<h2>Bargain Basement</h2>
Tesla has introduced a cheaper, entry-level Cybertruck — and by all accounts, it's still not looking like a great deal.
The new Long Range Rear Wheel Drive (RWD) was announced by the EV maker on CEO Elon Musk's X-formerly-Twitter on Thursday evening.
But at $69,990 — eye roll, please — before a $7,500 federal tax credit, it's still a considerably expensive option compared to the <a href="https://www.kbb.com/electric-car/best-electric-trucks/">steep competition</a> in the space. That makes it $10,000 cheaper than the Long Range All Wheel Drive trim, but that "long range" in its name? Turns out it only ekes out an additional 25 miles of range as a result, from 350 to 325 miles.
And that's not to mention the truck's rapid depreciation, making it a highly questionable investment. As <a href="https://electrek.co/2025/04/01/tesla-is-sitting-on-200-million-worth-of-cybertruck-inventory/">Electrek reported earlier this week</a>, the company is sitting on almost 2,400 unsold Cybertrucks, worth roughly $200 million, and is no longer accepting them as trade-ins.
Oh, and did we mention the truck's <a href="https://futurism.com/tesla-cybertruck-recall-piece-flying-off">eight recalls</a>?
The Cybertruck has also quickly become a huge target of protestors furious with Musk's <a class="underline hover:text-futurism hover:no-underline transition-all duration-200 ease-in-out" href="https://futurism.com/elon-musk-rabbis-antisemitism">embrace of far-right extremism</a> and <a class="underline hover:text-futurism hover:no-underline transition-all duration-200 ease-in-out" href="https://futurism.com/elon-musk-rewriting-social-security-code-ai">dismantling of federal agencies</a>, making the "<a href="https://www.euronews.com/culture/2025/02/27/dont-buy-a-swasticar-anti-elon-musk-tesla-advert-goes-viral">swasticar</a>" an even tougher sell to consumers.
<h2>Cyber Compromise</h2>
Buyers also would have to contend with several other compromises if they were to buy the latest trim, including a lower 7,500-pound towing capacity, and a significantly slower 6.2-second 0-60 mph time, as <a href="https://www.teslarati.com/tesla-launches-cheapest-longest-range-cybertruck-trim-yet/">Teslarati points out</a>.
The new trim also sacrifices synthetic leather seats in favor of textile seats, no second-row display, an inferior audio system, and no power outlets in the bed. It also has an adaptive coil spring suspension instead of the well-reviewed adaptive air suspension in the upper trims, which also means that it doesn't have adjustable ride height.
In short, there's a chance the latest trim could struggle to boost already waning demand.
According to the <a href="https://finance.yahoo.com/news/tesla-stock-moves-lower-as-ev-maker-pulls-us-made-cars-from-china-adds-cheaper-cybertruck-trim-in-us-150017249.html">latest numbers</a>, Tesla only sold 6,406 Cybertrucks in the first quarter of this year, a massive drop from the 12,991 it sold in Q4 of last year.
More on the Cybertruck: <a href="https://futurism.com/official-cybertruck-account-fury">Official Cybertruck Account Explodes in Fury</a>

Making Lemons Out of Lemonade

Nerfed.

