Musk and Trump started circulating.At first when Musk parted ways with the Trump administration I thought the public divorce might be smoke and mirrors: a mutually beneficial PR exercise. Trump got rid of a creepy weirdo who nobody liked and kept causing him problems. Musk got to show his worried investors that he was putting all his energy back into the companies he’s supposed to be running. Rumours of a fallout, I thought, were greatly exaggerated.On Thursday, however, things escalated to the point where I don’t think this fallout can possibly be manufactured or exaggerated.Thursday afternoon, you see, is when the ghost of Jeffrey Epstein entered the chat. Writing on the social network he spent billions buying, Musk tweeted: “Time to drop the really big bomb: @realDonaldTrump is in the Epstein files. That is the real reason they have not been made public. Have a nice day, DJT!” To be extra messy he added: “Mark this post for the future. The truth will come out.”It’s worth noting that Musk, a man who reportedly foists his sperm on every woman of a certain age that he meets, has a well-documented history of calling other people sex offenders. The self-sabotage probably started when he called the British cave explorer Vernon Unsworth a “pedo guy” in 2018, without any justification, after Unsworth helped rescue 12 boys trapped in a Thai cave. Musk, in case you had forgotten, had made a lot of noise about how he was going to rescue the kids with a very special little submarine. He did not, in fact, rescue any children and Unsworth hurt the billionaire’s feelings when he suggested Musk “stick his submarine where it hurts”.Still, while Musk does not think before he tweets, this seems a tad reckless even for him. It certainly goes well beyond the bounds of “manufactured PR brawl” and enters “burning bridges” territory. And, of course, having been in bed with the guy you’ve just implied was in Epstein’s circle doesn’t exactly make you look good does it?As well as tweeting about Epstein, Musk also said Trump would have “lost the election” if he hadn’t intervened with his hundreds of millions. Musk also suggested that he might start a new political party.Trump, meanwhile, hasn’t exactly been holding his tongue. He called Musk “crazy” and threatened to cut off government contracts with the billionaire’s companies.So is this the end of a big, beautiful friendship? Is it, as conspiracy theorist and Trump ally Laura Loomer put it: “a Big beautiful breakup”?While it feels like it, we should remember that Trump has kissed and made up with his haters before. While the president has very thin skin (all that bronzer can wreak havoc on the epidermis), he’s also a pragmatist.Just look at “Little Marco” AKA Marco Rubio AKA the secretary of state. Before the 2016 election, Rubio described Trump as a “con artist” and suggested he had bladder issues. Trump, meanwhile, called Rubio a “nervous basket case” who was the sweatiest person he’d ever met. “It’s disgusting,” he said. “We need somebody that doesn’t have whatever it is that he’s got.” Various other barbs were exchanged but, almost a decade on, all seems to be forgiven. The two men are now as thick as thieves.It’s also possible that, as a simple woman, I can’t comprehend the testosterone-infused intricacies of what’s going on with Musk and Trump. Conservative commentator Jack Posobiec helpfully tweeted: “Some of y’all cant handle 2 high agency males going at it and it really shows. This is direct communication (phallocentric) vs indirect communication (gynocentric).”Still, while there may eventually be some sort of reconciliation, I for one am enjoying the drama. I think we all are. Well, maybe not Kanye West AKA Ye. On Thursday the disgraced rapper tweeted: “Brooooos please nooooo […] We love you both so much.” As Musk might say himself: bet you did Nazi that coming. More

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      Russell T Davies: gay society in ‘greatest danger I’ve ever seen’ after Trump win

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      Russell T Davies has said gay society is in the “greatest danger I have ever seen”, since the election of Donald Trump as US president in November.Speaking to the Guardian at the Gaydio Pride awards in Manchester on Friday, the Doctor Who screenwriter said the rise in hostility was not limited to the US but “is here [in the UK] now”.“As a gay man, I feel like a wave of anger, and violence, and resentment is heading towards us on a vast scale,” he said.“I’ve literally seen a difference in the way I’m spoken to as a gay man since that November election, and that’s a few months of weaponising hate speech, and the hate speech creeps into the real world.”