Elon Musk and his gang of young interns are descending on US federal agencies like flies.
After a tense weekend in which Musk forced his way into the <a href="https://apnews.com/article/donald-trump-elon-musk-doge-treasury-5e26cc80fcb766981cea56afd57ae759">Treasury's servers</a> — gaining access to Social Security, Medicare, and possibly <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2025/02/04/elon-musk-government-legal-doge/">student loan</a> payment information — it was widely reported that Trump's broligarch has "<a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/news/treasury-says-elon-musk-doge-has-read-only-access-to-payment-systems/">read only access</a>" to the department's sensitive information. Essentially, he can't gunk up any ongoing payments, at least yet, though his team theoretically has access to huge amounts of personal information about Americans the Treasury holds, inviting legal attacks for <a href="https://www.citizen.org/wp-content/uploads/1-Complaint-7.pdf">unlawful disclosure</a>.
And to hear him tell it, Musk is only getting started. Now he's signaling a <a href="https://finance.yahoo.com/news/elon-musk-says-treasury-officials-190015454.html">radical plan</a> to transfer the US Treasury to the blockchain.
"Career Treasury officials are breaking the law every hour of every day by approving payments that are fraudulent or do not match the funding laws passed by Congress," he <a href="https://x.com/elonmusk/status/1886134485822922785">posted</a> on Monday.
The tech mogul failed to share any evidence to back up his claim, but when asked by an acolyte if the Treasury should be put on the blockchain "so this doesn't happen," Musk <a href="https://x.com/elonmusk/status/1886164124981166241">replied</a> with an enthusiastic "yes!"
If it's unclear to you what that even means in practice, you're not alone. Forbes <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20250205142347/https://www.forbes.com/sites/digital-assets/2025/02/02/this-needs-to-stop-now-elon-musk-confirms-radical-doge-us-treasury-plan/">has reported</a> that, so far, Musk has floated using the blockchain to safeguard data, track federal spending, make payments on behalf of the federal government, and manage agency buildings — things that are already done with regular payment systems using the dollar. Musk hasn't yet explained what any of his nebulous blockchain plans mean, <a href="https://fortune.com/2025/01/25/elon-musk-blockchain-department-of-government-efficiency-doge-crypto-bitcoin/">except that</a> they will "save us money."
But the richest man in the world might be building the case against his plans on his own. Musk's Treasury takeover on Monday was met swiftly with a <a href="https://www.citizen.org/news/advocacy-group-unions-sue-treasury-department-over-illegal-doge-data-access/">joint lawsuit</a> filed by a number of activist groups and unions, which sent the crypto market into turmoil.
Soon after the Treasury lawsuit was announced, Musk's favorite crypto asset, Dogecoin, saw its <a href="https://www.financemagnates.com/cryptocurrency/dogecoin-doge-drops-15-as-musks-role-in-us-treasury-sparks-lawsuit/">price tumble</a> 15 percent. Bitcoin likewise dropped by 2.5 percent — a <a href="https://www.reuters.com/markets/currencies/bitcoin-slides-below-100000-tariffs-rattle-markets-2025-02-02/">three week low</a> — and Ethereum fell by 18 percent, its largest drop since November, likely aggravated by Trump's <a href="https://www.investing.com/news/cryptocurrency-news/bitcoin-price-today-slumps-to-94k-as-trump-tariffs-spark-global-selloff-3844338">ongoing tariff war</a>.
Those price drops come amidst an <a href="https://www.google.com/search?sca_esv=df054736d75a2025&amp;q=crypto+volatile&amp;tbm=nws&amp;source=lnms&amp;fbs=ABzOT_CWdhQLP1FcmU5B0fn3xuWpA-dk4wpBWOGsoR7DG5zJBnsX62dbVmWR6QCQ5QEtPRqInn_ud8BG5tWxPdEiOpZiqcs2-8hm_Lubj82L_E5oFZ1GAR8ZXyi0qwbr1lm6izDy51NgmK9ekZXicCScMIHxIMDuFbGUCd37NvTt2aj8d3dTC6hLe3cybX2kzDQI_2MJfTyiGcboUYyEJri_gb0FsVyIZA&amp;sa=X&amp;ved=2ahUKEwi_prmT8KyLAxXLMlkFHQXPLKMQ0pQJegQIDxAB&amp;biw=1536&amp;bih=695&amp;dpr=1.25">increasingly volatile</a> crypto market more broadly, as government actions like Trump's <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/01/strengthening-american-leadership-in-digital-financial-technology/">executive orders</a> and State lawmakers' plans to develop "<a href="https://futurism.com/states-taxpayer-money-crypto-reserves">Bitcoin Strategic Reserves</a>" make waves in the <a href="https://www.ft.com/content/e0e5e286-1885-4d72-8b65-3333069815c1">already rocky</a> digital currency space. Put simply, crypto is an extremely reactive asset, which doesn't make a great foundation for a massive economy like the US.
Critics have <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2024-12-06/bitcoin-reserve-would-be-a-bad-deal-for-americans?sref=YfHlo0rL">long charged</a> that moving Treasury assets to the blockchain could result in increased inflation, slower transaction processing times, and soaring crypto prices. While some of that might be good for deep-pocketed <a href="https://www.yahoo.com/news/opinion-several-reasons-musk-wants-113921314.html">blockchain investors</a> like Musk, it's a raw deal for American taxpayers, who stand to gain very little from the deal.
In addition, many experts worry that the <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/digital-assets/2025/01/31/leak-reveals-trump-feared-to-be-fueling-a-dangerous-bitcoin-and-crypto">speculative market</a> legitimated by the likes of Musk and Trump is pushing crypto toward a large and dangerous <a href="https://fortune.com/crypto/2025/01/31/activist-investor-elliott-management-crypto-inevitable-collapse-white-house-bubble-trump/">bubble</a>, which is liable to burst at any moment. They also flag that driving full-throttle toward blockchain-as-currency serves to weaken the US dollar — which America has spent decades installing as the standard <a href="https://jacobin.com/2013/07/dollar-diplomacy">throughout the world</a> — potentially crippling the actual, real-life market while the made-up fantasy one <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/digital-assets/2024/09/04/mission-accomplished-rate-cuts-from-the-fed-will-boost-bitcoin-weaken-dollar/">soars</a>.
With all that in mind, Musk's unprecedented plans for the Treasury sound less like a play for "transparency and accountability" and more like <a href="https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/2024/11/15/how-tesla-and-spacex-benefit-from-government-spending/76301473007/">yet another handout</a> from American taxpayers to the wealthy. At least we'll be able to verify it on the blockchain.
More on the blockchain: <a href="https://futurism.com/blockchains-unhackable-getting-hacked">Blockchains Were Supposed to Be "Unhackable." Now They're Getting Hacked.</a>