Tesla Shows Off Cheaper and Slower Cybertruck That's an Even Worse Deal

<h2>Softwearing Thin</h2>
Elon Musk has been <a href="https://www.latimes.com/business/autos/la-fi-hy-musk-computer-on-wheels-20150319-story.html">saying for a decade</a> that Tesla is a software company. But the man who helped make it that way is headed for greener pastures at perhaps the worst possible time.
According to <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025-04-04/tesla-s-head-of-software-engineering-is-said-to-depart-ev-maker?sref=YfHlo0rL">insiders who spoke to Bloomberg</a>, longtime Tesla software VP David Lau is departing the company after nearly 13 years.
Throughout his tenure at Tesla, Lau not only oversaw the electric vehicle company's "infotainment" systems and over-air updates, but also was one of the few C-suiters who would regularly appear with Musk at promotional events as, essentially, the face of its tech.
And for <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/tesla-model-x-hints-at-a-driverless-taxi-2015-10">most of Lau's time</a> at Tesla, his mercurial boss has over-promised and under-delivered on both autonomous vehicles and robotaxis. Now, Musk's <a href="https://www.reuters.com/technology/tesla-robotaxis-by-june-musk-turns-texas-hands-off-regulation-2025-02-10/">self-imposed deadline</a> of June 2025 is hurtling ever closer — and the software czar that would be responsible for it is, apparently, heading for the hills.
<h2>Departure Gate</h2>
Though a lot remains unclear about this story, including who tipped Bloomberg off and exactly why Lau is leaving Tesla, it comes not only amid the looming robotaxi deadline, but also in the wake even more executive departures.
As <a href="https://www.theverge.com/twitter/634833/x-head-engineering-leaves-elon-musk">The Verge reported</a> based on insider intel at the end of March, Tesla's head of engineering, Haofei Wang, is also leaving the company. Similarly <a href="https://www.axios.com/2025/03/21/x-communications-exit-dave-heinzinger">undisclosed sources told Axios</a> around the same time that the company's communications director, Dave Heinzinger, is also leaving after only three months in the role.
While all of these reports remain tacitly unconfirmed, there is at very least something compelling alleged insiders to leak such stories to the press.
During this same spate of reported departures, Tesla has also seen <a href="https://futurism.com/tesla-stock-crashing-bad">historic stock losses</a> amid <a href="https://futurism.com/government-punishing-vandalism-tesla-dealership">protests against Musk</a> and his politicking on <a href="https://futurism.com/the-byte/musk-nazi-salute-german-gigafactory">both sides of the pond</a>. Earlier in the week, a <a href="https://x.com/DirtyTesLa/status/1909326103245730117">Cybertruck owner revealed on X</a> that he'd been offered a mere $54,000, or roughly half of what he paid, from the used vehicle dealership Carvana — a post that the official <a href="https://futurism.com/official-cybertruck-account-fury">Cybertruck account took umbrage against</a>.
Between Musk taking a <a href="https://futurism.com/rent-cybertruck-flipped-off">battering ram to Tesla's brand image</a> and subsequently <a href="https://futurism.com/tesla-stock-rise-white-house">tanking its share value</a>, it's not hard to see why anyone would want to leave the EV company — and we won't be surprised if this apparent executive exodus continues.
More on Tesla: <a href="https://futurism.com/tesla-refusing-cybertrucks-trade-ins">Tesla Is So Cooked That It's Now Refusing to Accept Cybertrucks as Trade-Ins</a>

Outflow

That can't be good.

