Elon Musk, who has taken a step back from his role in the Trump administration, said on Friday that he came to the &#8220;obvious conclusion&#8221; that &#8220;accelerating GDP growth is essential&#8221; to saving the United States from the national debt crisis.
Musk, whose massive donations to President Donald Trump and Republicans in 2024 helped secure the White House and Congress for the GOP, said earlier this week that he would donate &#8220;a lot less in the future&#8221; in political contributions. The Tesla and SpaceX CEO has also taken a <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/elon-significantly-cut-back-doge-time" target="_blank" rel="noopener">step back</a> from his role guiding the Department of Government Efficiency to focus more on his companies.
Responding to a conversation on X about the Republicans&#8217; &#8220;Big, Beautiful Bill,&#8221; Musk revealed more of his thinking on his decision, which he confirmed was focused on pushing for &#8220;radical&#8221; GDP growth through humanoid robots.
The conversation was sparked when one X user <a href="https://x.com/BarrettHoffarth/status/1925595695610044438" target="_blank" rel="noopener">wrote</a>, &#8220;Given the disastrous GOP bill, the only chance the US has is explosive GDP growth. If that doesn&#8217;t happen in the next 2-3 years, we are cooked.&#8221;
Another person <a href="https://x.com/BarrettHoffarth/status/1925595695610044438" target="_blank" rel="noopener">replied</a> to the post, writing, &#8220;I wonder if this [is] why Elon has somewhat moved away from politics in order to accelerate GDP growth with humanoid robots. If he believes this is the only solution then this would be his most logical choice.&#8221;
Musk, who goes by the name &#8220;Kekius Maximus&#8221; on X, <a href="https://x.com/elonmusk/status/1925787762927554651" target="_blank" rel="noopener">responded</a> to the second post and confirmed that it accurately depicted his thinking on the issue.
&#8220;I have come to the perhaps obvious conclusion that accelerating GDP growth is essential. @DOGE has and will do great work to postpone the day of bankruptcy of America, but the profligacy of government means that only radical improvements in productivity can save our country,&#8221; Musk <a href="https://x.com/elonmusk/status/1925975507759243741" target="_blank" rel="noopener">wrote</a>.
Tesla is currently <a href="https://www.tesla.com/AI#:~:text=Tesla%20Optimus,of%20our%20hardest%20engineering%20challenges." target="_blank" rel="noopener">developing</a> an &#8220;autonomous humanoid robot capable of performing unsafe, repetitive or boring tasks.&#8221; Musk appears to be re-focusing on the project after spending months around the White House advising President Donald Trump and pushing to cut government spending. Last week, the Tesla CEO posted a clip of a robot dancing with human-like movements.
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🕺 <a href="https://t.co/NzqAmN3F5z">pic.twitter.com/NzqAmN3F5z</a>
&mdash; Kekius Maximus (@elonmusk) <a href="https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1922083384085430492?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">May 13, 2025</a></blockquote>
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In another post in April, Musk showed a video of a humanoid robot speeding up and slowing down while walking.
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Accurate actuators accelerate automation <a href="https://t.co/5H0uHxf7v2">pic.twitter.com/5H0uHxf7v2</a>
&mdash; Kekius Maximus (@elonmusk) <a href="https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1907317741763084507?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">April 2, 2025</a></blockquote>
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Musk <a href="https://x.com/elonmusk/status/1925977691162816639" target="_blank" rel="noopener">believes</a> that robots will play a major part in the global economy and have an effect on the GDP of some countries within five years. Last year, he <a href="https://www.reuters.com/technology/elon-musk-10-billion-humanoid-robots-by-2040-20k-25k-each-2024-10-29/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">predicted</a> that there would be 10 billion humanoid robots on Earth by 2040, sold for $20,000 to $25,000 each. He also <a href="https://x.com/elonmusk/status/1916573094367625556" target="_blank" rel="noopener">said</a> in April that &#8220;robots will surpass good human surgeons within a few years and the best human surgeons within ~5 years.&#8221;
Musk&#8217;s explanation for focusing more on his companies and less on politics comes after Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/bessent-says-u-s-can-grow-our-way-out-of-national-debt-crisis-by-focusing-on-economy?author=Zach+Jewell&amp;category=News&amp;elementPosition=6&amp;row=3&amp;rowHeadline=Latest+News&amp;rowType=Vertical+Carousel&amp;title=Bessent+Says+U.S.+Can+%E2%80%98Grow+Our+Way+Out+Of%E2%80%99+National+Debt+Crisis+By+Focusing+On+Economy" target="_blank" rel="noopener">said</a> on Friday morning that he is pushing to grow the economy &#8220;faster than the debt.&#8221; Bessent argued that Americans concerned with the massive federal debt should focus on the debt-to-GDP ratio “because we can grow our way out of this.”
“If we change the growth trajectory of the country, of the economy, then we will stabilize our finances and grow our way out of this,” Bessent added.

Elon Musk

Musk Reveals More About His Decision To Step Back From Politics … And It Involves Humanoid Robots

General

Politics

Robots

Tesla

Trump Administration

Federal regulators on Thursday launched a probe into leftist “watchdog” Media Matters over reports that it illegally coordinated advertiser boycotts against Elon Musk&#8217;s X platform.
Media Matters for America, a non-profit <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/leaked-media-matters-donor-list-reveal-it-is-funded-by-democrat-mega-donors?author=Spencer+Lindquist&amp;category=News&amp;elementPosition=undefined&amp;row=0&amp;rowType=Vertical+List&amp;title=Leaked+Media+Matters+Donor+List+Reveal+It+Is+Funded+By+Democrat+Mega+Donors">funded</a> by various leftist institutions and billionaires, <a href="https://archive.nytimes.com/thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/10/20/soros-donates-1-million-to-media-matters/">including</a> George Soros, has had the mission to deplatform and drive advertisers away from conservative voices since it was founded in 2004.
The Federal Trade Commission demanded documents regarding Media Matters&#8217; communications with similar “watchdogs” dedicated to labeling conservative content as hate speech and misinformation.
FTC Chairman Andrew Ferguson, appointed by President Donald Trump, signaled potential action in December, stating the agency &#8220;must prosecute any unlawful collusion between online platforms, and confront advertiser boycotts which threaten competition,&#8221; Reuters <a href="https://www.reuters.com/sustainability/boards-policy-regulation/ftc-probes-media-matters-over-musks-x-boycott-claims-document-shows-2025-05-22/">reported</a>.
Musk’s X sued Media Matters in 2023 after the liberal group published an article <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/elon-musk-to-file-thermonuclear-suit-against-media-matters-over-contrived-story-on-x?author=Leif+Le+Mahieu&amp;category=News&amp;elementPosition=undefined&amp;row=0&amp;rowType=Vertical+List&amp;title=Elon+Musk+To+File+%E2%80%98Thermonuclear%E2%80%99+Suit+Against+Media+Matters+Over+%E2%80%98Contrived%E2%80%99+Story+On+X">claiming</a> that X was placing ads for major corporations such as Apple, Disney, and Comcast alongside Nazi-related content.
A press release from Musk at the time said that the Media Matters story “completely misrepresented the real user experience on X, in another attempt to undermine freedom of speech and mislead advertisers.”
Musk accused the group of creating a “contrived” experience by using an alternate account to curate what posts appeared on the timeline.
In fact, according to Musk, X logs indicated that of the 5.5 billion ad impressions the day Media Matters pulled its research from, less than 50 were served alongside the content highlighted by Media Matters.
“Despite our clear and consistent position, X has seen a number of attacks from activist groups like Media Matters and legacy media outlets who seek to undermine freedom of expression on our platform because they perceive it as a threat to their ideological narrative and those of their financial supporters,” Musk’s release said.
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The split second court opens on Monday, X Corp will be filing a thermonuclear lawsuit against Media Matters and ALL those who colluded in this fraudulent attack on our company <a href="https://t.co/55vl7PspaQ">pic.twitter.com/55vl7PspaQ</a>
— Kekius Maximus (@elonmusk) <a href="https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1725771191644758037?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">November 18, 2023</a></blockquote>
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Attorneys representing X <a href="https://www.foxnews.com/media/ftc-launches-probe-far-left-group-media-matters-over-allegations-advertiser-collusion-against-musks-x">described</a> the report as &#8220;intentionally deceptive&#8221; as a means to cause the company financial harm.
Media Matters has denied these allegations and countersued X.
In a similar case, X sued the World Federation of Advertisers and several other brands for participating in an illegal conspiracy to curtail ad spending on X, the lawsuit states, per the New York Post.
The plaintiffs denied Musk’s accusations, arguing that each individual brand had concerns with X’s policies that led to their suspension of advertising.
The FTC&#8217;s demand represents a significant escalation in the case of Media Matters, shifting the dispute from civil litigation to potential government enforcement action.
Musk, a major contributor to Trump&#8217;s 2024 campaign and head of Trump’s Department of Government Efficiency initiative, has seen advertising on X decline since his 2022 acquisition, with Apple and IBM immediately pausing all ads on X following the 2023 Media Matters <a href="https://www.mediamatters.org/twitter/musk-endorses-antisemitic-conspiracy-theory-x-has-been-placing-ads-apple-bravo-ibm-oracle">article</a>.
However, research firm Emarketer projects spending will increase in 2025, per Reuters.
Since taking over Twitter in 2022, Musk has made sweeping changes to content moderation policies, reinstated previously banned accounts, and introduced a paid verification system. The billionaire has frequently criticized what he characterizes as a &#8220;woke mind virus&#8221; affecting media and technology companies.