Cryp No

"This needs to stop NOW!"

Elon Musk Proposes Putting US Treasury on Blockchain

Google appears to have retroactively edited the YouTube video of an advertisement for Gemini, the company's core AI model, to remove an obvious error the AI made about the global popularity of gouda cheese.
On January 30, the search giant released a Super Bowl ad promoting "Google Workspace with Gemini," which is <a href="https://workspace.google.com/solutions/ai/">described</a> by the company as an AI-integrated "upgrade" to its workspace products like Docs, Sheets, and more. In the ad, a down-home Wisconsin cheese mart owner, explaining that the bulk of his business these days is done through e-commerce, discusses how helpful Gemini has been in writing web product descriptions about the various cheeses he sells.
The video then shows Gemini being prompted with a request to generate a "description of Smoked Gouda that would appeal to cheese lovers." In response, the AI produces a short paragraph of copy that, amid glowing sentiments about gouda's creamy texture, confidently declares that gouda accounts for "50 to 60 percent of the world's cheese consumption."
X-formerly-Twitter user and travel blogger Nate Hake was <a href="https://x.com/natejhake/status/1885137074673549460">quick to call this gouda claim</a> into question. After all, though gouda is certainly popular, 50 to 60 percent of total global consumption is a lot of cheese, especially considering the immense popularity of cheeses like cheddar and mozzarella. The Verge, <a href="https://www.theverge.com/news/604679/google-ai-super-bowl-ad-gouda-cheese">which first reported on the initial incident over the weekend</a>, consulted a professor of agricultural economics at Cornell University named Andrew Novakovic, who agreed that "while Gouda is likely the most common single variety in world trade, it is almost assuredly not the most widely consumed."
Regardless, Google defended the AI-generated gouda assertion, with Google Cloud apps president Jerry Dischler even <a href="https://x.com/jdischler/status/1885806962605957555">taking to X</a> to insist that the error was "not a hallucination."
"Gemini is grounded in the Web — and users can always check the results and references. In this case, multiple sites across the web include the 50-60 percent stat," Dischler wrote in response to Hake. "Gouda news: many love this cheese! Bada news: not everyone thinks it's as grate." (When the Verge reached out for comment, Google directed them to Dischler's X post.)
It's unclear exactly what sites Dischler was referring to, but it's true that some — including the <a href="https://www.cheese.com/gouda/">authoritative-sounding Cheese.com</a> — do make that exact claim.
But of course, that's the problem Google and other tech companies keep running into: when you automate the process of gathering information, it's easy enough to grab whatever information looks true and repeat it as fact, but hard to duplicate the power of a skeptical human who can evaluate a sketchy claim before putting it on their small business' website — or into a multi-million dollar Super Bowl ad, for that matter.
Regardless of its cutesy nothing-statement, it seems that Google recognizes the gravity of the error. As <a href="https://x.com/natejhake/status/1886931460541534488">Hake first caught once again</a>, it looks like Google quietly scrubbed the embarrassing mistake, which has now mysteriously disappeared from the YouTube version of the ad entirely.
The description of the YouTube video doesn't denote any kind of update; it also still lists the original publish date of the ad, January 30. Before and after screenshots, though, <a href="https://x.com/natejhake/status/1885137074673549460">clearly show the alteration</a>.
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-341522" src="https://wordpress-assets.futurism.com/2025/02/Screen-Shot-2025-02-05-at-10.24.14-AM.png" alt="" width="2022" height="1624" />
In addition to admitting that its AI still isn't ready for prime time, the quiet update also appears to be a remarkable exertion of Google's power as the owner of YouTube.
Per <a href="https://support.google.com/youtube/answer/55770?hl=en&amp;co=GENIE.Platform%3DDesktop#:~:text=You%20can't%20replace%20a%20video.,%2C%20description%2C%20and%20privacy%20settings.">YouTube policies</a>, creators may retroactively alter or edit smaller details of uploaded videos, like the title, description, and title cards. But making major edits to the actual content of an uploaded video has long been forbidden; a substantive alteration, like the correction of a factual error stated mid-video, requires creators to upload a new clip entirely. Google, though, appears to have broken this rule for itself by uploading an edited video under the same URL.
We reached out to Google for comment, but didn't hear back at the time of publishing.
More on Google and AI:  <a href="https://futurism.com/google-ai-baby-elephants">Google's AI Overview Believes Baby Elephants Can Sit in the Palm of a Human Hand</a>

Bada Look

Oops.