Tesla's Head of Software Departs as Robotaxi Reveal Looms

The Trump administration is planning to cut NASA's science budget nearly in half, according to an early budget proposal to Congress.
As the <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/science/2025/04/11/nasa-science-budget-cuts-trump/">Washington Post reports</a>, NASA's Science Mission Directorate's current $7.3 billion budget could be cut down to a mere $3.9 billion.
While the proposal has yet to be formally submitted to Congress, the slashed budget would deal a devastating blow to the space agency's ongoing and future missions, including its next major space telescope and Mars Sample Return mission.
NASA's $2.2 billion Earth Science budget would be more than halved under the budget proposal, while planetary science would drop from $2.7 billion to $1.9 billion.
It wouldn't just be a major step back; the move could prove to be counterintuitively expensive.
"This is an extinction-level event for NASA science," said space advocacy group Planetary Society chief of space policy Casey Dreier in a statement. "It needlessly terminates functional, productive science missions and cancels new missions currently being built, wasting billions of taxpayer dollars in the process."
"This is neither efficient nor smart budgeting," he added.
The latest budget doesn't include funding for NASA's Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope, the follow-up to its groundbreaking Hubble and Webb space telescopes, which would continue to be funded under the proposed budget.
That's despite the development of the telescope already being well underway. Hardware is already being tested at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, per WaPo. It's currently scheduled to be launched as early as September 2026.
It's important to note that the Trump administration's budget proposal is far from being set in stone. It's an early draft, called a "passback," ahead of Trump's full 2026 fiscal year budget request.
In other words, Congress can still stop NASA's science program from being set ablaze.
"NASA has received the fiscal year 2026 budget passback from the Office of Management and Budget and has begun the deliberative process," the agency wrote in a statement.
Unsurprisingly, former NASA leaders are appalled at the mere suggestion of cutting the Science Mission Directorate nearly in half.
"They’re going to run NASA into a very deep ditch if they proceed with this kind of savagery," former NASA administrator Bill Nelson told WaPo.
Nelson also argued that the proposed budget could deal a devastating hit to Trump's signature space exploration program. Both the president and his top henchman Elon Musk have <a href="https://futurism.com/trump-throws-mars-mission-under-bus">repeatedly vowed to take astronauts to the surface of Mars</a>.
Though Musk has tweeted repeatedly since the budget came out, he's had nothing to say about its slash-and-burn attack on NASA.
"If you savage NASA science, you have savaged our entire exploration program, and that will affect the human exploration program as well," Nelson told the newspaper.
Apart from shocking former NASA leads, Congress will likely have plenty of bones to pick if such a budget were to be proposed.
Representative Zoe Lofren (D-CA), top member of the House Science, Space, and Technology Committee, eviscerated Trump's approach.
"Effectuating these absurd cuts would destroy NASA's ability to carry out its fundamental objectives, cut off their societal benefits, and spell catastrophe for the U.S. Earth and space science enterprise by throwing billions in already-made taxpayer investments into the trash heap," she said in a <a href="https://x.com/SpcPlcyOnline/status/1910752789556301943/photo/1">statement</a>.
"I will do everything in my power to ensure these reckless proposals never come to fruition," she added.
"This massive cut to NASA Science will not stand," representative George Whitesides (D-CA) <a href="https://arstechnica.com/space/2025/04/trump-white-house-budget-proposal-eviscerates-science-funding-at-nasa/">told Ars Technica</a>. "I will work alongside my colleagues on the Science Committee to make clear how this would decimate American leadership in space and inflict great damage to NASA centers across the country."
"I think there’ll be very strong bipartisan resistance in Congress to cutting missions that are the foundation of our space program," senator Chris Van Hollen (D-MA) told the WaPo. "This is like eating your seed corn, and it will have very damaging impacts on our space program, on national security programs, and it will undermine our leadership in the area of technical innovation and scientific research."
More on NASA: <a href="https://futurism.com/jared-isaacman-nasa-spacex">Incoming Head of NASA Puts SpaceX in Its Place: "They Work for Us, Not the Other Way Around"</a>

Kneecapping Science

Will Elon Musk have anything to say?

Trump Planning Brutal Cuts to NASA: "Extinction-Level Event for NASA Science"