TOPSHOT-US-POLITICS-TRUMP-CABINET

Feds Probe Media Matters Over Plot To Defund Musk’s X, Silence Dissenting Voices

Big Tech

Censorship

Free Speech

Media Matters For America

Twitter

U.S.

President Donald Trump welcomed South African President Cyril Ramaphosa to the White House on Wednesday, amid controversy over the Trump administration&#8217;s acceptance of white South African refugees.
&#8220;Hello, nice to see you,&#8221; Trump said before turning to take a picture with Ramaphosa upon welcoming him outside the Oval Office.
The Afrikaner farmers came to the United States, alleging they are the victims of a genocide in their country. The Trump administration accepted 49 farmers — who arrived in the United States on a U.S.-chartered flight earlier this month — through an expedited program. Democrats <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/rubio-says-dem-senator-only-opposes-afrikaner-refugees-because-of-their-race" target="_blank" rel="noopener">have denied</a> that Afrikaners are being persecuted for their race, and have criticized the Trump administration for resettling the refugees in the United States.
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NEW: South African President Cyril Ramaphosa was just greeted by President Trump at the White House. The two leaders will have lunch and an Oval Office meeting. <a href="https://t.co/9yKRkKnbkn">pic.twitter.com/9yKRkKnbkn</a>
— Kassy Akiva (@KassyAkiva) <a href="https://twitter.com/KassyAkiva/status/1925221906531106999?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">May 21, 2025</a></blockquote>
Trump pushed back on those criticisms last week, <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/trump-rips-critics-of-south-african-refugee-policy-its-a-terrible-thing-thats-taking-place?author=Tim+Pearce&amp;category=News&amp;elementPosition=undefined&amp;row=0&amp;rowType=Vertical+List&amp;title=Trump+Rips+Critics+Of+South+African+Refugee+Policy%3A+%E2%80%98It%E2%80%99s+A+Terrible+Thing+That%E2%80%99s+Taking+Place%E2%80%99" target="_blank" rel="noopener">saying</a> the refugees &#8220;happen to be white, but whether they’re white or black makes no difference to me.”
&#8220;White farmers are being brutally killed and their land is being confiscated in South Africa, and the newspapers and the television media doesn’t even talk about it,&#8221; the president added.
<a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/how-trump-and-rubio-put-america-first-in-100-days?author=Kassy+Akiva&amp;category=News&amp;elementPosition=undefined&amp;row=0&amp;rowType=Vertical+List&amp;title=How+Trump+And+Rubio+Put+America+First+In+100+Days" target="_blank" rel="noopener">HOW TRUMP AND RUBIO PUT AMERICA FIRST IN 100 DAYS</a>
Trump and Ramaphosa will have a bilateral lunch followed by an Oval Office meeting, where Elon Musk is expected to be present, <a href="https://www.axios.com/2025/05/21/musk-trump-south-africa-cyril-ramaphosa" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Axios reported</a>. Musk, a South African native, has been a vocal critic of its current government.
Vice President JD Vance, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, and Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, are also expected to attend the meeting.
Tensions between the two countries have increased following the passage of South Africa’s Expropriation Act, which allows the South African government to confiscate land without compensation.
Trump issued an executive order in February saying the act ignored citizens’ rights and enabled the government to “seize ethnic minority Afrikaners&#8217; agricultural property without compensation.” The executive order cut aid or assistance to South Africa and declared that the United States will promote resettling Afrikaner refugees.
The Trump administration also <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/rubio-bans-south-africas-ambassador-to-u-s-from-entering-country?author=Ryan+Saavedra&amp;category=News&amp;elementPosition=undefined&amp;row=0&amp;rowType=Vertical+List&amp;title=Rubio+Bans+South+Africa%E2%80%99s+Ambassador+To+U.S.+From+Entering+Country" target="_blank" rel="noopener">banned</a> Ebrahim Rasool, South Africa’s Ambassador to the United States, after he claimed Trump was “mobilizing” white supremacy around the world.
<a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/homeland-security-to-screen-immigrants-and-foreign-students-social-media-for-anti-semitism?author=Kassy+Akiva&amp;category=News&amp;elementPosition=29&amp;row=0&amp;rowType=Vertical+List&amp;title=Homeland+Security+To+Screen+Immigrants+And+Foreign+Students%E2%80%99+Social+Media+For+Anti-Semitism" target="_blank" rel="noopener">HOMELAND SECURITY TO SCREEN IMMIGRANTS AND FOREIGN STUDENTS’ SOCIAL MEDIA FOR ANTI-SEMITISM</a>
Secretary of State Marco Rubio accused Rasool of being a “race-baiting politician who hates America and @POTUS.”
“We have nothing to discuss with him and so he is considered PERSONA NON GRATA,” <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/rubio-bans-south-africas-ambassador-to-u-s-from-entering-country?author=Ryan+Saavedra&amp;category=News&amp;elementPosition=undefined&amp;row=0&amp;rowType=Vertical+List&amp;title=Rubio+Bans+South+Africa%E2%80%99s+Ambassador+To+U.S.+From+Entering+Country" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Rubio posted</a>.
In March, Musk <a href="https://x.com/elonmusk/status/1903556327290626165" target="_blank" rel="noopener">shared a video</a> of Julius Malema, a member of South Africa&#8217;s National Assembly, singing “Kill the Boer” at a political rally, a reference to Afrikaners.
“Very few people know that there is a major political party in South Africa that is actively promoting white genocide,” Musk posted. “A whole arena chanting about killing white people.”
Musk added that his company, Starlink, is unable to get a license to operate in South Africa because Musk is not black.
Rubio also denounced the “Kill the Boer” song, claiming it &#8220;incites violence.”
<a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/deals-and-diplomacy-heres-everything-trump-accomplished-on-his-gulf-tour?author=Kassy+Akiva&amp;category=News&amp;elementPosition=0&amp;row=0&amp;rowType=Vertical+List&amp;title=Deals+And+Diplomacy%3A+Here%E2%80%99s+Everything+Trump+Accomplished+On+His+Gulf+Tour" target="_blank" rel="noopener">DEALS AND DIPLOMACY: HERE’S EVERYTHING TRUMP ACCOMPLISHED ON HIS GULF TOUR</a>
“South Africa’s leaders and politicians must take action to protect Afrikaner and other disfavored minorities,” <a href="https://x.com/SecRubio/status/1904288660016759029" target="_blank" rel="noopener">he posted</a> in March. “The United States is proud to offer those individuals who qualify for admission to our nation amid this continued horrible threat of violence.”
Rubio doubled down on the Trump administration’s belief that Afrikaners are being persecuted during a Senate hearing on Wednesday.
“These are people whose farms were burned down and they were killed because of the color of their skin,” Rubio said in a heated exchange with Sen. Tim Kaine (D-VA).
Rubio added that the farmers qualify for refugee status because they “live in a country where farms are taken and land is taken on a racial basis.”