Google Retroactively Edits Super Bowl Ad to Remove Embarrassing Error Its AI Made

An unknown bandit filmed themselves defacing a Tesla Cybertruck with an, er, anatomical drawing — all while someone was seemingly inside of the vehicle.
Posted <a href="https://x.com/creepydotorg/status/1886017934327152732">on X</a> and <a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/EnoughMuskSpam/comments/1ifzu9n/another_cybertruck_vandalized_is_tesla_vandalism/">Reddit</a>, the first-person video shows a vandal spraypainting a cartoonish phallus on the side of the silver geometric vehicle — while, as sharp-eyed observers quickly noticed, someone was still behind the wheel.
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Live-action of mild vandalism to a Tesla Cybertruck 👀 <a href="https://t.co/VdxRpkP2QD">pic.twitter.com/VdxRpkP2QD</a>
&mdash; Creepy (@creepydotorg) <a href="https://twitter.com/creepydotorg/status/1886017934327152732?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">February 2, 2025</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
"Be careful," a user on the <a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/unusual_whales/comments/1ifrscg/comment/majbsza/?utm_source=share&amp;utm_medium=web3x&amp;utm_name=web3xcss&amp;utm_term=1&amp;utm_content=share_button">r/unusual_whales cryptocurrency subreddit</a> warned potential copycats. "Pretty sure all [Teslas] have cameras looking out from the vehicle."
"In this case the driver was in the truck," <a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/unusual_whales/comments/1ifrscg/comment/mak37oc/?utm_source=share&amp;utm_medium=web3x&amp;utm_name=web3xcss&amp;utm_term=1&amp;utm_content=share_button">another commented</a>. "Which is even funnier."
Elsewhere on Reddit, folks debated the morality of vandalism as it pertains to Tesla's infamous owner, Elon Musk.
"There’s an interesting debate to be had over whether vandalizing a Tesla is ethical or not," waffled a <a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/EnoughMuskSpam/comments/1ifzu9n/another_cybertruck_vandalized_is_tesla_vandalism/">user on r/EnoughMuskSpam</a>, a subreddit geared towards dunking on Musk. "All of us could easily come up a list of pros and cons."
"One thing we can probably agree on is that if people see more videos like this, they will be shy about buying a Tesla, hurting Tesla's stock and Elon's pocketbook," the user continued. "I’m not going to tell you [what] to do except to let your conscience be your guide and act accordingly."
In a nod to the South African-born billionaire's <a href="https://futurism.com/the-byte/jewish-leaders-elon-musk-holocaust-jokes">Sieg Heil last month</a> — and certain Musk boosters' <a href="https://theconversation.com/elon-musk-and-the-history-of-the-roman-salute-248032">equivocation that</a> it was a "Roman Salute" — another <a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/EnoughMuskSpam/comments/1ifzu9n/comment/maklgpt/?utm_source=share&amp;utm_medium=web3x&amp;utm_name=web3xcss&amp;utm_term=1&amp;utm_content=share_button">r/EnoughMuskSpam user joked</a> that the vandalism "is not a dick" but is instead a "Roman picture."
And speaking of that salute: around the same time this Cyberdick video was going viral, a Tesla showroom in the Netherlands' Hague — yes, <a href="https://www.dw.com/en/nuremberg-trials-a-warning-to-war-criminals-and-dictators/a-55634256">that one</a> — was <a href="https://www.teslarati.com/tesla-showroom-netherlands-vandalized-nazi-imagery/">vandalized with anti-Nazi imagery</a> and slogans.
As photos taken after the incident show, angry bilingual vandals spraypainted "f*ck off fascist" and "Nee tegen nazi's," which is Dutch for "no to Nazis." The person or persons also drew two swastikas, making the meaning behind the whole gambit a bit confusing.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="500" data-dnt="true">
🚘 A Tesla showroom in The Hague, Netherlands, has been vandalized with swastika and anti-Nazi slogans. It is not yet known who did it. <a href="https://t.co/0l0PxNN0Ka">pic.twitter.com/0l0PxNN0Ka</a>
&mdash; Bakhmut IN.UA (@Bakhmutinua_eng) <a href="https://twitter.com/Bakhmutinua_eng/status/1886391689260261867?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">February 3, 2025</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
Taken in tandem, these two disparate defacements serve not only as a reminder of how differently Americans and Europeans treat graffiti, but also stand as stark visual references to the times we're living in.
Be it a dick on a Cybertruck or swastikas at a Tesla showroom, the messages are roughly the same: the <a href="https://futurism.com/the-byte/elon-musk-bizarre-behavior-killing-tesla-sales">world is getting extremely sick</a> of Musk and the horse he rode into the White House on.
More on Tesla and tyranny: <a href="https://futurism.com/the-byte/musk-nazi-salute-german-gigafactory">Huge Image of Musk’s Nazi Salute Projected Onto German Gigafactory</a>

Members Only

Another day, another dick. 