It's no secret that Elon Musk's wealth is staggering. At the time of writing, he's worth over $325 billion. To give that number a sense of scale, that's $62 billion more than the total annual salary of every worker in Michigan combined — all <a href="https://engaging-data.com/how-rich-is-elon-musk/">4.3 million of them</a>.
So why is he powering his data centers with rinky-dink portable generators?
New <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/apr/09/elon-musk-xai-memphis">aerial surveillance footage</a> obtained by the Southern Environmental Law Center has found that Musk's artificial intelligence company, xAI, is using 35 methane gas generators to power its "Colossus" supercomputer facility, the backbone of its flagship Grok. That's 20 more generators than the 15 xAI filed permits for, and 35 more than it was approved to use.
The data center, nestled in historic south Memphis, came online last September, despite protests from <a href="https://www.localmemphis.com/article/money/business/mlgw-answers-customer-questions-xai-supercomputer-facility-in-memphis/522-48e94544-1eb0-4fc9-93a6-51ce6be6336d">community leaders</a>. AI data centers are notoriously loud, and hog water and electricity like a mid-sized American city. Case in point, the local utility company, Memphis Light, Gas and Water (MLGW) estimates the <a href="https://www.npr.org/2024/09/11/nx-s1-5088134/elon-musk-ai-xai-supercomputer-memphis-pollution">Memphis facility</a> will soon be sucking up one million gallons of water per day, as well as 150 megawatts of power, once it reaches its full power.
Though the <a href="https://www.mlgw.com/images/content/files/pdf/2024_MLGW_xAI%20and%20MLGW%20Quick%20Facts%202.pdf">MLGW says</a> it's "executed four standard electric service agreements, one water service, and one gas service agreement" with xAI — totaling 50 megawatts of power — Musk says the facility needs much more due to <a href="https://youtu.be/tRsxLLghL1k?feature=shared&amp;t=895">rapid power fluctuations</a> in his system of 10 to 20 megawatts at a time.
But getting approval for that kind of power is a slow and cautious process, <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2024-ai-data-centers-power-grids/?sref=YfHlo0rL">according to Bloomberg</a>, as rapid data center construction runs up against the limits of what civilian power grids can provide. Never one to wait for approval, Musk has chosen instead to exploit a loophole in local regulations, which seemingly allow him to park a fleet of toxic methane generators outside his facility as long as they don't sit in the same location for 364 days.
Local residents, meanwhile, are left to deal with the toxic fallout. One <a href="https://www.propublica.org/article/toxmap-poison-in-the-air">report by ProPublica</a> found that the cancer rate in this area of Memphis is four times higher than the national average. The low, flat land here has historically been used as an out-of-site locale for megacorporations to plant industrial facilities, resulting in waves of health crises as toxins like <a href="https://www.selc.org/news/south-memphis-is-bearing-an-ethylene-oxide-health-emergency/">ethylene oxide</a> and <a href="https://www.canarymedia.com/articles/enn/long-burdened-by-a-coal-plant-south-memphis-residents-say-no-to-coal-ash-in-their-backyard">arsenic</a> pollute the nearby ground, water, and air.
Generators like xAI's emit huge amounts of <a href="https://www.epa.gov/no2-pollution/basic-information-about-no2">nitrogen dioxide</a>, a highly reactive gas which causes irreversible respiratory damage over time. And that's before you consider its effects on the ozone layer, or its contribution to acid rain, smog, and nutrient pollution in local soil and waterways. With 35 generators now chugging along, that's a whole chorus of turbines spewing the toxic gas into low-income, minority-led communities 24/7.
With the city urging residents to <a href="https://www.fox13memphis.com/news/mayor-young-says-community-will-benefit-from-xai-revenue-residents-worry-about-pollution/article_73945061-a6d2-4726-a9fc-47c2b501254d.html">grin and bear it</a>, and the <a href="https://www.commercialappeal.com/story/money/business/development/2024/10/10/xai-environmental-concerns-in-memphis/75610432007/">EPA staying silent</a> since October, the burden is falling on the communities affected to stand up to Musk's move-fast-and-spew-gas AI strategy.