US-SAFRICA-DIPLOMACY-TRUMP

Trump Welcomes South African President To White House Amid Controversy Over Afrikaner Refugees

Donald Trump

Marco Rubio

South Africa

White House

Elon Musk ripped Bill Gates over his ties to the late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein after Gates criticized Musk over cuts to USAID funding.
Musk hit back at Gates on Tuesday during an interview at the Bloomberg Qatar Economic Forum. Gates had claimed that cuts to USAID, spearheaded by Musk and the Department of Government Efficiency, had placed children all over the world in danger.
“Who does Bill Gates think he is to make comments about the welfare of children” given his close ties to Jeffrey Epstein, Musk responded when asked about Gates’ comments. The quip elicited cheers and applause from some in the audience.
“I wouldn’t trust that guy to babysit my kids, I can tell you that,” Musk added.
Musk said of Gates’ assertion that the cuts to USAID are endangering children: “Show us any evidence whatsoever that that is true. It’s false.”
https://x.com/tomselliott/status/1924827130136813973
Gates met Epstein in 2013 and joined him for several dinners, Gates has said. Gates has since <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2021/08/05/business/bill-gates-regrets-jeffrey-epstein-relations" target="_blank" rel="noopener">said</a> that meeting with Epstein, who pleaded guilty to procuring a minor for prostitution and soliciting prostitution from a minor in 2008, was a “huge mistake.”
The relationship yielded none of the benefits Gates had hoped for, namely to raise money for philanthropic causes. According to Gates’ ex-wife, the relationship also <a href="https://www.wsj.com/business/melinda-french-gates-says-she-was-upset-with-bill-gatess-meetings-with-jeffrey-epstein-11646319537" target="_blank" rel="noopener">caused</a> strains on his marriage. Gates and his wife divorced in 2021.
Musk’s comments were in response to remarks Gates made to the <a href="https://www.ft.com/content/bdd9bb89-ac3c-4043-9ca4-bc7efbd41fed" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Financial Times</a> in an article published earlier this month. Gates said that saving U.S. taxpayer money through cuts to USAID is “killing” children and leading them to contract HIV.
“The picture of the world’s richest man killing the world’s poorest children is not a pretty one,” Gates said. “I’d love for him to go in and meet the children that have now been infected with HIV because he cut that money.”

Elon Musk Rips Bill Gates Over Epstein Ties: ‘Wouldn’t Trust That Guy To Babysit My Kids’

Bill Gates

Jeffrey Epstein

Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk, a senior adviser to President Donald Trump, said on Tuesday that he will dial back his spending on future political campaigns.
Asked about his plans for political contributions at Bloomberg&#8217;s Qatar Economic Forum, Musk said over video that he&#8217;s &#8220;going to do a lot less in the future.&#8221; Musk <a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/news/elon-musk-277-million-trump-republican-candidates-donations/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">spent</a> nearly $240 million through his political action committee, America PAC, helping Trump and Republicans in the 2024 election cycle. His comments on Tuesday, however, indicate that he won&#8217;t be as aggressive in pushing Republicans in the 2026 midterm elections.
&#8220;I think I&#8217;ve done enough,&#8221; Musk said, adding, &#8220;If I see a reason to do political spending in the future, I will do it. I do not currently see a reason.&#8221;
<iframe loading="lazy" title="LIVE: Elon Musk speaks remotely at the Qatar Economic Forum" width="500" height="281" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/iTRY86NEIbg?start=1984&#038;feature=oembed" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" referrerpolicy="strict-origin-when-cross-origin" allowfullscreen></iframe>
Along with his major donations to the Republican effort last election cycle, Musk was also a major fixture on the campaign trail, appearing multiple times alongside Trump. After Trump took office in January, Musk led the effort, alongside the Department of Government Efficiency project, to find waste and fraud within the federal government.
After joining Trump in the White House, Musk got behind the conservative candidate in the closely watched Wisconsin Supreme Court election, saying the race could affect the &#8220;<a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/musk-says-wisconsin-supreme-court-election-is-a-vote-for-which-party-controls-the-house" target="_blank" rel="noopener">entire destiny</a>&#8221; of humanity. Musk&#8217;s America PAC spent millions of dollars on race, but conservative candidate Brad Schimel <a href="https://apnews.com/projects/election-results-2025/wisconsin/?r=50888" target="_blank" rel="noopener">lost</a> to liberal candidate Susan Crawford by 10 percentage points, and the liberals maintained a majority on the court.
Musk, who was regularly seen with the president during the Trump administration&#8217;s first 100 days, has taken a step back from overseeing Trump&#8217;s DOGE initiative.
“I’ll be allocating far more of my time to Tesla&#8230;&#8221; Musk <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/elon-significantly-cut-back-doge-time?author=Daniel+Chaitin&amp;category=News&amp;elementPosition=undefined&amp;row=0&amp;rowType=Vertical+List&amp;title=Elon+To+%E2%80%98Significantly%E2%80%99+Cut+Back+On+DOGE+Time" target="_blank" rel="noopener">said</a> last month.
The Tesla CEO added in his interview on Tuesday that he is committed to leading the electric car company for at least the next five years, <a href="https://x.com/SawyerMerritt/status/1924835630858543332" target="_blank" rel="noopener">saying</a> that he wants “sufficient voting control” to keep Tesla from falling into the hands of activist investors.
“It’s not a money thing,” Musk said. “It’s a reasonable control thing over the future of the company.”
Musk&#8217;s shift back to focusing on Tesla comes after the company saw a drop in revenue and net income over the first quarter of 2025. Tesla stock dropped from $379 at the beginning of January to $222 at the beginning of April. Since then, however, the stock has climbed back up to $349. After Musk became a senior adviser to Trump and pushed for major government spending cuts, Tesla has been targeted by leftist activists who have set fires to and vandalized vehicles and threatened Tesla dealerships.
&#8220;Firing bullets into showrooms and burning down cars is unacceptable. Those people will go to prison, and the people that funded them and organized them will also go to prison. Don&#8217;t worry, we&#8217;re coming for you,&#8221; Musk said on Tuesday&#8217;s video call to the applause of the crowd.
<iframe loading="lazy" title="LIVE: Elon Musk speaks remotely at the Qatar Economic Forum" width="500" height="281" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/iTRY86NEIbg?start=281&#038;feature=oembed" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" referrerpolicy="strict-origin-when-cross-origin" allowfullscreen></iframe>