Tragedy! Cybertruck Defaced With Large Crude Drawing

Elon Musk's Department of Government Efficiency has laid waste to USAID, an international development agency that typically spends tens of billions of dollars on aid across the world.
Its demise could <a href="https://futurism.com/the-byte/official-warns-musk-thousands-usaid-people">result in the death</a> of "thousands, if not hundreds of thousands" of people, as one anonymous USAID official <a href="https://www.politico.com/playbook">told Politico</a>.
In an excoriating series of tweets, Musk <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cdjdmx12j9no">called the agency</a> a "criminal organization" and argued that it was "<a href="https://x.com/elonmusk/status/1886099001876832480">evil</a>," while furthering harebrained conspiracy theories claiming it was somehow linked to the outbreak of COVID.
Now, it's starting to sound like Musk's seething hatred towards the aid organization can be traced back to at least one conflict of interest at one of his business ventures: according <a href="https://www.levernews.com/from-watergate-to-elon-gate/">to The Lever</a>, USAID's inspector general was investigating Musk's <a href="https://futurism.com/the-byte/elon-musk-manipulated-starlink-ukrainian-attack-russia">Starlink partnership with the Ukrainian government</a> around the time DOGE shut down the organization.
Needless to say, it's a charge that perfectly illustrates why Musk is unsuited for the job he's been given. Besides the billionaire's <a href="https://futurism.com/jewish-leaders-boycott-elon-musk-nazi-salute">racist and xenophobic ideologies</a>, Musk's singling out of USAID was more than likely self-serving — and has nothing to do with it allegedly being run by "radical left lunatics," as he's said.
Put simply, Musk's own greed could soon kickstart a senseless and entirely preventable humanitarian disaster of epic proportions, with The Lever reporting that USAID's office of inspector general informed Congress in September that it was reviewing "USAID’s oversight of Starlink Satellite Terminals provided to the Ukrainian government, and USAID’s efforts to protect against sexual exploitation and abuse in Ukraine."
USAID's website has also since been scrubbed of any mentions of Musk's ventures, including SpaceX and Starlink after Musk started gutting.
In early 2022, SpaceX <a href="https://futurism.com/the-byte/musk-starlink-ukraine">delivered tens of thousands</a> of Starlink terminals to Ukrainians on the front lines, greatly enhancing their connectivity. It didn't take long for Musk to <a href="https://futurism.com/elon-musk-stopping-ukraine-free-starlink">get cold feet</a>, arguing that it was "unreasonable" for SpaceX to continue footing their bills.
Musk has also <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2023/08/28/elon-musks-shadow-rule">reportedly met with Russian president Vladimir Putin</a> several times during the country's invasion.
According to Walter Isaacson's biography of the mercurial entrepreneur, Musk intentionally hamstrung the Starlink satellite network to <a class="underline hover:text-the-byte hover:no-underline transition-all duration-200 ease-in-out" href="https://edition.cnn.com/2023/09/07/politics/elon-musk-biography-walter-isaacson-ukraine-starlink/index.html">thwart a Ukrainian attack</a> on Russia's naval fleet near the Crimean coast.
"How am I in this war?" Musk asked Isaacson. "Starlink was not meant to be involved in wars. It was so people can watch Netflix and chill and get online for school and do good peaceful things, not drone strikes."
In response, Musk <a href="https://futurism.com/the-byte/elon-musk-admits-to-sabotaging-ukraines-military">admitted</a> that he refused to "agree" to an "emergency request from government authorities to activate Starlink all the way to Sevastopol," which had the "obvious intent being to sink most of the Russian fleet at anchor."
Russian forces have since <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2024/10/12/starlink-russia-ukraine-elon-musk/">made use of black market Starlink terminals</a> to power their warfare in Ukraine.
Several years later, Musk's coup in Washington, DC, is already claiming plenty of victims. USAID workers and their families have already <a href="https://time.com/7212938/trump-administration-pulling-almost-all-usaid-workers-off-job-worldwide/">been told to uproot their lives</a>, leaving a massive <a href="https://abcnews.go.com/US/former-usaid-official-calls-closure-extinction-level-event/story?id=118422085">vacuum in the global aid sector</a>.
The organization's dismantling is nothing less than a massive overreach of power, orchestrated by the richest man in the world.
"I don’t even know if crime is the right word for the illegal destruction of USAID," New York Times columnist Jamelle Bouie wrote in a <a href="https://bsky.app/profile/jamellebouie.net/post/3lhfm7ughms2e">post on Bluesky</a>. "It is an autocratic power grab and a direct attack on the sovereignty of the American people."
More on DOGE: <a href="https://futurism.com/the-byte/elon-musk-shut-down-government-payments">Elon Musk Says DOGE Will Now Shut Down Government Payments He Doesn't Like</a>

We Are No Longer the World

"It is an autocratic power grab and a direct attack on the sovereignty of the American people."