"Nobody else should be burying their families because these rogue, rich, white, racist people continue to build projects that are suffocating us," KeShaun Pearson, a local resident and director of the Memphis Community Against Pollution <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/apr/09/elon-musk-xai-memphis">told The Guardian</a>. "This is all preventable."
More on data centers: <a href="https://futurism.com/microsoft-huge-data-center-investments-tariffs">Something's Gone Wrong With Microsoft's Huge AI Data Center Investments</a>

Grok You

“This is all preventable.”

Elon Musk Reportedly Doing Something Horrid to Power His AI Data Center

Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has been forced to delete a graphic claiming that its job is to stop illegal "ideas" from entering the United States.
"If it crosses the border illegally, it's our job to STOP IT," the graphic on <a href="https://archive.is/MKZBG">ICE's since-deleted X post</a> reads. Among the things that could "illegally" enter American soil, the agency listed "people, money, products, ideas."
In a statement to Futurism and <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2025/04/10/ice-speech-censorship-007886">other outlets</a>, ICE media lead Mike Alvarez insisted that the graphic was posted in error.
"That post was sent without proper approval and should not have been shared," Alvarez told us. "'Ideas' should have said 'intellectual property.'"
Ahead of that statement, however, <a href="https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/ice-pledges-stop-illegal-ideas-1235314913/">ICE received ample backlash</a> from those perturbed by the concept of ideas being considered illegal in a country founded on principles of free speech and religious assembly.
"The idea that ideas can be illegal," columnist <a href="https://bsky.app/profile/djrothkopf.bsky.social/post/3lmi3ynmdes23">David Rothkopf posted on Bluesky</a>, "is actually the only idea that's illegal in this country."
Chillingly, ICE's deleted thought police post was made around the same time that the <a href="https://apnews.com/article/mahmoud-khalil-columbia-university-trump-c60738368171289ae43177660def8d34">Associated Press reported</a> that Homeland Security, the agency's parent organization, raised the specter of anti-semitism when pressed for evidence on a contentious student deportation.
In a <a href="https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/25894225-dhs-documents-mahmoud-khalil/?mode=document">memo leaked to the AP</a>, Homeland Security lawyers claimed that Columbia student and organizer Mahmoud Khalil — a Palestinian-Syrian green card-holder who was forcibly taken into ICE custody in March on State Department orders that his visa be revoked — was guilty of no actual crime, save for his beliefs regarding Israel and Palestine.
Considered one of the leaders of Columbia's pro-Palestine encampment movement last year, Khalil was, as State Department secretary Marco Rubio put it in a document cited by the memo, participating in "otherwise lawful" activities amid his student organizing. Because he's not a full citizen, however, his activities fall under the purview of the State Department and HomeSec — and, they claim, "severely undermine" the American objective of combating "anti-Semitism around the world and in the United States."
As the AP notes, the 30-year-old student activist maintained his innocence in a <a href="https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/25592020-letter-from-a-palestinian-political-prisoner-in-louisiana-march-18-2025/?q=broader&amp;mode=document#document/p2">letter sent from the ICE facility</a> he's being held at in Louisiana.
"The Trump administration is targeting me as part of a broad strategy to suppress dissent," Khalil wrote in that March 18 missive. "Visa-holders, green-card carriers, and citizens alike will all be targeted for their political beliefs."
It seems, unfortunately, that he was right — especially because several other visa and green card-holding students have also been <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2025/03/31/us/what-we-know-college-activists-immigration-hnk/index.html">similarly detained and deported</a> since Khalil was arrested in the middle of the night on March 8, and <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cg411rrnkkko">hundreds more</a> have had their student visas revoked.
In other words, ICE's graphic was unintentionally too honest: the thought police are real — and proud of it.
More on thought crimes: <a href="https://futurism.com/fbi-task-force-protect-tesla">FBI Launches Task Force to Protect Tesla</a>