‘I’ve Done Enough’: Musk Says He Will Spend ‘A Lot Less’ On Future Political Campaigns

Bloomberg News

Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE)

Qatar

Republicans

On Sunday, Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy confronted the question of whether Elon Musk tried to fire air traffic controllers.
The New York Times <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2025/03/07/us/politics/trump-musk-doge-power.html?campaign_id=190&amp;emc=edit_ufn_20250307&amp;instance_id=149417&amp;nl=from-the-times&amp;regi_id=78841373&amp;segment_id=192873&amp;user_id=2c0c856b2ce44b95592cc8015e73caee" target="_blank" rel="noopener">reported</a> back in March that there was a clash in which Duffy vented about staffers from Musk&#8217;s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) effort trying to lay off air traffic controllers at a time when the Transportation Department was dealing with multiple plane crashes. Musk reportedly denied the claim.
&#8220;Did Elon Musk ask you to cut air traffic controllers directly?&#8221; NBC&#8217;s Kristen Welker asked Duffy during a &#8220;Meet The Press&#8221; <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/meet-the-press/video/transportation-sec-duffy-says-elon-musk-never-asked-him-to-cut-air-traffic-controllers-239336517927" target="_blank" rel="noopener">interview</a>.
&#8220;So, listen, we were having a conversation about, &#8216;Who do we preserve?&#8217; And, again, I wanted in those probationary employees to preserve air traffic controllers,&#8221; Duffy said. &#8220;We went back and forth, and Elon agreed, the president agreed. Of course you want to keep air traffic controllers. We&#8217;re trying to hire more of them.&#8221;
He added: &#8220;But I think the key is, &#8216;Can your government be more efficient?&#8217; We&#8217;ve had a massive expansion of government. You can actually be more efficient and still accomplish the mission of safety, which is what I think we can do. And actually, we are doing that.&#8221;
Welker pressed Duffy again.
&#8220;Did Elon Musk, though, initially ask you to cut air traffic controllers?&#8221; she asked.
&#8220;No,&#8221; Duffy said.
&#8220;And did you dispute that?&#8221; Welker asked.
&#8220;No,&#8221; Duffy replied.
&#8220;Did you have a disagreement with him about that?&#8221; Welker followed up.
&#8220;So, Elon and I get along really well. He never called me and said, &#8216;Cut air traffic control.&#8217; He would never do that. This was a broader conversation about what positions are going to be preserved, right? So if we&#8217;re going to let probationary employees go, again, they’ve – they&#8217;re new employees. They just were hired on. Some might have been there for a month, some of them 10 months,&#8221; Duffy said.
&#8220;It was the new employees that we were going to let go,&#8221; he continued. &#8220;Many of them have come back. But this is not the institutional knowledge of the FAA that&#8217;s being let go. Elon Musk understands the importance of the airspace and the need to have good controllers. Actually, [Musk&#8217;s] SpaceX launches through the airspace and the FAA. We want good controllers that know the airspace to navigate all the issues that come up.&#8221;

Sean Duffy

Transportation Secretary Clears Air On Whether Elon Tried To Fire Air Traffic Controllers

Air Travel

Executive

Federal Aviation Administration (FAA)