“I’m not being alarmist,” he added. “I’m 61 years old. I know gay society very, very well, and I think we’re in the greatest danger I have ever seen.”Since his inauguration, Trump has ended policies giving LGBTQ+ Americans protection from discrimination. He has also restricted access to gender-affirming healthcare, said the US would only recognise two sexes, and barred transgender people from enlisting in the military.Davies also used his keynote speech at the awards ceremony, which rewards the efforts made to improve the lives of LGBTQ+ people in the UK, to criticise Trump, and the president’s ally Elon Musk.“I think times are darkening beyond all measure and beyond anything I have seen in my lifetime,” he told the audience, which included the singers Louise Redknapp and Katy B, and the Traitors contestants Leanne Quigley and Minah Shannon.Davies said he had turned 18 and left home in 1981, adding: “And that is exactly the year that rumours and whispers of a strange new virus came along, which came to haunt our community and to test us in so many ways.”“The joyous thing about this is that we fought back,” he said. The community “militarised, campaigned, marched and demanded the medicine”.He added: “We demanded the science. We demanded the access.”When he wrote the TV series Queer As Folk in the late 1990s, he said, it was part of a movement, with writers “fomenting ideas” and putting gay and lesbian characters on screen.Had he been asked to imagine then what life for LGBTQ+ people would be like in 2025, “I want to say it’s going to be all rainbows,” he said, “skipping down the street hand-in-hand, equality, equality, equality.”But the peril the gay community now faced, he said, was even greater than that in the 1980s.“The threat from America, it’s like something at The Lord of the Rings. It’s like an evil rising in the west, and it is evil,” Davies said.“We’ve had bad prime ministers and we’ve had bad presidents before. What we’ve never had is a billionaire tech baron openly hating his trans daughter,” he added.Musk, the de facto head of the “department of government efficiency”, bought the social networking site Twitter, which he renamed X. A study by the University of California, Berkeley found hate speech on the platform rose by 50% in the months after it was bought by the billionaire.“We have never had this in the history of the world,” Davies said. “It is terrifying because he and the people like him are in control of the facts, they’re in control of information, they’re in control of what people think, and that is what we’re now facing.”But Davies said the gay community would do “what we always do in times of peril, we gather at night”, and would once again come together, and fight against this latest wave of hostility and oppression.“What we will do in Elon Musk’s world, that we’re heading towards, is what artists have always done,” he told the Guardian, “which is to meet in cellars, and plot, and sing, and compose, and paint, and make speeches, and march.”“If we have to be those rebels in basements yet again,” he added, “which is when art thrives, then that’s what we’ll become.” More

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      How an obscure US government office has become a target of Elon Musk

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      Federal employees in a little-known office dedicated to tech and consulting services were at work on the afternoon of 3 February when Elon Musk tweeted about their agency for the first time.“That group has been deleted,” Musk wrote.The richest man in the world was responding to a tweet from a rightwing activist who falsely claimed that 18F, an office within the General Services Administration (GSA), was a far-left cell inside the government. The activist accused 18F of building a program to put bureaucrats in charge of preparing people’s tax returns. It was one of several false claims about the office circulating on X, the social media platform that Musk owns and spends much of his day on.Musk’s tweet immediately set off widespread confusion in 18F, which, rather than a radical leftist cabal, is tasked with partnering with agencies across the government to consult and develop software solutions. Former staffers and a current GSA employee described 18F as a workforce that focused on delivering tech services and increasing efficiency within bureaucracy – exactly the work that Musk’s so-called “department of government efficiency” (Doge) is ostensibly designed to carry out.At the time Musk claimed deletion, partner agencies were expecting the office’s help on civic tech projects that were already in the works and would be key to updating their operations. Would they still get that assistance? What did Musk mean by “deleted”? What would happen to the tech tools that 18F was building? Staff at the sub-agency couldn’t get a definitive answer from the new Musk-allied leadership, according to three former workers, and didn’t know what to tell other agencies.The confusion would last for weeks, until on Saturday 1 March, staff at 18F received an email at around 1am telling them that they would all be laid off and their office would be