Thought Police

"If it crosses the border illegally, it's our job to STOP IT."

ICE Deletes Post About Stopping the Flow of Illegal "Ideas"

Little love has been lost between billionaire Elon Musk and OpenAI.
Musk co-founded the company in 2015 alongside current CEO Sam Altman, only to <a href="https://futurism.com/the-byte/elon-musk-quits-research-group">rage quit roughly three years</a> later, citing disagreements with the group's direction.
Since then, in a flurry of personal attacks and disparaging comments, the mercurial Musk has taken it out on the firm, accusing it of failing to uphold its open-source roots. Over the last couple of years, Musk has filed a series of lawsuits against OpenAI, accusing it of being a "<a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2024-03-11/openai-calls-musk-claims-incoherent-in-court-filing?sref=YfHlo0rL">closed-source de facto subsidiary</a>" of investor Microsoft and failing to live up to its promise of developing a "safe" AI that "benefits all of humanity."
This week, OpenAI countersued Musk, accusing him of a pattern of harassment, including "press attacks, malicious campaigns... a pretextual demand for corporate records, harassing legal claims, and a sham bid for OpenAI's assets."
OpenAI accused Musk of trying to become an "<a href="https://arstechnica.com/ai/2025/04/elon-musk-wants-to-be-agi-dictator-openai-tells-court/">AGI dictator</a>," including a scheme to <a href="https://futurism.com/hypocrite-elon-musk-criticizing-openai-open-sourcing-chatgpt-grok">buy OpenAI's nonprofit arm</a>, a move the company claims was meant to scare off investors.
Strikingly, OpenAI has the receipts. The wealth of incriminating documents included in the countersuit form what <a href="https://electrek.co/2025/04/10/cracks-are-forming-in-elon-musks-armor-of-lies/">Electrek is calling</a> Musk's "web of lies" surrounding his attempts to assume control over OpenAI is coming to light — and raises the question of how much damage Musk's credibility can stand as his fibs and dubious timelines start to sound more like PT Barnum than Steve Jobs.
Last year, OpenAI <a href="https://openai.com/index/openai-elon-musk/">had already revealed</a> that Musk had attempted to merge OpenAI with his EV maker Tesla, a plan that didn't sit well with the former's leadership.
Perhaps most hypocritically, while Musk has repeatedly accused OpenAI of failing to live up to its promises of being open, he was the one <a href="https://openai.com/index/elon-musk-wanted-an-openai-for-profit/">suggesting OpenAI should move to a for-profit structure</a>.
According to a 2017 email revealed by OpenAI, Musk attempted to assume control over OpenAI by proposing to give himself preferred shares and a supermajority.
In 2018, OpenAI eventually wound up accepting major investment from tech giant Microsoft to kick off its for-profit arm. Musk left soon after.
Since then, Musk has <a href="https://futurism.com/the-byte/elon-musk-ai-company-reality">launched his own competing AI company</a> in July 2023, called xAI, in an apparent bid to rival OpenAI. He has also attempted to shift priorities at his carmaker toward AI development, <a href="https://futurism.com/elon-musk-accused-blackmailing-tesla-investors">ultimately threatening investors</a> in January 2024 that he would develop AI products and robots elsewhere unless he was given a "25 percent voting control."
Unfortunately for him, his ill-conceived and ill-executed $44 billion acquisition of Twitter in 2022 left a giant hole in his pocket. Compounding these issues, a Delaware judge <a href="https://futurism.com/elon-musk-judge-voided">voided Musk's gargantuan $55 billion Tesla compensation package</a>, calling it an "unfathomable sum" and arguing it was unfair to shareholders. In August, <a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/news/elon-musk-pay-package-vote-cbs-news-explains/">shareholders overwhelmingly approved the package</a> — a widely expected development, given their longstanding loyalty to the CEO — only for the same Delaware judge to <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/news/business/delaware-musk-tesla-ruling-1.7399447">reject it once again</a>.
Last month, Musk <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2025/03/28/technology/musk-x-xai.html">announced</a> that he had sold X-formerly-Twitter to his AI startup xAI, which is valued at $80 billion, in a baffling, 11th-hour attempt to <a href="https://www.wsj.com/tech/elon-musk-x-twitter-investor-promise-e8845cf3">rescue his ailing social media company</a> that raised plenty of eyebrows.
In other words, Musk was financially on the back foot, which could explain his flailing against OpenAI.
Meanwhile, his smear campaign against OpenAI continues, culminating in a <a href="https://futurism.com/elon-musk-huge-bid-control-openai">gigantic $97.4 billion bid to buy the nonprofit that controls OpenAI</a> in February. The move was widely seen as a way to slow down OpenAI's transition to a for-profit entity.
In its latest countersuit, OpenAI accused Musk of making up the almost $100 billion purchase price, pointing out the lack of "evidence of financing."
In short, Musk's actions suggest he's been trying to strongarm himself into a position of power and influence in the AI industry at all costs — actions that have hurt OpenAI, the company claims.
The protracted legal battle raises a number of questions. Did Musk feel left out by OpenAI's meteoric rise to the world's leading AI firm? Did he launch xAI because he failed to take over the ChatGPT maker?
Given the ample evidence, there are plenty of good reasons to believe that Musk's attempts to paint himself as the victim and OpenAI as the villain are riddled with holes and ulterior motives.
How all of this will play out remains to be seen, especially with Musk's lawsuit against OpenAI now scheduled for a jury trial next spring — but one thing's for sure: a factual assertion by Musk at this point is worth the tweet it's written on.
More on OpenAI and Musk: <a href="https://futurism.com/openai-engineer-elon-musk-recruiting-rejection">Elon Musk's AI Company Tried to Recruit an OpenAI Engineer and His Reply Was Brutal</a>

Cracks in the Armor

Get real.