Editor&#8217;s Note: This is part two in a series of investigative reports on the African Development Foundation, which gained notoriety for resisting a review by the Department of Government Efficiency. 
—
When Department of Government Efficiency aides showed up at a small USAID-linked federal agency called the African Development Foundation in March, its management locked the doors and refused to let them in. A fired board member <a href="https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.dcd.278118/gov.uscourts.dcd.278118.1.0.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener">sued</a> to stop DOGE, and the group was <a href="https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2025/03/united-states-african-development-foudation-doge-lawsuit/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">lauded</a> for <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/mar/06/federal-workers-block-musks-doge-africa-development-agency" target="_blank" rel="noopener">resisting</a> DOGE&#8217;s demands for “access to USADF systems including financial records, payment and human resources systems.”
But the objection, several former employees told The Daily Wire, might not have been on principled grounds, but rather because those records amounted to a crime scene.
The African Development Foundation has an annual budget of just $45 million. But, operating out of sight and out of mind, it might have been the most corrupt agency in Washington, a Daily Wire investigation found. Its employees have been sounding the alarm for years about a culture of self-dealing, abuse, and anti-white discrimination, while those who now object to DOGE’s shuttering of the agency did nothing to help fix it.
By <a href="https://www.govtrack.us/congress/bills/96/hr6942/text" target="_blank" rel="noopener">law</a>, the agency is only allowed to give grants to Africa-based groups. But it moved money through African entities and then back to the United States to pad salaries of D.C. bureaucrats and pay their friends and former employers, employees said.
Until the DOGE takeover, which culminated in U.S. Marshals ordering building security to let Trump administration officials in, the agency was led by CEO Travis Adkins, who arrived in 2021 after a short stint as a Biden appointee at USAID. An assistant to Adkins said after she asked why her paycheck was lower than agreed upon, Adkins informed her that the remainder would be coming from an overseas account.
He “sent me an email connecting me with this guy in Africa who asked for my banking information. Within a few days this guy wired me $17,000,” she told The Daily Wire on condition of anonymity. The Daily Wire reviewed bank paperwork showing the transfer from an account in Kenya.
Another longtime employee, she said, was eventually “put on the payroll of an African partner and was informed she was being paid through an entity in Mauritania. No payroll, state or federal taxes were withheld from her paychecks.”
“The contracts don’t make sense and they know [DOGE] will find lots of wrongdoing and illegal activity,” she said. “I’m not a fan of DOGE, but some of the things they’re doing need to be done. They have been operating like this for years and no one did anything about it.”
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Getting more dramatic now. They are trying to get into the office but the agency won&#8217;t let them. Here is a video, shared with permission, of Marocco and some of the DOGE folks outside the elevators <a href="https://t.co/VkLmw3hodW">pic.twitter.com/VkLmw3hodW</a>
— Brett Murphy (@BrettMmurphy) <a href="https://twitter.com/BrettMmurphy/status/1897356477725278340?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">March 5, 2025</a></blockquote>
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Video shows DOGE aides locked out of the African Development Foundation&#8217;s office. / @BrettMmurphy
<h3>International money-laundering?</h3>
As the Trump administration dismantled USAID and contractors in D.C.’s affluent suburbs complained about the job losses it would cause, some speculated about whether international charity funding was being laundered to politically-connected Washingtonians.
That is not dissimilar to what the African Development Foundation did regularly, according to The Daily Wire’s interviews with employees as well as videotaped internal interviews that became part of a lawsuit.
In one instance, it awarded a grant to a Kenyan journalism group called Africa 24 and directed that group to, in turn, pay the salaries of Americans at the federal agency’s D.C. headquarters. That meant Congress thought it was a charitable grant to Africa, and that the agency had a low overhead rate. In reality, the money was being spent on D.C. bureaucrats.
Chief Financial Officer Mathieu Zahui acknowledged and defended the arrangement.
“The grant was provided to an African organization&#8230;A grant can pay for people,” he told The Daily Wire in an interview at his home, where he has been spending his days after being locked out of the office. “Yeah, granted, they were in D.C.”
Part one of this series revealed that last year, the USAID inspector general seized Zahui’s phone and found that he had received <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/foreign-aid-official-who-resisted-doge-took-secret-payments-after-steering-africa-money-to-friend?author=Luke+Rosiak&amp;category=News&amp;elementPosition=0&amp;row=0&amp;rowType=Vertical+List&amp;title=Foreign+Aid+Official+Who+Resisted+DOGE+Took+Secret+Payments+After+Steering+Africa+Money+To+Friend%C2%A0" target="_blank" rel="noopener">payments to his personal bank account</a> from the owner of a company to which he steered contracts, but he has not been charged with a crime.
<blockquote>
<h1>“We’re in that murky territory of like, is this legal?” a staffer said. “The CEO specifically directed it.”</h1>
</blockquote>
The agency hired many workers as contractors instead of official government employees, making it possible to pay them using creative funding mechanisms. Once they were hired, executives drew no distinction between contractors and government employees, even having contractors supervise employees, possess government credit cards, and make decisions about money in violation of federal rules, the agency’s former general counsel, Mateo Dunne, told The Daily Wire.
Its CEO from 2016 to 2021, C.D. Glin — a former Peace Corps DEI officer and later an Obama political appointee to the Peace Corps — reverse-engineered African grants to steer money to friends in the United States, employees said.
The agency gave grants to the Association of Ghana Industries on the condition that the African group pay Pyxera Global, a D.C. organization where Glin previously worked as director of business development, to “do a study of the artisan sector in Ghana,” agency program manager Kate Ristroph said in a videotaped internal investigative interview with Dunne.
“We’re in that murky territory of like, is this legal?” she said. “The CEO specifically directed it.”
Glin attempted to foist grants addressing nonexistent problems on African groups as a way to steer money to an affiliate of the Aspen Institute, the left-wing Colorado nonprofit, called Artisan Alliance, Ristroph said. The head of Artisan Alliance at the time “flat out tells us she’s a close personal friend of C.D. Glin,” she said.
The agency offered a grant to the Heva Fund, an African group, on the condition that it send a portion to Artisan Alliance. The grant was ostensibly to produce personal protective equipment like face masks, even though Heva told the agency there was no demand for such a thing because affordable personal protective equipment was readily available in the region.
Heva was so uncomfortable with the proposition that it asked to cancel the grant, Ristroph said. So the agency pushed the plan on a Kenyan group called Ustadi, which also balked, saying “We don&#8217;t need to pay Artisan Alliance, an American company, to help Kenyans learn how to sell masks,” she said.
In another case, a grant to the African group CS Consulting was used to pay the <a href="https://www.csis.org/analysis/supporting-small-and-medium-enterprises-sub-saharan-africa-through-blended-finance" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Center for Strategic and International Studies</a>, a D.C. think tank. “It’s all basically a pass through to CSIS,” Ristroph said.
She said the agency trains African grantees to avoid third-world style corruption by only giving out contracts that have been competitively bid at arm&#8217;s length, yet she was forced to tell them that the Americans were ordering them to do the opposite.
“I was on the phone with them…saying we’re signing a new grant to [the Association of Ghana Industries], and there will be a component that is a contract with Pyxera Global that is not competed. It’s already been decided,” she said. “It puts me in a compromising position.”
READ PART ONE: <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/foreign-aid-official-who-resisted-doge-took-secret-payments-after-steering-africa-money-to-friend?author=Luke+Rosiak&amp;category=News&amp;elementPosition=0&amp;row=0&amp;rowType=Vertical+List&amp;title=Foreign+Aid+Official+Who+Resisted+DOGE+Took+Secret+Payments+After+Steering+Africa+Money+To+Friend%C2%A0" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Foreign Aid Official Who Resisted DOGE Took Secret Payments After Steering Africa Money To Friend</a> 
PART THREE: <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/aid-agency-pushed-officials-for-profit-pyramid-scheme-on-poor-africans?author=Luke+Rosiak&amp;category=News&amp;elementPosition=0&amp;row=0&amp;rowType=Vertical+List&amp;title=Aid+Agency+Pushed+Official%E2%80%99s+For-Profit+Pyramid+Scheme+On+Poor+Africans">Aid Agency Pushed Official’s For-Profit Pyramid Scheme On Poor Africans</a>
PART FOUR: <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/them-white-motherf-ers-racist-agency-framed-its-lawyer-after-he-discovered-lawbreaking-he-says?topStoryPosition=undefined&amp;author=Luke+Rosiak&amp;category=Investigation&amp;elementPosition=0&amp;row=1&amp;rowHeadline=Top+Stories&amp;rowType=Top+Stories&amp;title=‘Them+White+Motherf-ers’%3A+Racist+Agency+Framed+Its+Lawyer+After+He+Discovered+Lawbreaking%2C+He+Says">‘Them White Motherf-ers’: Racist Agency Framed Its Lawyer After He Discovered Lawbreaking, He Says</a>

African Development Foundation locked the doors when DOGE tried to gain access

African Aid Agency Used Foreign Pass-Throughs To Hide Money That Went To D.C. Staff