Elon Musk Reportedly Has a Huge Conflict of Interest Motivating Him to Gut USAID

<h2>Time of Death</h2>
General Motors' robotaxi company Cruise has begun laying off half of its workforce, <a href="https://www.theverge.com/news/605941/cruise-layoff-employee-robotaxi-gm">The Verge reports</a> — a nail in the coffin for the company, two months after General Motors <a href="https://www.theverge.com/2024/12/10/24318259/gm-cruise-shutdown-robotaxi-super-cruise">pulled its funding</a>.
GM has <a href="https://news.gm.com/home.detail.html/Pages/topic/us/en/2025/feb/0204-cruise.html">announced</a> that it's acquired "full ownership" over the once-promising startup, while doubling down on the advancements of its assisted-driving feature Super Cruise.
Once hailed as a pioneer in the autonomous ride-hailing service space, Cruise had a lot to lose. In October 2023, a <a href="https://futurism.com/the-byte/pedestrian-under-self-driving-car">pedestrian became trapped underneath</a> a Cruise robotaxi, launching a lengthy investigation and eventually leading to California <a href="https://futurism.com/california-revokes-cruise-robotaxi-permit">yanking its permit in the state</a>.
Despite lofty plans to bring its robotaxi service to more cities, Cruise never recovered, <a href="https://futurism.com/the-byte/cruise-recalling-all-cars">pulling its entire fleet</a> from the streets in November and never making a return.
Cruise's spectacular fall from grace highlights nagging shortcomings of the tech, resulting in <a href="https://futurism.com/the-byte/san-francisco-sues-self-driving-cars-streets">plenty of mayhem</a> on public streets and <a href="https://futurism.com/the-byte/cruise-robotaxis-children">terrifying run-ins</a> with pedestrians, despite many years of testing and billions in investment.
"We are grateful for their passion and contributions to help us reach this stage, and our focus is on supporting them into their next chapter with severance packages and career support," Cruise spokesperson Sara Autio told The Verge. "While not an easy decision, we are focused on combining efforts with General Motors to accelerate autonomy at scale on personal autonomous vehicles."
<h2>Highway to Hell</h2>
Where Cruise's demise leaves the industry as a whole remains to be seen. Once its fiercest competitor, Alphabet's Waymo, is still <a href="https://futurism.com/the-byte/waymo-expansion-san-francisco">planning a major expansion nationwide</a> and is currently operating a <a href="https://www.sfchronicle.com/sf/article/s-f-waymo-robotaxis-19592112.php">300-vehicle fleet in San Francisco</a>.
Elon Musk's Tesla is also planning a rollout of <a href="https://futurism.com/why-tesla-cybercab-robotaxi-no-sense">autonomous "Cybercabs</a>," but when — or if — that'll happen remains extremely fuzzy.
Now that Musk, currently distracted by a side quest to <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2025/02/04/politics/treasury-payments-system-musk-doge-access/index.html">machete his way through the US government</a>, has floated the idea of <a href="https://futurism.com/the-byte/elon-musk-eliminate-regulations">getting rid of essentially all regulations</a>, it remains to be seen whether Tesla will have to battle the same regulatory hurdles that Cruise failed to clear.
More on robotaxis: <a href="https://futurism.com/the-byte/crowd-tears-apart-waymo">Furious Crowd Tears Waymo Robotaxi Limb From Limb</a>

It's the end of the road for Cruise.

Failed Robotaxi Company Laying Off Workforce

Unless you've been living under a rock, you're probably aware that the United States' federal government is <a href="https://jacobin.com/2024/12/trump-musk-republicans-billionaire-rule">lurching toward</a> an unabashed oligarchy, with the Trump administration actively cutting through agencies with an extremely regressive agenda.
One of those agencies is the National Science Foundation (NSF), which previously supported research and education in the fields of science and engineering through publicly-funded grants.
That now all seems poised to change. A week ago, one of Trump's many executive orders seemed to <a href="https://www.insidehighered.com/news/government/politics-elections/2025/01/29/grant-reviews-nsf-and-nih-still-paused">freeze all NSF grants</a>, to the shock of the academic community.
That pause subsequently got walked back, but the <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/science/2025/02/04/national-science-foundation-trump-executive-orders-words/">Washington Post reports</a> that teams there are now combing through any active research involving a secret list of words, to inspect whether it falls afoul of Trump's draconian new crackdown on anything even close to identity and diversity.
The partial list flags terms and phrases including "equity," diverse groups," "under served," along with some identity-based demographic nomenclature such as "LGBT," "Indigenous community," "Black and Latinx," as well as "BIPOC." Others, like "sense of belonging," are downright baffling.
As if those weren't broad enough, the blacklist also includes any mention of "women," "racial," "gender," and "trauma."
"These keywords could show up in the text of ANY grant involving human participants," wrote Dr. Darby Saxbe, a USC professor who <a href="https://x.com/darbysaxbe/status/1886584919947927816">published the list</a>. "You can't design a study of humans without using at least one of these terms, which means that biomedical, brain, social science research is now on ice in the USA."
The list also comes with a "decision tree" for reference by the employees conducting the reviews, showing them how to sort work into categories of acceptable and unacceptable — a process that sounds an awful lot like the "<a href="https://dictionary.cambridge.org/us/dictionary/english/thought-crime">thought crime</a>" described by George Orwell in the iconic 1949 novel "1984."
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignnone wp-image-341431 size-large" src="https://wordpress-assets.futurism.com/2025/02/decision_tree_NSF-1200x952.jpg" alt="National Science Foundation Decision Tree circa Monday, February 3rd, 2025" width="1200" height="952" />
Last year, the <a href="https://new.nsf.gov/about/budget#budget-baf">NSF reported</a> distributing some $9 billion in grant money, supporting over 350,000 researchers, teachers, and students. While that's a massive boon for the scientific research community, it's chump change compared to the <a href="https://www.cbo.gov/publication/60039#:~:text=Federal%20outlays%20in%202024%20total,percent%20of%20GDP%2C%20in%202024.">national federal budget</a> of $6.9 trillion — or just over a tenth of one percent of the nation's total expenditures.
If Trump and co. wanted to target <a href="https://time.com/7209307/elon-musk-elizabeth-warren/">ineffective use of government funds</a>, he might set his sights on the US Armed Forces, which together accounts for roughly <a href="https://www.usaspending.gov/agency/department-of-defense?fy=2025">$1.5 trillion</a> in federal resources, the most of any G7 nation.
You'd be forgiven, then, for wondering what the justification for going after such a tiny agency could possibly be. After all, the NSF is by all accounts a <a href="https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20240912921237/en/NSF-Celebrates-80-Years-of-Improving-Human-and-Planet-Health">global leader in scientific research</a> — literally setting the global standards of the WHO's Drinking Water Safety and Treatment guidelines, for example. As with everything <a href="https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2025/02/03/president-trump-federal-government-makeover/78182174007/">this administration</a> has shown us so far, the point is to <a href="https://www.statnews.com/2025/01/30/trump-executive-orders-pressure-universities-to-end-dei-programs/">debase Trump's stated enemies</a>.
"The goal seems to be to create chaos, demoralize researchers, and undermine science and research," Dr. Saxbe told this publication. "The keywords are so broad that they would apply to any research conducted with humans, including neuroscience, child development, economics, sociology, anthropology, and psychology. It is already having a chilling effect on the science community."
The release of censored phrases, which so-far has not been acknowledged by the agency, is likewise in contradiction with previous instructions for grant proposals, furthering the confusion.
"The NSF... was charged by the US Congress in 1980 with the goal of 'broadening participation,' eg, by training a more diverse scientific workforce," Saxbe explains. "All NSF grants are required to have language about 'Broader Impacts,' or how this work will benefit society, for example by providing opportunities to trainees from diverse backgrounds."
"In other words," she says, "anyone who follows directions in a grant proposal is going to get flagged for 'DEI language.'"
As NSF grant-writing forms a major cornerstone to STEM research, it remains to be seen what broader implications this will have for the research community going forward. Unfortunately, this is likely just a taste of things to come as Trump and his <a href="https://futurism.com/elon-kids-gutting-opm-doge">merry band of cost cutters</a> continue to ravish the critical agencies governing our country.
More on research: <a href="https://futurism.com/springer-nature-ai-media-kit">The Publisher of the Journal "Nature" Is Emailing Authors of Scientific Papers, Offering to Sell Them AI Summaries of Their Own Work</a>