Elon Musk's Credibility Sinking as He's Caught in Web of Lies

Elon Musk's so-called Department of Government Efficiency is getting a taste of its own medicine.
Since March, <a href="https://www.wired.com/story/gao-audit-elon-musk-doge-government-agencies/">Wired reports</a>, the Government Accountability Office, an independent investigative agency of Congress, has been auditing the Trump administration's initiative to slash federal expenditures. 
The probe concerns how DOGE, which GAO refers to as the US DOGE Service (USDS), handled sensitive data at multiple agencies, including the Departments of Labor, Education, Homeland Security, Health and Human Services, the Treasury, the <a href="https://futurism.com/social-security-elon-musk-crash-system">Social Security Administration</a>, and even DOGE itself.
To do that, GAO is seeking incident reports on "potential or actual misuse of agency system or data," and other relevant documentation that could illuminate whether DOGE is taking necessary precautions as it sifts through mountains of information, according to Wired, including documentation from the agencies that DOGE is pawing through. As a guiding principle, GAO investigators are focusing on DOGE's adherence to privacy and data protection laws, and aim to examine every system that the organization has been given access to.
At the Department of Labor, for example, the congressional watchdog has cut to the chase by sending specific requests to the department's representatives to detail how DOGE has interacted with the agency.
"Please describe the safeguards that are in place to determine that USDS and/or agency DOGE team staff protect the confidentiality, integrity, and availability of agency systems and information consistent with relevant laws and guidance," reads one submitted request, obtained by Wired from the notes of a March meeting.
DOGE operatives have gained <a href="https://futurism.com/nuclear-access-doge">unprecedented</a> <a href="https://futurism.com/elon-musk-access-child-support-database">levels of access</a> to the backend systems of multiple federal agencies, touching on tax records and <a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/us/musks-doge-team-can-access-government-data-now-appeals-court-rules-2025-04-07/">other forms of sensitive and personal data</a>. This is especially alarming given the questionable qualifications of its employees — including its head honcho. 
Musk, a massive beneficiary of government contracts, brought his innumerable conflicts of interest further to the fore by attempting to <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2025/03/31/us/politics/doge-musk-federal-payroll.html">access the Treasury's payment system</a> so that he could <a href="https://futurism.com/the-byte/elon-musk-shut-down-government-payments">shut down grants and other forms of monetary aid he didn't like</a>. Meanwhile, some of DOGE's <a href="https://futurism.com/doge-boy-website">exceedingly young members</a> have had <a href="https://futurism.com/doge-kid-helped-cybercrime-ring">past ties to cybercrime</a> — a disquieting prospect.
"Americans expect that when they share personal information with the government, whether for paying taxes or accessing health or Social Security benefits, it will be safeguarded," House representative Richard Neal (D-MA) told Wired. "That is not what's happened with DOGE, and why, at my request, the Government Accountability Office is working to shed much-needed light on their access to and use of personal and confidential information."
Per the magazine, the review will wrap up by the end of spring, which will be used to create a public report. Right now, though, things are just getting off the ground.
"GAO has received requests to review actions taken by DOGE across multiple agencies," GAO spokesperson Sarah Kaczmarek told Wired. "The first thing GAO does as any work begins is to determine the full scope of what we will cover and the methodology to be used." 
"Until that is done," the spokesperson added, "we cannot provide any additional details or estimates on when the work will be completed."
More on DOGE: <a href="https://futurism.com/congress-elon-musk-nasa-conflict-interest">Congress Investigating Whether Elon Musk Is Using NASA to Enrich Himself</a>

Reverse Card

He's getting a taste of his own medicine.

Uh Oh! Elon Musk's DOGE Is Getting Audited by the Government

Late last year, billionaire Elon Musk <a href="https://futurism.com/trump-elon-musk-doge-department">vowed to cut $2 trillion</a> from the government's budget with the help of his so-called Department of Government Efficiency.
It didn't take long for that number to <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2025/01/09/politics/elon-musk-backtracks-federal-budget-cuts/index.html">drop to $1 trillion</a>, indicating little thought had gone into the original calculation.
And judging by the latest news, DOGE is woefully behind even that target. As the <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2025/04/10/us/politics/musk-doge-drops-goal.html?smid=url-share">New York Times reports</a>, Musk told president Donald Trump this week that DOGE anticipated "savings in '26 from reduction of waste and fraud by $150 billion," referring to the fiscal year that runs from October 2025 to the end of September 2026. (It's even unclear if Musk meant that the so-called department had saved $150 billion so far, or if that was how much he's now predicting it would save in total.)
Needless to say, that would mean DOGE had missed its targets by an overwhelming trillions of dollars, though a Trump administration official told the NYT that $1 trillion is still "the goal."
Either way, DOGE's existing claims of how much it has cut from the government's budget so far remain hotly contested. Earlier this year, experts found that DOGE's public ledger, or "wall of receipts," was riddled with errors.
The ledger <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2025/02/21/upshot/doge-musk-trump-errors.html">double- or triple-counted some contracts</a>, massively inflated some totals, and included claims that entire projects had been cut, even though they had only been partially reduced. And some contracts it took credit for were already terminated during George W. Bush's administration, decades ago.
In late February, DOGE claimed it had already saved the <a href="https://abcnews.go.com/US/doge-claims-55-billion-government-cuts-figure-hard/story?id=118966190">federal government $55 billion</a>, raising plenty of eyebrows among experts. Less than a week later, DOGE <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2025/03/13/us/politics/doge-errors-funding-grants-claims.html">tried to make its mistakes harder to find</a> by obscuring its calculations on its website, revising its tally to just $10 billion from a total of 3,489 cut federal grants.
As of mid-March, that number rose to $115 billion, claims that were also met with <a href="https://fortune.com/2025/03/13/doge-saved-federal-government-115-billion-experts-doubt-figures-elon-musk/">widespread skepticism</a>.
Earlier this month, Bank of America Securities analysts <a href="https://finance.yahoo.com/news/doge-claimed-contract-savings-24-115034962.html">contested DOGE's claims</a> that it had cut $24.8 billion from canceled or renegotiated contracts alone, arguing that they were "overstated."
Put simply, nobody really knows how much money DOGE is saving, including the operatives in charge of slashing budgets.
Musk's repeated claims of having found widespread fraud in government have also been challenged. The billionaire has accused the Social Security Administration of being an "<a href="https://x.com/elonmusk/status/1893823851668091147?lang=en">immense waste</a>," promising to address "extreme levels of fraud."
However, as the <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2025/03/24/social-security-fraud-doge-cuts-dead/">Washington Post reported</a> last month, that fraud is proving extremely hard to find, as less than one percent of the agency's payments in recent years were determined to be improper in a 2024 audit.
In short, DOGE appears to be dramatically far off of Musk's original target of $2 trillion, indicating the billionaire has massively oversold on his promises yet again.
The mercurial CEO has <a href="https://futurism.com/video-elon-musk-promising-self-driving-cars">already garnered a reputation</a> for making overreaching and misleading claims when discussing his businesses — and it appears that the same goes for his efforts to <a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/news/social-security-doge-ssi-error-message-currently-not-receiving-payments/">make the lives of Americans as miserable as possible</a>.
More on DOGE: <a href="https://futurism.com/elon-musk-lives-destroyed-respond-laugh-cry-emojis">When Elon Musk Hears About Lives He's Destroyed, He Reportedly Responds With Laugh-Cry Emojis</a>

