Elon Musk says DOGE probably won't find $2T in federal budget cuts | Hacker News Reader

Elon Musk says DOGE probably won't find $2T in federal budget cuts

nbcnews.com

9 pointstoomuchtodo12 comments

How soon do we get to hear that Starship ain't never leaving LEO after 15 refueling flights of tanker Starships that can't actually carry 100 tons of fuel each? Or that 50% growth of Tesla sales is perma-never? Or that trains actually work?

I don’t understand the like strategy/politics of lying. Sure I never thought they were going to cut 2 trillion dollars from the budget, but why tell the truth about it now?

There are no consequences for lying, so you lie to lever up into the authority and power you're seeking. Once you walk it back, there is no impact, at this level you're not getting fired for lying. You're re-calibrating expectations to reality after you've accomplished your goal.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brandolini%27s_law

Well, except in this case, don’t they actually want to cut a shot ton maybe even $2 trillion from the budget? This is the kind of lie where Musk doesn’t care and everyone else does but he just said it to get Trump elected. I think Musk wants this, no?

Musk wants power and control, everything else is a means to accomplish that.

He's not confessing, but bragging.

What’ s he bragging about the fact he’s not going to be successful? Or bragging about the fact he can lie?

Ah, well, you see, the true believers will simply rewrite history; there was never any lie at all! For instance see https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42647171 . Informed people knew it was a lie from the start (there not being $2bn discretionary spending to cut). The average Trump voter will never hear about this retreat. That's most of the major groups covered. Thus, there are no consequences to this sort of obvious lie.

Anything Musk says is suspect until proven otherwise.

Is this really news? He said they hoped to do it, and now its looking unlikely. Obviously?

Hell, I'll take 200B in cuts. Anything... just taxpayers noticing the waste more is a good thing. Less pork is a good thing.

I can't imagine anyone NOT being OK with trying to limit government waste.

I'd take some waste over the government being co-opted by oligarchs, complex systems are complex and will inevitably contain friction and loss. I'm not keen to burn it down just because of some inefficiencies

Break it and see what happens --- this is not a strategy for leadership. It is a strategy for chaos --- or maybe sabotage.

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