Black List

"You can't design a study of humans without using at least one of these terms."

Leaked Decision Tree Shows How the Government Now Decides What Is Thought Crime

<h2>Tesla Tank</h2>
Tesla sales are falling off a cliff in key markets around the world — as its CEO Elon Musk continues working overtime to tank not just his own reputation but that of his embattled carmaker.
Sales in California fell almost eight percent in the fourth quarter of last year and are down 12 percent overall for the year, as <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025-02-03/tesla-sales-decline-in-california-with-model-3-plunging-36?sref=YfHlo0rL">Bloomberg reports</a>. Annual registrations for the company's best-selling vehicle, the Model 3, slide by over a third in the state. (As a harbinger of the trouble, Tesla posted its <a href="https://futurism.com/the-byte/tesla-moves-workers-cybertruck-demand-slumps">first yearly sales drop in over a decade</a> last month.)
Similarly, the EV maker's performance is <a href="https://electrek.co/2025/02/03/tesla-tsla-sales-are-dropping-like-a-rock-in-europe-but-its-not-just-because-of-elon-musk/">down in almost every single European market</a>, with year-over-year sales dropping over 63 percent in France — as Musk has threatened to upend the continent by <a href="https://futurism.com/elon-musk-rally-nazis-holocaust">throwing his weight behind</a> a political party linked to neo-Nazism in Germany.
Even in Sweden and Norway, key markets for the company, Tesla is losing significant market share, as <a href="https://www.reuters.com/business/autos-transportation/tesla-loses-market-share-sweden-norway-musk-looms-large-2025-02-03/">Reuters reports</a> — despite car sales overall soaring there.
While it's unclear exactly how much Musk's <a href="https://futurism.com/jewish-leaders-boycott-elon-musk-nazi-salute">bizarre and polarizing behavior</a> is contributing to Tesla's woes, surveys show it's definitely a factor, with consumers choosing alternatives rather <a href="https://futurism.com/the-byte/drivers-turned-off-tesla-elon-musk">than driving</a> a "giant red MAGA hat."
<h2>Naz-EV</h2>
A recent survey showed that the proportion of Swedes viewing Tesla in a positive light slid to an abysmal 11 following Trump's inauguration, according to Reuters. It's a significant change of heart, considering Tesla's Model Y was the <a href="https://www.reuters.com/business/autos-transportation/norway-nearly-all-new-cars-sold-2024-were-fully-electric-2025-01-02/">most-sold car in both Sweden and Norway</a> last year.
Another survey by brand reputation analytics firm Caliber, reviewed by Bloomberg, also showed that Tesla's reputation dipped to its lowest levels since at least 2023 in November and January.
Meanwhile, EV alternatives including those by Honda and Hyundai are <a href="https://electrek.co/2025/02/03/honda-hyundai-ford-kia-ev-sales-climb-higher-january/">starting to really eat into Tesla's market share</a>, with strong end-of-year sales.
In short, it's not surprising to see consumers abandon Tesla's brand, which has been dragged through the mud by the troubling behavior of its CEO.
Apart from Tesla's tanking reputation, investors have long warned that the <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2025/01/21/tesla-lost-15-billion-in-brand-value-in-2024-brand-finance-found.html">EV maker's lineup is starting to look stale</a>, despite the launch of a <a href="https://futurism.com/the-byte/tesla-moves-workers-cybertruck-demand-slumps">divisive and extremely problems-prone pickup truck</a> in late 2022. Musk has bet big on the <a href="https://futurism.com/tesla-robotaxi-event-disappointment">development of a "robotaxi</a>," which given the <a href="https://futurism.com/the-byte/elon-musk-admits-fsd-hardware">sorry state of the company's driver assistance software</a>, likely won't be ready for deliveries for quite some time.
Overall, Tesla has now slid to the fourth most valuable car brand globally, according to a <a href="https://www.carscoops.com/2025/01/toyota-worlds-most-valuable-car-brand-tesla-4th-having-shed-15b-due-to-old-cars-musk-study-finds/">recent Brand Finance report</a>, with Japanese carmaker Toyota claiming the number one spot.
More on Tesla: <a href="https://futurism.com/the-byte/elon-musk-admits-fsd-hardware">Elon Musk Finally Admits That Teslas Don't Have What It Takes for Full Self-Driving</a>

Tesl-nah

Consumers don't want to be associated with Tesla.