shut down “with explicit direction from the top levels of leadership within both the Administration and GSA”.The 18F episode fits a common pattern of how Musk appears to ingest and amplify misinformation online. It is also a window into the influence of rightwing media and activists on Musk as he attacks and disbands parts of the government he believes don’t fit with his ideological worldview.The week after cutting 18F, the recently appointed head of the GSA’s Technology Transformation Services, which oversees 18F, held a meeting explaining the decision. Thomas Shedd, a 28-year-old former Tesla software engineer and Musk ally who sent the mass layoff email, told staffers that 18F was shut down because employees’ hourly rates were too high and that outside consultants would cost less. Shedd did not directly respond to a request for comment on this article.“After a thorough review of 18F, GSA leadership – with concurrence from the administration and following all OPM guidelines – determined that the business unit was not aligned with the presidential EOs, statutorily required or critical activities,” a GSA spokesperson said, adding that the office was not recovering its costs.The explanation misunderstands how 18F operated and its cost structures, according to former staffers, as well as ignores that the group frequently saved agencies money by advising them against costly and unnecessary contracts with private vendors. Former employees and a current staffer at the GSA instead saw the layoffs as politically motivated.“The only reason I can see for 18F being singled out for elimination ahead of other offices would be to make Elon Musk happy,” said a GSA employee, who spoke anonymously out of fear of reprisal.Misleading tweets and Musk doom workers dedicated to government efficiencyAlthough 18F worked with various government agencies and created popular services, it was largely unknown to the public. The group quietly helped create dozens of services across different bureaus each year, however, including the IRS Direct File free tax filing system. Many 18F software projects, such as streamlining the government’s weather website for easier use in the case of natural disasters, bore the explicit intention of making government services more efficient and reducing taxpayer cost.When Musk claimed he had “deleted” 18F, he was retweeting a 3 February post from rightwing activist Alex Lorusso, a producer for the conservative media influencer Benny Johnson, who frequently interacts with Musk on X. Lorusso, who was formerly banned from Twitter in 2020 for violating the company’s policies on platform manipulation and spam, is one of several rightwing influencers regularly amplified by Musk on X, and one that Donald Trump’s administration has courted. He has worked as a paid consultant for Musk’s Super Pac, and he’s also a fan: the first post on his X profile, pinned to the top so no others will push it out of sight, is a 2023 photo of himself smiling with Musk.Lorusso’s post claimed 18F “puts the government in charge of preparing people’s tax returns for them” and suggested it was a “far left government wide computer office”. His claims about 18F were later corrected by other X users in a community note. It explained that the office had instead helped build a service that allowed Americans to file their taxes for free online – a popular pilot project that saved an estimated millions in tax fees and was set to expand nationwide.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionLorusso’s post on X, like Musk’s, was a retweet of another conservative media figure. Luke Rosiak, a writer for the conservative news site the Daily Wire, had posted a long thread on 31 January attacking 18F. He framed the tech consulting unit as a “far-left agency” and “coven of transgenders and queers hiring each other”. The thread included the profiles of several former 18F employees who used “they” pronouns in their bios, as well as images of an employee’s crowdfunding campaign for gender-affirming healthcare. It also drew on articles published in 2023 by Rosiak about the GSA and 18F, in which he suggested that the agency’s focus on diversity had resulted in major security failures, which ex-employees said was false. The first post in the Rosiak’s chain received over 13.5m views and was retweeted by Musk.Rosiak’s attack on 18F contained misleading statements, according to former employees. The Daily Wire writer asserted that 18F jeopardized security for one million Americans because it refused to insert facial recognition software into government website login.gov because of “racial equity”. The claim conflated multiple different parts of the GSA and misunderstood security issues around facial recognition, one former employee said, as well as blamed 18F for leadership decisions pertaining to an entirely different business unit.The GSA did face a legitimate scandal when its former Technology Transformation Services director, Dave Zvenyach, misrepresented the level of security that login.gov operated with, according to a 2023 inspector general’s report, but login.gov has for years been a separate entity from 18F and has no direct staffing overlap with the office. A racial equity test of facial recognition technology did take place, according to a former 18F employee, because facial recognition software is notoriously less able to recognize non-white faces, and therefore using it as a tool for identity verification would have created security problems for users.