Summary
Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Elon Musk engaged in a heated exchange during a closed-door Cabinet meeting, with Musk accusing Rubio of firing “nobody” from his department.
Rubio angrily responded by citing 1,500 State Department staff who took early retirement and sarcastically asked if Musk wanted to rehire them just to fire them again.
The argument, which also involved Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy over FAA management. Duffy complained DOGE’s youngsters were trying to fire air traffic controllers, which Musk responded was a “lie.”
Following the meeting, Trump announced on Truth Social that future DOGE cuts would use a “scalpel” rather than a "hatchet.
Marco: you fired air traffic controllers, Emu!
Emu: nuh-uh
Yes, the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), led by Elon Musk, has initiated significant changes within the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), including the dismissal of numerous air traffic controllers and safety officials.
Key Developments:
February 5, 2025: Following a mid-air collision over the Potomac River, Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy announced DOGE’s intervention in the FAA to “upgrade our aviation system.” Elon Musk emphasized plans to implement “rapid safety upgrades to the air traffic control system.”
February 17, 2025: Reports confirmed that Elon Musk authorized the termination of hundreds of FAA safety officials. David Spero, President of the Professional Aviation Safety Specialists, criticized these actions, highlighting potential national safety risks.
Additionally, SpaceX employees were assigned to the FAA’s Air Traffic Control System Command Center, raising concerns about conflicts of interest due to ongoing disputes between Musk’s companies and the FAA.
These measures have sparked debates regarding the implications for air traffic safety and the potential conflicts arising from Musk’s dual roles in private aerospace ventures and federal oversight.
The tussle ended with Trump intervening to tell Duffy to hire “geniuses” from MIT as air traffic controllers.
This is the most WTF line in this article.
He always gets so hung up on MIT because of his uncle
To be fair, having nuclear.
Look, having nuclear — my uncle was a great professor and scientist and engineer, Dr. John Trump at MIT; good genes, very good genes, OK, very smart, the Wharton School of Finance, very good, very smart — you know, if you’re a conservative Republican, if I were a liberal, if, like, OK, if I ran as a liberal Democrat, they would say I’m one of the smartest people anywhere in the world — it’s true! — but when you’re a conservative Republican they try — oh, do they do a number — that’s why I always start off: Went to Wharton, was a good student, went there, went there, did this, built a fortune — you know I have to give my like credentials all the time, because we’re a little disadvantaged — but you look at the nuclear deal, the thing that really bothers me — it would have been so easy, and it’s not as important as these lives are — nuclear is so powerful; my uncle explained that to me many, many years ago, the power and that was 35 years ago; he would explain the power of what’s going to happen and he was right, who would have thought? — but when you look at what’s going on with the four prisoners — now it used to be three, now it’s four — but when it was three and even now, I would have said it’s all in the messenger; fellas, and it is fellas because, you know, they don’t, they haven’t figured that the women are smarter right now than the men, so, you know, it’s gonna take them about another 150 years — but the Persians are great negotiators, the Iranians are great negotiators, so, and they, they just killed, they just killed us, this is horrible.
Maybe I should run for presidemcy after all…
Huh?
A trump speech: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Elhyo-_fR0E
Appreciate you doing the footwork and sharing a link. It’s astounding how incoherent it all is.
Video would be great to illustrate the complete incompetence of these people. They’re literally all trying to figure this out as it happens, have no idea wtf they are doing, and millions of people are already affected.
Oh it’s worse.
They’re not trying to figure it out as they go, they’ve drank the coolaid.
Musk and Trump were born into financial empires, everything they do fails but the people scrambling to pick up the pieces behind them got them huge wins and minimized loses
After a lifetime of this, their arrogance has grown to the point they’ve seen the people cleaning up after them as an obstacle. And now they’ve successfully found cultists willing to carry out their orders directly without question, there’s no longer layers of people saying “boss is demanding this, how can we make it not disasterous?”
More than anything, they just seem confused why people are getting so angry at them for doing what they’ve always done more effectively