Elon's Bizarre Behavior Is Killing Tesla's Sales

Amid the <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2021/05/10/how-the-pentagon-started-taking-ufos-seriously">Pentagon's years-long</a> probes into the unexplained and unidentified, the FBI has been quietly running its own secret office investigating so-called "unidentified anomalous phenomena."
Yes, let's get this out of the way: that's basically the plot of the 90s television show "The X-Files." But buried in a new <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2025/02/03/fbi-ufo-jan-6-011316">Politico story</a> about concerns that UFO-hunting agents may soon be <a href="https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/5124328-trump-administration-purge-fbi/">caught up in a purge</a> is a jarring revelation: that such an office exists within the bureau —the "existence" of which had "not been disclosed publicly before," per the outlet's reporting.
It was previously known that the Pentagon had a similar group. Known as the <a href="https://futurism.com/the-byte/pentagon-ufo-chief-truth">All-Domain Anomaly Resolution Office</a> (AARO), that office deals with UAP sightings from military officials. There doesn't appear to be any other known counterpart in civilian branches of government.
In a statement to Politico, the FBI confirmed the existence of the office but refused to comment further, including to say how many members it has or how long it has been investigating UAPs in an organized manner.
"The FBI investigates Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena when there is potential for a violation of federal law — particularly unlawful acts that could adversely affect our national interests — and to gather, share, and analyze intelligence to combat security threats facing the US," the bureau told Politico.
Former Naval pilot and <a href="https://futurism.com/the-byte/ufo-whistleblower-tip-iceberg">Congressional UFO whistleblower Ryan Graves</a> spoke at length to the magazine about the importance of the group's work and how deleterious it would be for the office to be gutted due to partisanship.
"I am concerned that the FBI’s UAP Working Group could be affected by transition changes," Graves said, "and these leaders might not be aware of the incredible work these agents are doing and how their investigation could be empowered as part of a formalized intergovernmental effort."
Caison Best, a former Army special forces intelligence officer, told Politico that he'd spoken to members of the FBI's UAP office after witnessing an alleged UFO in Colorado. Though it's unclear exactly how many of those agents could be implicated in the alleged purge, Best said it would be "obviously detrimental" if that happened.
"The FBI is one component of the government that is starting to realize what other functions in the government have already known for a long time and have been participating in," the ex-Army intelligence officer said.
In English, he seems to be suggesting that the FBI's previously undisclosed UAP office has been working with the Pentagon's AARO — and, perhaps, with other agencies as well.
With Trump's <a href="https://nypost.com/2025/02/04/us-news/at-least-20000-federal-workers-take-trump-buyout-offer-with-more-expected/">swiftly-unfolding plans</a> to purge the government of anyone who doesn't fall in line, it's impossible to say whether the FBI's "X-Files" office will continue to exist.
Though given the president's <a href="https://futurism.com/the-byte/trump-pledges-drone-information">promise to reveal the truth</a> about unidentified objects in the skies, killing the group completely would seemingly go against his "commitment to take the U out of UAP," as Graves put it to Politico.
More on Trump and the truth: <a href="https://futurism.com/ufo-whistleblower-trump-drones">UFO Whistleblower Claims Trump Is Being Lied To About Those Drones in New Jersey</a>

Office Space

The truth is out there — and under lock and key at the FBI.