Africa

USAID

Editor&#8217;s Note: This is part one of a series of investigative reports on the African Development Foundation, which gained notoriety for resisting the microscope of the Department of Government Efficiency.
&#8212;
A foreign aid official who refused the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) access to his agency&#8217;s financial records may have had a reason to keep auditors out: he steered illicit contracts to a friend who sent him secret payments, according to a law enforcement affidavit obtained by The Daily Wire.
Mathieu Zahui, chief financial officer of the African Development Foundation, refused to <a href="https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/69711562/20/4/brehm-v-marocco/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">grant</a> DOGE access to its books and told the White House that the agency would not acknowledge President Donald Trump’s appointee as chairman of the board. After a dramatic showdown in March, DOGE physically took over the building with U.S. Marshals, but control of the agency is now the subject of a lawsuit objecting to “swooping in with DOGE staff, demanding access to sensitive information systems” — an objection that reads differently in light of the criminal probe.
For years, workers at the small, USAID-adjacent federal agency focused on Africa have told oversight bodies about allegations of self-dealing, procurement violations, and mysterious offshore bank accounts, many of them involving Zahui. But little was done about it, several told The Daily Wire.
One action that raised eyebrows was Zahui’s insistence on directing both grants and contracts to a company in Kenya called Ganiam Ltd. According to <a href="https://www.usaspending.gov/search/?hash=974d7f91d366380036f5f1029bc26978" target="_blank" rel="noopener">spending records</a>, it was awarded nearly $800,000 in contracts without competition. For example, a one-year, <a href="https://www.usaspending.gov/award/CONT_AWD_20341920P00003_2036_-NONE-_-NONE-" target="_blank" rel="noopener">$350,000</a> contract for “transport, travel, relocation” services was executed in March 2020, when few people were traveling or holding conferences because of coronavirus.
According to a <a href="https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.dcd.274261/gov.uscourts.dcd.274261.1.0.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener">search warrant application</a> uncovered by The Daily Wire, USAID’s inspector general established by August 2024 that the company’s owner had secretly wired money to Zahui’s personal bank account at times that matched up with the federal contracts. To date, the Department of Justice has not charged either man with a crime.
Ganiam Ltd. is owned by Maina Gakure, whom Zahui has known for decades. Both worked at the Department of Veterans Affairs in San Diego and later moved to Fairfax, Virginia. Gakure had been in charge of awarding contracts at the VA, then created his own company designed to get government <a href="http://www.ganiam.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">construction contracts</a> by taking advantage of a minority preference program. It was called Ganiam LLC and was based out of a house in Virginia. Gakure similarly created a company based in Kenya called Gakure Ltd. The African Development Foundation is permitted by <a href="https://www.govtrack.us/congress/bills/96/hr6942/text" target="_blank" rel="noopener">law</a> to give grants only to African entities.
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Earlier this week, a briefing with Pete Marocco (the architect of Trump’s illegal dismantling of USAID) left us with more questions than answers. Worse, he left early to take DOGE staffers and federal marshals to try and forcibly close the U.S. African Development Foundation. <a href="https://t.co/Sxyf2gqL2g">pic.twitter.com/Sxyf2gqL2g</a>
— Senator Brian Schatz (@SenBrianSchatz) <a href="https://twitter.com/SenBrianSchatz/status/1898391541594419261?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">March 8, 2025</a></blockquote>
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In January 2024, inspector general agents interviewed Zahui about the Ganiam contracts, and he acknowledged having known Gakure personally since 1999, and having been to his apartment. He “could not explain why the contract with Ganiam was sole-sourced instead of being competitively bid,” the agents wrote.
Zahui — who was named chief financial officer of the federal agency after he declared bankruptcy and had his house foreclosed on — acknowledged to investigators that the travel contract was executed after COVID had already shut down travel. He told them the contract was actually used for IT services, but since Ganiam had no expertise in IT, it subcontracted it to a different company. A Department of the Treasury contracting official told the agents that was not allowed.
Zahui continued to give more contracts to Ganiam without competition, which he justified by saying he was “lazy” and didn’t want to find a new vendor. “Zahui stated that he did not receive any direct or indirect benefits from Gakure,” agents wrote.
But in February 2024, the agents seized Zahui’s work phone and examined a subset of the data.
“Agents found text messages showing at least eight instances of wire transfers or electronic payments from Gakure to Zahui’s Bank of America account, totaling over $10,000. These payments coincide with USADF’s awarding of sole-source contracts to Ganiam,” they wrote.
“After identifying these payments, the agents stopped their review. Based on the aforementioned evidence, there is probable cause to believe that there are additional relevant communications and instances of payments on the TARGET DEVICE in the applications that have not been reviewed,” they told a judge on October 29, 2024, eight months after seizing the device. They asked for a warrant to examine the rest.
On November 4, 2024, the day before the presidential election, they executed the search warrant.
This February, President Trump fired the African Development Foundation’s board members, and its CEO, Travis Adkins, resigned. A three-person committee, including Zahui, took over the duties of CEO.
On February 21, DOGE “demanded immediate access to USADF systems including financial records and payment and human resources systems,” but Zahui <a href="https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/69711562/31/brehm-v-marocco/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">stalled</a> them. On February 28, the White House emailed Zahui that Pete Marocco, the Trump operative tasked with dismantling USAID, had become acting chairman of the African Development Foundation. Zahui told the White House that agency staff would not honor the appointment because Marocco had not been confirmed by the Senate.
When DOGE returned, staff locked the doors and refused to let them in, creating a dramatic showdown, according to a <a href="https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/69711562/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">lawsuit</a> filed against DOGE by the now-fired board. DOGE eventually gained access to the building using U.S. Marshals, and put the staff on leave.
In an interview with The Daily Wire at his home, Zahui said DOGE changed the locks, but that they didn’t know about a back door, and he had gained access since the takeover.
He acknowledged that he selected Gakure’s firm because of their personal relationship, and said Gakure moved to Kenya before COVID.
During the same time period that Ganiam Ltd. was paid as an African company, Ganiam LLC received roughly <a href="https://www.usaspending.gov/search?hash=175860208aca119e74e2819f7a2dd58a" target="_blank" rel="noopener">$90,000</a> in U.S. coronavirus assistance designed to prevent the loss of American jobs. Gakure did not return a request for comment.
Zahui told The Daily Wire that Ganiam performed IT services during COVID instead of the travel services advertised on contracting documents. Contracting records show that the agency, with only 30 employees, was separately paying astronomical sums for IT, including <a href="https://www.usaspending.gov/award/CONT_IDV_20341920D00002_2036" target="_blank" rel="noopener">$865,000</a> to another minority-owned contractor called Etranservices Corp. between 2020 and 2022, with the option to bill up to $4 million.
A former agency employee told The Daily Wire that on top of the $800,000 in contracts to Ganiam, the African Development Foundation also awarded it grants. Zahui initially denied that to The Daily Wire, then conceded it was true. He said it gave grants to Ganiam, which it was required to use to buy airline tickets for the agency’s African partners to attend events on the continent and to take a trip to the United States, where they visited the National Museum of African American History and Culture. The amount of “grants” to the company is unknown.
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Africa Aid Standoff
Workers at the US African Development Foundation, a self-described independent agency, refused building access to the agency’s new acting director on Wednesday.
Marshalls came with DOGE Thurday for attitude adjustment
Is this a peaceful transition of power? <a href="https://t.co/ySOwWbZYNW">pic.twitter.com/ySOwWbZYNW</a>
— Jim DaBink (@JimDaBink) <a href="https://twitter.com/JimDaBink/status/1898862332631306499?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">March 9, 2025</a></blockquote>
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Offshore bank accounts
In November 2023, Sen. James Risch (R-Idaho), then the top Republican on the Senate Foreign Relations committee, asked the USAID inspector general, which has oversight of the African Development Foundation, to open an “immediate investigation” into what he said was a slew of whistleblower complaints about financial irregularities at the agency. Those included “misuse of official funds; fraudulent and corrupt spending practices; conflicts of interest [and] gross mismanagement.”
Among the irregularities cited was “an alleged $2 million deposit by [Zahui] into a bank account in Ghana in February 2023 — that typically would require signature by at least two presently responsible fiduciary agents of the agency,” Risch wrote. “This may also explain why a senior USADF official was unable to account for major financial discrepancies included in the agency&#8217;s FY2024 budget request.”
In an internal videotaped interview obtained by The Daily Wire, regional portfolio manager Jeff Gileo, who was tasked with supervising projects in Africa, said, “a lot of those projects, we never actually saw them. They were managed by [the CFO’s office] directly.” For example, he said he asked for information about a grant in the country of Mauritius and was “told no, because there might be some other information in there that people don&#8217;t need to know about, being run by finance.”
Zahui strongly denied to The Daily Wire that there was a $2 million deposit. He said it was true that there are accounts throughout Africa with money sitting in them, some in countries where the agency hadn’t been active in years. He also said that he had traveled to open and close such bank accounts, but that the money was all accounted for.
“We’ve not operated in Guinea for a long time, it&#8217;s been more than eight years now, but the bank account is there. There&#8217;s money there. When we attempted to transfer the fund to the U.S. Treasury, it didn&#8217;t work. We tried three times,” he said. “I went to Botswana, I close it, I take the money out. I went to Swaziland&#8230;.I close it, and the funds are accounted for today. I couldn&#8217;t bring it here because I couldn&#8217;t cross the — so we put it where we transfer them in an account, what we call ADF — I forget the name, but we have an account in Kenya.”
“We call it funds ‘outside of treasury,’” he said, adding that he planned to help Congress locate the money, but that he hasn’t pointed it out to DOGE because no one has made contact with him. According to its 2022-2023 <a href="https://oig.usaid.gov/sites/default/files/2023-11/0-ADF-24-003-C.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener">financial statement</a>, the agency had $9.7 million “held outside treasury.”
Mateo Dunne, the agency’s former general counsel, told The Daily Wire that he provided the USAID inspector general with extensive documentation of violations of procurement, personnel, and ethics regulations by African Development Foundation officials beginning in 2021, but that even clear-cut violations didn’t appear to be acted upon.
Sen. Risch warned USAID’s inspector general in the 2023 letter that if it didn’t urgently reform the African Development Foundation, Americans might lose trust in USAID and foreign funding as a whole.
“Development assistance plays an important role in U.S. foreign policy. Turning a blind eye to alleged fraud, corruption, and mismanagement in any single development agency or program would undermine the credibility of U.S. development assistance across the board,” he wrote.
Now, just over 3 months into the Trump administration, USAID and the African Development Foundation are gone.
This is Part 1 in a series.
READ PART TWO: <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/african-aid-agency-used-foreign-pass-throughs-to-hide-money-that-went-to-d-c-staff-friends?author=Luke+Rosiak&amp;category=News&amp;elementPosition=0&amp;row=0&amp;rowType=Vertical+List&amp;title=African+Aid+Agency+Used+Foreign+Pass-Throughs+To+Hide+Money+That+Went+To+D.C.+Staff%2C+Friends">African Aid Agency Used Foreign Pass-Throughs To Hide Money That Went To D.C. Staff</a>
PART THREE: <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/aid-agency-pushed-officials-for-profit-pyramid-scheme-on-poor-africans?author=Luke+Rosiak&amp;category=News&amp;elementPosition=0&amp;row=0&amp;rowType=Vertical+List&amp;title=Aid+Agency+Pushed+Official%E2%80%99s+For-Profit+Pyramid+Scheme+On+Poor+Africans">Aid Agency Pushed Official’s For-Profit Pyramid Scheme On Poor Africans</a>
PART FOUR: <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/them-white-motherf-ers-racist-agency-framed-its-lawyer-after-he-discovered-lawbreaking-he-says?topStoryPosition=undefined&amp;author=Luke+Rosiak&amp;category=Investigation&amp;elementPosition=0&amp;row=1&amp;rowHeadline=Top+Stories&amp;rowType=Top+Stories&amp;title=‘Them+White+Motherf-ers’%3A+Racist+Agency+Framed+Its+Lawyer+After+He+Discovered+Lawbreaking%2C+He+Says">‘Them White Motherf-ers’: Racist Agency Framed Its Lawyer After He Discovered Lawbreaking, He Says</a>