“I think it’s impossible for people who are hyper-partisan to imagine people setting aside partisanship while working for the government,” a former 18F employee said in response to the conservative vitriol against 18F.In response to a request for comment on the statements in the thread, a Daily Wire spokesperson said that Rosiak’s reporting on 18F speaks for itself.Following the mass layoffs at 18F, some former staffers set up a website attempting to correct the rightwing narrative that their group was a partisan faction within the government and instead highlight the variety of projects they completed. Others warned that their group was an early warning sign for how Doge and the Trump administration would target other agencies based on ideological grounds, rather than the content of their work.“We were living proof that the talking points of this administration were false. Government services can be efficient,” Lindsay Young, the former executive director of 18F, said in a post on LinkedIn. “This made us a target”. More

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      Elon Musk faces week of harsh setbacks amid Tesla selloff and Doge backlash

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      Elon Musk began the week of 10 March with a friendly sit-down interview on Fox Business to talk about his work with the so-called “department of government efficiency” (Doge) and the state of his businesses. Already, it had been a trying few days for the world’s richest man, who was facing a Tesla stock selloff and fierce backlash over his attempts to radically overhaul the federal government. His net worth declined over $22bn on Monday alone.After Musk jokingly brushed off initial questions about the mounting pressure, host Larry Kudlow asked the Tesla and SpaceX CEO how he was managing to run his numerous companies amid the chaos.“With great difficulty,” Musk answered, at first chuckling then taking a long sigh and staring off into the middle distance. “I mean … yeah”.The past 10 days have marked several of the most significant setbacks for Musk in months. Tesla, arguably his marquee company, continued to fall in value as investors worried about the threat of trade war and possible recession – as well as declining profits. Escalating protests against the company over the billionaire’s role in the government also grew in number and intensity across the US, coupled with rising cases of vandalism and social stigma against his cars. SpaceX has also struggled, with one of its rockets dramatically exploding in midflight last week and then an announcement on Wednesday that it was delaying a rescue mission to retrieve “stranded” astronauts. The company tried again two days later.Adding to Musk’s headaches, his social media platform, X, experienced widespread outages throughout the day on Monday. During his Fox Business interview, he claimed that it was the result of a “massive cyberattack” that the company had traced to the area of Ukraine.Musk is also dealing with increasing pushback over his role at Doge. Multiple outlets reported that the “first buddy”, as he’s christened himself, got into a heated exchange with Marco Rubio, the US secretary of state, during a White House meeting last week, which ended with Donald Trump appearing to rein in Musk’s power to make staffing decisions at government agencies with a Truth social post. A federal judge in California also issued a preliminary injunction on Thursday to reinstate thousands of the workers that Doge mass fired. Meanwhile, polling this week from Quinnipiac University shows that despite Musk repeatedly declaring that the public loves what Doge is doing, a strong majority of people disapprove of his initiative.After a long string of victories for Musk that included soaring share prices and a period of seemingly unchecked power following Trump’s inauguration, some signs of strain are beginning to show on his grip on his empire. He has lost around $119bn this year so far, although staggeringly still boasts a fortune $100bn greater than the next richest man in the world, and faces questions from investors on whether his political activity is hurting his companies.Rather than step away from his role in the White House, however, Musk appears to be doubling down.Musk turns to Maga world to turn Tesla’s fortunes aroundTwo days after his labored appearance on Fox Business, Musk was once again in front of the cameras. This time, he was smiling alongside Trump on the White House lawn as the president cooed over a new red Tesla Model S and gushed to reporters about what a wonderful car it was.