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It seems that everyday we awake in Donald Trump’s second term there’s more troubling news, and the source of that news is usually white nationalist Tony Stark, aka Elon Musk.
If you’ve deservedly had your head buried in the sand ever since Trump failed to place his hand on the Bible that fateful inauguration day, let me provide a little crash course. It was revealed this week that Musk’s government efficiency team, DOGE, had been granted access to the systems of the Treasury Department responsible for disbursing trillions of dollars in government payments.
We also learned that the billionaire had tapped a group of young techies to help him in this supposed cost-cutting quest, and was allowed to do so after being elevated by Trump to the status of “special government employee.” Beyond the fact that it now means Musk can circumvent the conflict of interest clauses that apply to a regular government worker, the maneuver now sees Musk have access to highly sensitive government financial data, including information around social security, Medicare reimbursements, and tax refunds.
Yep, the world’s richest man with a background in tech is one step closer to trillions of dollars and unprecedented levels of data. While that development has seen widespread condemnation — including in the form of a protest attended by Democratic lawmakers — the social media response has called out the hypocrisy of those in support of Musk, Trump and MAGA. One now-viral meme on X does so by calling back to the email scandal that engulfed Hillary Clinton’s 2016 presidential campaign.
If you recall, Clinton became the subject of much controversy when it was revealed that, during her tenure as Secretary of State, she had used a private email server for official communications rather than using official State Department email accounts. The scandal became central to Trump’s competing candidacy for president, and exposed Clinton to swathes of his supporters who condemned it as a data breach. The breach in that case, for Trump supporters, was unforgivable, but when his bestie is carrying out similar, and arguably shadier, data-related activities, well… that’s A-OK!
“I used a private server for email,” the meme text reads on top of an image of Clinton and alongside an angry face wearing a MAGA hat. Beneath it, the same face smiles agreeably next to an image of Musk and the text “I’m extracting every citizen’s personal info into my private server.” Leave it to memes to provide such a handy visual representation of the double-standards currently running rampant during Trump’s second term. While it does little to quell concerns, the Treasury Department did recently confirm that Musk had only been given “read-only” access to the data, something an unelected billionaire still shouldn’t have.
Elsewhere on the Musk overextends his political reach show, DOGE this week enacted plans to shut down the government foreign aid agency, USAID. The richest man in the world shuttering a department responsible for humanitarian outreach? Just a few weeks after he delivered a terrifyingly familiar hand gesture?
In another world, this is all just the plot of a terrifying political drama on HBO, but back on Earth, it’s the cold hard reality that perhaps Revenge of the Nerds was actually a foretelling documentary. Only in this case, the nerd is a billionaire who jumps weirdly and is but a stone’s throw away from the levers of high office.