The FBI Just Quietly Revealed That It Has a Real-Life UFO Office

While SpaceX CEO and White House advisor Elon Musk and the Trump administration <a href="https://futurism.com/nasa-is-in-tatters">allow NASA's operations to languish</a>, the specter of embattled aerospace giant Boeing's disastrous Starliner project still looms large.
In an <a href="https://www.sec.gov/ix?doc=/Archives/edgar/data/0000012927/000001292725000015/ba-20241231.htm">official filing</a> with the Securities and Exchange Commission, Boeing revealed that it took a staggering $523 million in charges on its ill-fated spacecraft last year.
As <a href="https://spacenews.com/boeing-reports-starliner-losses-of-more-than-half-a-billion-dollars-in-2024/">SpaceNews points out</a>, that means Boeing has lost just over $2 billion on the project since it began.
The spacecraft struggled to deliver Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams to the International Space Station during its first Crew Flight Test mission in June, showing <a class="underline hover:text-futurism hover:no-underline transition-all duration-200 ease-in-out" href="https://futurism.com/the-byte/starliner-new-problems-return-earth">persistent technical issues</a> involving leaks and malfunctioning thrusters.
NASA deemed the problems serious enough to return the pair on board a SpaceX Crew Dragon spacecraft <a href="https://futurism.com/the-byte/stranded-astronauts-return-postponed">sometime next month</a> instead, while Starliner <a href="https://futurism.com/the-byte/boeing-starliner-destroy-malfunctioning-thrusters">made the reentry uncrewed</a> (to its credit, it survived.)
NASA has since been briefed about the subsequent investigation into the mission. As SpaceNews reports, NASA found "significant progress" on some issues, while the pesky thruster problems have yet to be resolved.
"The details shared by NASA gave us confidence that they are focusing on the right core issues and the related path to safely flying Starliner," NASA’s Aerospace Safety Advisory Panel member Paul Hill said at a briefing last week.
But whether the struggling spacecraft, which was developed under the agency's same Commercial Crew program as SpaceX's Crew Dragon, will fly again remains unknown.
Following the disastrous mission in August, Boeing officials refused to make any promises about a follow-up mission, instead hinting at the possibility that the project <a href="https://futurism.com/starliner-failure-embarrassment-boeing">could be canceled altogether</a>.
"Do they ultimately exit the program because it’s too complicated and because the other guy can do it better?" Melius Research analyst Robert Spingarn <a class="underline hover:text-futurism hover:no-underline transition-all duration-200 ease-in-out" href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2024-08-25/boeing-ceo-faces-hard-decisions-after-nasa-s-starliner-rejection?sref=YfHlo0rL">told Bloomberg</a> at the time. "It can happen."
In October, <a href="https://www.wsj.com/science/space-astronomy/boeing-explores-sale-of-space-business-fa7fa3a9">rumors swirled</a> that Boeing was looking to sell its entire space business, which would include Starliner. But whether those "early talks" ever culminated in a decision remains to be seen.
The aerospace giant has already been struggling with a <a href="https://futurism.com/boeing-planes-flying-safety">chaotic commercial jet business</a> and a <a href="https://futurism.com/the-byte/boeing-freezes-hiring-strike">massive strike</a> that ground airplane production to a standstill last year.
In the meantime, Wilmore and Williams are still stuck on board the ISS, with SpaceX CEO Elon Musk <a href="https://www.ctvnews.ca/sci-tech/article/elon-musk-says-spacex-will-rescue-two-stranded-astronauts-heres-why-that-is-confusing/">renewing calls to "rescue" them</a>, despite an existing plan for their return.
And time is quickly running out in a bigger sense, with NASA planning to retire the aging orbital outpost within the next five years, giving Boeing very little flexibility to get Starliner in working order.
"There is no logical purpose to Starliner, given that NASA plans to deorbit Space Station in ~5 years," Musk <a href="https://x.com/elonmusk/status/1852379865707622400">tweeted in November</a>.
More on Starliner: <a href="https://futurism.com/the-byte/stranded-astronauts-return-postponed">Stranded Astronauts' Trip Back to Earth Has Been Postponed Yet Again</a>

End of the Starline

Ouch.

Boeing Has Lost a Staggering Amount of Money on Its Starliner Catastrophe

<h2>Scully Duggery</h2>
Amid a <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2025/02/02/fbi-agents-officials-jan-6-cases-011048">looming purge of anti-loyalists</a>, FBI agents who've been investigating mysterious sightings in the sky — wait, did anybody just faintly hear the "X-Files" theme playing? —are concerned that they may get caught up in the Donald Trump dragnet.
As <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2025/02/03/fbi-ufo-jan-6-011316">Politico reports</a>, some officials who work with the bureau's secretive "unidentified anomalous phenomena" working group — fed-speak for unidentified flying objects, better known as UFOs — are concerned that having worked on cases related to the Trump-inspired insurrection on January 6, 2021 may lead to their sacking.
"I have spoken to several agents from the UAP Working Group who are afraid of losing their role and the investigation getting unintentionally compromised," formal Naval pilot Ryan Graves, a noted <a href="https://futurism.com/the-byte/ufo-whistleblower-tip-iceberg">UFO whistleblower</a>, told Politico.
It's unclear exactly how many members of the FBI's UAP Working Group, whose existence had not been revealed before Politico broke this story, were previously involved with Jan. 6 cases. The tenor of concern from Graves and other officials familiar with the office, however, suggests that there's enough overlap to make a difference.
"These leaders might not be aware of the incredible work these agents are doing, and how their investigation could be empowered as part of a formalized intergovernmental effort," said Graves, who also runs an <a href="https://www.safeaerospace.org/">advocacy group for military UFO whistleblowers</a>.
<h2>Fediverse</h2>
Beyond the authoritarian nightmare of a <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2024/10/trump-authoritarian-rhetoric-hitler-mussolini/680296/">seemingly Stalinesque</a> expulsion of those <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/feb/03/trump-fbi-james-e-dennehy?CMP=aus_bsky">who don't fall in lockstep</a> with the White House, the potential gutting of the group could undermine <a href="https://futurism.com/the-byte/trump-pledges-drone-information">Trump's own stated goals</a> about getting to the bottom of UAP sightings.
Former Army special forces and intelligence official Caison Best told Politico that he'd worked with the group after he saw something he couldn't explain or identify in Colorado — and that hollowing out the office out would be "obviously detrimental" to the work its members do.
"The FBI is one component of the government that is starting to realize what other functions in the government have already known for a long time and have been participating in," Best said, somewhat cryptically. "And if FBI agents are the mechanism to bring that under a legal umbrella, I think they’re doing unbelievably critical work."
Graves put a similar sentiment in layman's terms: purging UAP working group members "would undermine the Trump administration’s commitment to take the U out of UAP."
More on the UAPs and Trump: <a href="https://futurism.com/ufo-whistleblower-trump-drones">UFO Whistleblower Claims Trump Is Being Lied To About Those Drones in New Jersey</a>