“Everything is computer,” Trump said, sitting in the driver’s seat. “That’s beautiful!”At the climax of the transformation of the White House into a car dealership, Trump announced that he had bought the Model S. He likewise spoke out in support of Musk and told reporters that Americans should “cherish” the billionaire. Others in the Maga world soon followed suit, declaring their backing for Tesla and urging their followers to do the same.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotion“I just ordered my new self driving Tesla!” Fox News host Sean Hannity posted the same day on X. “Details on how to win the Tesla of your Choice soon on Hannity.com!”The scene at the White House was a striking use of the presidency to endorse the business of the commander-in-chief’s biggest financial backer. However, the display also gave the impression that Musk needed Trump to reverse his string of losses and quell the backlash against him. Trump stated at the event that he would label demonstrations against Tesla showrooms as domestic terrorism. Attorney general Pam Bondi announced on Friday she would launch an investigation into vandalism targeting the company.“They fought the law and the law won,” Musk posted on X above news that Bondi was threatening vandals with up to 20 years in prison for attacking Tesla dealerships.The backlash against Tesla does not appear to be slowing; more protests against Tesla are set for the coming week. In response, Musk is deepening his embrace with the Maga world, including its most distasteful denizens. He spent a sizable part of Friday afternoon posting support for Tesla and Doge from rightwing media influencer accounts and Fox News clips. At one point, he retweeted a post that compared attacks against Tesla vehicles and dealerships to Kristallnacht, the infamous Nazi pogrom against Jewish-owned businesses that took place at the onset of the Holocaust. More

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      ‘Musk? He’s horrendous’: Martha Lane Fox on diversity, tech bros and International Women’s Day

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      As Elon Musk grinned in the Oval Office, one of Britain’s most influential tech investors looked on in horror. “He is absolutely horrendous. I have said it multiple times: I think it is horrifying what is happening,” says Martha Lane Fox.For the British peer and ex-Twitter board member, the sight of Musk holding forth from the bully pulpit of Donald Trump’s White House shows the Silicon Valley dream has gone sour.“The richest man in the world, who can stand there alongside the president, and kind of carte blanche make jokes about how he’s carving up people’s jobs in the government. Then he can be there with a chainsaw laughing on stage…“It is really, really alarming, and I find it extremely unpleasant at a values-based level – but also, just how can we be watching this in plain sight? It makes me feel very anxious. I think it is gross.”In an interview with the Observer to mark International Women’s Day, the president of the British Chambers of Commerce (BCC) warned the diversity pushback orchestrated by Trump and his tech bro acolytes will not only damage society, but also the economy at large.Since his return to the White House, the US president has shut down all federal diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) initiatives, while Musk’s “department of government efficiency” (Doge) is ripping up funding schemes.Some of the world’s biggest companies are following suit. Amid a wider pushback against everything from environmental targets to sustainable development, among the most prominent taking part are US finance and tech companies, including Goldman Sachs, Accenture and Amazon, while UK businesses such as GSK have also fallen in line.“He needs to be contained,” Lady Lane Fox says of Musk’s role in the rollback. “I find it extraordinary that the richest man in the world is trampling all over these things and that we still have kind of fanboying from the tech sector. It’s already been corrosive for society, and I would argue it is going to continue to be.”For businesses, she says the bottom line is that companies that take diversity seriously appeal to the widest possible employee talent pool and are better placed to target a broad range of customers. This, she adds, is about profit as much as social justice. However, she has a broader concern about the future.“The first thing, it’s financial. But the second thing, it’s about power and money – like everything, right?