Mathieu Zahui, chief financial officer of the African Development Foundation

Foreign Aid Official Who Resisted DOGE Took Secret Payments After Steering Africa Money To Friend 

A student at Brown University is facing disciplinary charges for emailing thousands of non-faculty employees in a “Doge-like” email asking, &#8220;What do you do all day?&#8221;
Alex Shieh created a database of 3,805 administrative employees to attempt to understand why the Ivy League has become so expensive after the latest tuition hike brought annual costs for students up to $93,000.
Shieh’s email attempted to identify three particular jobs: &#8220;DEI jobs, redundant jobs, and bulls*** jobs,&#8221; but in the end, Shieh only received several dozen largely profane, belligerent responses from irate bureaucrats in addition to possible repercussions from Brown.
&#8220;Brown is retaliating against me for exposing that the exorbitant tuition costs are going to a bloated bureaucracy, not educating students,&#8221; Shieh <a href="https://www.foxnews.com/media/brown-university-student-who-angered-non-faculty-employees-doge-like-email-faces-punishment-from-school">told</a> Fox News.
&#8220;Because Brown can’t outright punish me for calling out their hypocrisy, they are instead accusing me of committing obscure conduct violations that are not applicable to my situation, in order to scare other students from speaking out,” he added.
Rep. Troy Nehls (R-Texas) <a href="https://www.foxnews.com/politics/brown-university-gop-crosshairs-after-students-doge-like-email-kicks-off-frenzy">sent</a> a letter to Brown University Friday morning urging the school to &#8220;reconsider any disciplinary action&#8221; against the Brown sophomore, first reported by Fox News.
&#8220;Reports indicate that Mr. Shieh engaged in a journalistic act of contacting university administrative employees to inquire about their roles and responsibilities. This action, it appears, stemmed from his perspective as a student paying a substantial tuition fee and experiencing concerns regarding university facilities, leading him to question the allocation of administrative resources,&#8221; Nehls <a href="https://nehls.house.gov/sites/evo-subsites/nehls.house.gov/files/evo-media-document/05.02.2025-rep-troy-e-nehls-letter-to-brown-university.pdf">wrote</a>.
&#8220;Penalizing a student for what appears to be an attempt to understand the university&#8217;s administrative structure raises serious questions about the institution&#8217;s commitment to open inquiry and the tolerance of dissenting viewpoints.&#8221;
The congressman demanded information on how Brown uses its $7.2 billion endowment, which boasts a 10% annual return, to reduce student costs.
Annual expenses to attend Brown for 2025-2026 are estimated at nearly $96,000, including tuition, fees, food, and housing. Nehls previously introduced legislation that would significantly increase excise taxes on larger colleges&#8217; endowment funds from 1.4% to 21%.
Brown University spokesman Brian Clark denied free speech was the issue, writing in a statement to Fox News, &#8220;At the center of Brown&#8217;s review are questions focused on whether improper use of non-public Brown data systems and/or targeting of individual employees violated law or policy.&#8221;
The controversy emerges as Ivy League schools face scrutiny from the Trump administration over both tuition rates and anti-Semitism concerns.
Shieh’s concerns regarding inflated college bureaucracies are <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/paulweinstein/2023/08/28/administrative-bloat-at-us-colleges-is-skyrocketing/">reflected</a> in a larger trend amongst universities, as according to Forbes, “Between 1976 and 2018, full-time administrators and other professionals employed by those institutions increased by 164% and 452%, respectively,” and “the number of full-time faculty employed at colleges and universities in the U.S. increased by only 92%, marginally outpacing student enrollment which grew by 78%.”
Shieh is planning to bring his campaign to other Ivy Leagues such as The University of Pennsylvania, Columbia University, and Cornell University &#8220;to expose wasteful expenditures there&#8221; and release &#8220;an online tool to demand that schools cease and desist DEI.&#8221;

GettyImages-548776411 (1)

University Student Faces Discipline For Emailing 3,800 Staff: ‘What Do You Do All Day?’