“If you’re looking at a sector like the digital sector, where there’s the growth in jobs, growth in opportunity – it is the growth sector in the economy. Yet you are not including a whole bunch of people in that. Then you are going to be creating inequality. Full stop. So it’s financial and it’s a question of social justice.”Given the close ties between Britain and the US, there is a view that where corporate America treads, the UK naturally follows. But there are signs that some UK businesses – and even the British operations of some US companies – are prepared to stand apart.The accountancy firm Deloitte instructed staff working on contracts for the US government to remove pronouns from their emails, while also announcing the end of its DEI programme. But its UK boss told staff its British operations remained “committed to [its] diversity goals”.“It feels as though global companies rooted in the US are making a politically motivated slight shift in emphasis and tilt, through to rowing back everything. And it does feel a bit more tempered here,” says Lane Fox.UK businesses have an opportunity to do something different, she says, which could bring financial benefits. “I think we’ll build more robust companies, attract talent and have a much better shot at building the most resilient companies of the future.”For almost three decades, Lane Fox has built a career – and multimillion-pound fortune – in tech. She made her first big money floating Lastminute.com, the online travel site co-founded alongside fellow Oxford graduate Brent Hoberman in 1998.View image in fullscreenShe joined the board of Twitter – now X – in 2016, landing herself a huge payday in Musk’s $44bn hostile takeover in 2022, before he dissolved the board and appointed himself the sole director.Seeing Musk in the Oval Office, parading his son X on his shoulders, made her question the gender divide. “Can you imagine if that was a woman? Can you imagine what that would look like? I mean, I just think the whole thing is really gross.”But while railing against Musk in a personal capacity, the BCC president does not suggest this approach is for everyone. “It is really tricky to navigate. You have a responsibility to your customers and your employees that might be different to our personal view sometimes.”Government regulation to enshrine diversity targets is also a bad idea, she says, preferring instead that companies report their progress. “Keeping it in the light, keeping up the reporting, is important – keeping up good investors, looking at the right metrics and investing in the right companies all helps.”However, not enough progress is being made. Analysis this week showed that worsening unemployment and workforce participation for women has pushed the UK behind Canada to its lowest global ranking for workplace equality among large economies in a decade.The gender pay gap has been declining slowly over time, but average pay is still 7% less for women than for men. It is a challenge Lane Fox is all too aware of. “Look at the data and it is really freaking depressing – and it is not moving,” she says.“What worries me is that it’s far too easy to find numbers that I thought we were moving on from.“In this week of International Women’s Day, we see representation at the executive level has gone back. I see progress on boards is still good at the FTSE 100 level, but bad at FTSE 250 and 350 level.“I know there will be people in the sector thinking: ‘Oh, here she goes again.’ That’s true of many women [that people think that]. But it is so important to keep making these arguments.” More

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      White House social media Trump-style: bad taste, sycophancy and trolling

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      Traditionally the White House social media feeds have been a relatively sober way for administrations to communicate with the public. The X and Facebook accounts promote their presidents, but have tended to stop short of full-fledged propaganda.Not any more. Under Trump’s presidency the White House’s digital communications have blasted past mere propaganda, to a level of bad taste and sycophancy that has shocked observers and prompted concerns that Trump sees himself as a monarch.“CONGESTION PRICING IS DEAD. Manhattan, and all of New York, is SAVED. LONG LIVE THE KING!” the White House blasted out on X this month. The post featured a fake Time magazine front cover which showed a grinning, svelter-than-real-life Trump wearing a bejeweled gold crown.The post referenced the Trump administration’s move to stop New York City’s congestion pricing scheme, introduced by the state’s Democratic governor, Kathy Hochul, in January. But the reaction mostly focused on the idea that the White House was promoting the president as a king – something which, for a country that fought a war to escape monarchy, represented a bold move.“Revoltingly un-American”, Adam Keiper, executive editor of the conservative Bulwark news site, wrote on BlueSky. JB Pritzker, the Illinois governor, reacted in a speech in his state’s capitol: “As governor of Illinois, my oath is to the constitution of our state and our nation. We don’t have kings in America, and I won’t bend the knee to one.”Hochul rebutted both the monarchist aspect and the argument that Trump will overturn the congestion pricing.“New York hasn’t labored under a king in over 250 years and we sure as hell are not going to start now,” Hochul said in a press conference.“The streets of the city where battles were fought, we stood up to a king and we won. In case you don’t know New Yorkers, when we’re in a fight, we do not back down, not now, not ever.”But the regal proclamation was the tip of the iceberg for the White House’s output.On Wednesday, Trump faced a fresh backlash after he shared an AI-generated video which showed Gaza being from transformed into a glittery coastal city and depicted a topless Trump sipping a cocktail with Benjamin Netanyahu.Set to a dance track with the lyrics “Trump Gaza is finally here”, the video showed, among other things, a gigantic statue of Trump in the center of a roundabout in the reimagined Gaza, some children being showered in paper money, and a man who looks like Elon Musk eating a sandwich.It comes after Trump said he wanted the US to “own” Gaza, claiming the strip, which has been devastated by Israeli bombardment, could become the “Riviera of the Middle East”.It might not even be the most offensive footage Trump has posted in recent weeks.A video posted this month, captioned “ASMR: Illegal Alien Deportation Flight”, featured officials laying out chains and shackles beside an airplane, before attaching them to faceless individuals.“‘YAY! Other people suffering!’ This from the White House official page? America has fallen,” was one of the most liked responses.ASMR stands for autonomous sensory meridian response, a tingling sensation triggered in some people by soft noises, such as whispering, the tearing of paper, or the crinkling of chip packets. The video represented an effort by the White House to get on board with a trend – although ASMR creators were among those unimpressed.Amy Kay, an ASMR YouTuber, told Huff Post she believed the video was an attempt to “own the libs”.“Many go to ASMR for the human connection it provides in a disconnected world. It’s a caring and accepting corner of the internet, so seeing it perverted to ‘own’ anyone who happens to have empathy hurts my heart,” Kay said.View image in fullscreenAnother X post, published on Valentine’s Day, showed a scowling Trump and his “border czar” Tom Homan on a pink card. “Roses are red violets are blue come here illegally and we’ll deport you,” the text said.In the comments, some pointed to a Washington Post story that reported Musk, who was born in South Africa, worked illegally in the US, and an Associated Press article that alleged Melania Trump, the president’s wife, was paid for modelling jobs in the US before she was legally allowed to work in the country.Voto Latino, a non-profit organization which encourages Latinos to vote, said the post had been “deliberately crafted to provoke and sow division”, but the struggles of immigrant families were not a joke.The organization added: “Using a lighthearted holiday to demean and target communities is not only irresponsible – it is beneath the dignity of the presidency.”The same Trump-as-king photo was also posted to the White House Facebook page – “this is absolutely insane” is currently the most liked response – along with the Valentine’s image.Kate Berner, who was the White House principal deputy communications director under Biden, told the Associated Press that Biden “never would have allowed us to use language like that”.“You can communicate aggressively, clearly in the way that real people talk around the country, and not in the way that’s disrespecting or degrading or something that we wouldn’t want our kids to mimic,” she said.The branding is different from the White House feed under Trump’s first administration. That account was archived on 20 January 2021 after Trump left office, but is still available for viewing. The feed still championed Trump’s achievements, along with regular retweets of Ivanka Trump and Melania Trump. There were favorable media clips and flattering photos of the president. However, there were none of the aggressive memes that have characterized the new feed.The 2025 style instead fits with the pugnacious first month of the Trump administration, which has been characterized by bombastic gestures which have excited and energized Trump’s base. A second benefit has been to upset, and distract, Democrats – a point made by the Fox & Friends host Lawrence Jones on air.“He is making fun of them! He doesn’t really think he is a king,” Jones said.“He has mastered making them go crazy. He gives them a little bait, and he knows they’re not gonna focus on the issue. They’re going to focus on the name ‘king’.”Just one month into Trump’s second term, there will probably be plenty more bait to come. More