Brown University

Education

Ivy League

The United States economy added more jobs than expected in April, while government positions continued to decline, according to the April jobs report.
The Bureau of Labor Statistics released its monthly <a href="https://www.bls.gov/news.release/archives/empsit_05022025.htm">report</a> on Friday, showing that jobs had increased in April by 177,000, much more than the 133,000 that had been projected by the Dow Jones. At the same time, federal jobs declined by around 9,000 while the healthcare, transportation and warehousing, financial activities, and social assistance industries all saw growth. 
&#8220;This is the second month in a row where the jobs report has beat expectations,&#8221; <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/articles/2025/05/jobs-boom-more-americans-working-for-higher-pay/">said</a> White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt. &#8220;Wages are continuing to rise and labor force participation is increasing. This is exactly what we want to see. More Americans working for higher wages. More winning is on the way!”
The healthcare industry added 51,000 jobs, including 22,000 in hospitals and 21,000 in ambulatory services, while transportation and warehousing increased by 29,000, according to the report. The 177,000 jobs were lower than the 185,000 jobs that <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/we-cant-lose-march-job-growth-vastly-outpaces-expectations" target="_blank" rel="noopener">were added</a> in March, which also beat job growth expectations. 
Unemployment remained at 4.2%, and the labor force participation rate changed little. This was the first jobs report released after President Donald Trump announced &#8220;Liberation Day&#8221; tariffs. Most of those tariffs have been lowered to 10% across the board, with a 145% tariff on China.
The markets responded positively to the jobs report, with the Dow Jones Industrial Average, the S&amp;P 500, and the Nasdaq all jumping more than 1%.
Responding to the news, the White House&#8217;s official &#8220;Rapid Response&#8221; X account celebrated the job gains made in the private sector and the decline in government employment. According to the White House, more than 95% of the jobs added to the economy under President Donald Trump have come from the private sector, while around 25% of the jobs created during President Joe Biden&#8217;s final two years were government jobs.
&#8220;Federal employment has already shrank by 26,000 jobs under Trump after ballooning by 139,000 jobs in Biden’s last two years. President Trump is right-sizing government while unleashing private-sector growth,&#8221; the account posted.
Trump and his top donor, Elon Musk, have pushed for a variety of cuts across the federal workforce — from the IRS to the State Department — through Musk&#8217;s Department of Government Efficiency project. Some of the cuts have come through firings, while other departments have pushed federal employees to accept buyouts to vacate their jobs.
The White House also celebrated the job gains made among native-born Americans during President Trump&#8217;s first three months in office.
&#8220;Biden relied on government jobs and foreign-born workers. Native-born workers have fueled 97.6% of job growth under President Trump,&#8221; the White House posted. &#8220;In Biden’s final two years, native-born Americans accounted for only HALF (56.9%) of employment gains.&#8221;

President Trump Announces Aviation Safety Executive Orders In The Oval Office Of White House

Solid April Jobs Report Shows Govt Employment Drops As Private Sector Growth Beats Expectations

Economy

Jobs

Karoline Leavitt

Stock Market

Secretary of State Marco Rubio revealed during Wednesday&#8217;s cabinet meeting that former President Joe Biden&#8217;s State Department had kept dossiers on the social media posts of American citizens — including one person who was &#8220;sitting at this table today.&#8221;
Rubio explained that the office — which appeared to have been created for the sole purpose of censoring American citizens — had been monitoring the social media posts of numerous individuals who were referred to as &#8220;vectors of disinformation.&#8221;
WATCH:
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
🚨This is NUTS: Secretary Rubio just announced that he found DOZENS of files kept by Joe Biden&#8217;s State Department that classified American citizens as &#8220;vectors of disinformation&#8221; — with the intention of censoring them.
That&#8217;s not all.
Marco Rubio says that there&#8217;s someone in… <a href="https://t.co/Q8FcrNp9M9">pic.twitter.com/Q8FcrNp9M9</a>
— Townhall.com (@townhallcom) <a href="https://twitter.com/townhallcom/status/1917630441546240121?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">April 30, 2025</a></blockquote>
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&#8220;We had an office in the Department of State whose job it was to censor Americans,&#8221; Rubio said. &#8220;And by the way, I&#8217;m not going to say who it is, I&#8217;ll leave it up to them, there&#8217;s at least one person at this table today who had a dossier in that building of social media posts to identify them as purveyors of disinformation. We have these dossiers. We are going to be turning those over to these individuals —&#8221;
Vice President JD Vance interrupted with a question: &#8220;Was it me or Elon?&#8221;
Laughter erupted around the table as Rubio continued, &#8220;Well, we are going to turn over these dossiers to the individuals, and they will decide whether they want to disclose it or not. But just think about it — the Department of State of the United States had set up an office to monitor the social media posts and commentary of American citizens, to identify them as vectors of disinformation, when we know that the best [way] to combat disinformation is freedom of speech and transparency.&#8221;
&#8220;And so that&#8217;s what we&#8217;re going to be in the business of doing, we&#8217;re not going to have an office that does that,&#8221; Rubio concluded.

Marco Rubio Sworn In As US Secretary Of State

Rubio Says Biden State Dept Had A Dossier On ‘One Person At This Table,’ And JD Vance Has Questions

Rubio Says Biden State Dept Had A Dossier On 'One Person At This Table,' And JD Vance Has Questions

JD Vance

Joe Biden

State Department

Neil Young is facing criticism for a new song he wrote about “fascists” buying Teslas.
The 79-year-old singer-songwriter debuted the song, reportedly titled “Let’s Roll Again,” at the Light Up the Blue charity concert in Los Angeles over the weekend. 
“If you’re a fascist, get a Tesla / It’s electric, it doesn’t matter / If you’re a Democrat, taste your freedom / Get whatever you want, taste your freedom,&#8221; Young could be heard singing in clips circulating on social media. 
“Come on Ford, come on GM / Come on Chrysler, let&#8217;s roll again,&#8221; the song continued. &#8220;Build something special that people need / Build us a safe way for us to meet / Build something that won&#8217;t kill our kids / Runs real clean.&#8221;
“Come on America, let’s get in the race / China’s way ahead, they’re making clean cars,” Young sang.
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Neil Young attacks Elon Musk: “If you’re a fascist, get a Tesla &#8211; It’s electric, it doesn’t matter. If you’re a Democrat, taste your freedom &#8211; get whatever you want, taste your freedom.” <a href="https://t.co/Gva6vtb1BK">pic.twitter.com/Gva6vtb1BK</a>
&mdash; Unlimited L&#39;s (@unlimited_ls) <a href="https://twitter.com/unlimited_ls/status/1917538359062462668?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">April 30, 2025</a></blockquote>
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Responses on social media have been full of mockery.
“Neil Young waddling up to a mic like a deranged scarecrow, screeching out his geriatric fever dream of a protest song, is peak washed-up hippie cringe,” one X user <a href="https://x.com/SchoenPhotog/status/1917622372800290880">wrote</a>. &#8220;Neil, you sound like a college freshman who just discovered Reddit and thinks quoting China makes them deep… Time to unplug his amp and his internet, he’s gone full granola lunatic.”
“Imagine 25-year-old Neil Young seeing what a boorish square he would become,” another person <a href="https://x.com/NolteNC/status/1917669704660910416">agreed</a>.
“Another washed up slob,” political commentator Mark Levin <a href="https://x.com/marklevinshow/status/1917759301646504311">said</a>.
The new song comes as Elon Musk’s car company <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/elon-significantly-cut-back-doge-time?author=Daniel+Chaitin&amp;category=News&amp;elementPosition=undefined&amp;row=0&amp;rowType=Vertical+List&amp;title=Elon+To+%E2%80%98Significantly%E2%80%99+Cut+Back+On+DOGE+Time">reported</a> a 71% earnings drop over the past three months when compared to the first quarter of last year. This decline was driven in part by frequent protests over Musk working with President Donald Trump on the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) initiative.
Recently, Young said he was afraid Trump wouldn’t allow him back into the country after his upcoming European tour.
“When I go to play music in Europe, if I talk about Donald J. Trump, I may be one of those returning to America who is barred or put in jail to sleep on a cement floor with an aluminum blanket,” he wrote on his <a href="https://neilyoungarchives.com/news/3">website</a>. “That is happening all the time now. Countries have new advice for those returning to America.”
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