Inefficient Efficiency

Oops.

Elon Musk Admits That His Efforts Have Been a Dismal Failure

Thanks to <a href="https://nymag.com/intelligencer/article/adderall-shortage-adhd-medication-ascent-pharmaceuticals.html">policies by the Drug Enforcement Administration</a>, prescription medications for attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) like Adderall and Vyvanse are in a <a href="https://futurism.com/neoscope/shortage-adderall-suffering">years-long</a> artificial shortage.
Luckily, one expert has a few tricks up his sleeve to help those suffering without their meds get access to them.
In an interview with Futurism, veteran psychiatrist and ADHD specialist William Dodson revealed that prescribers in the know will often sync up their patients’ prescriptions to be filled on the seventh day of every month.
The reasoning behind this, as Dodson explains, is labyrinthine.
Since 2022, the <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/newsletters/2023-02-28/are-adderall-dea-quotas-contributing-to-the-shortage?sref=YfHlo0rL">DEA has capped the amount of pills</a> that ADHD drug manufacturers — like Adderall maker Teva Pharmaceuticals, Vyvanse maker Takeda, and Ritalin maker Novartis — are allowed to produce. The agency's reasoning, as Dodson wrote in a <a href="https://www.additudemag.com/adderall-shortage-dea-stimulants-adhd-medication/?srsltid=AfmBOooLtRkI7gp8YkdsuSbOa86zSzc52_BWnUnPdNUoe3XfU71W1fET">2024 op-ed for ADDitude Magazine</a>, is the claim that people are abusing prescription stimulants — despite there being "virtually no evidence to support this belief."
So strict are America’s drug czars in controlling stimulants that they set the number of pills manufacturers can send to pharmacies monthly a year ahead of time.
"The drug company is so told [by the DEA] 'you can release one million Vyvanse 40s and 800,000 Vyvanse 60s,'" the Colorado-based psychiatrist said, citing Vyvanse, an "<a href="https://filtermag.org/vyvanse-generic-prescription-stimulant/">abuse-deterrant</a>" stimulant, as an example. "They're told exactly how many of which strength they can they can produce, and then can release to the warehouses and the wholesalers on the first of each month in the next calendar year."
On the first of every month, Dodson detailed, wholesalers get the drugs, and after that pharmacies request it. Around the sixth of each month, the stuff makes it to pharmacies — and on the seventh day, they release it to customers.
"People who know that," he said, "synchronize all of their patients' prescriptions for the seventh."
As Dodson told us, individuals can either request that their doctors submit the prescription at the very first of the month or ask pharmacies to hold onto them until the seventh.
"Both docs and pharmacists are happy to not have to spend hours and hours searching for medications toward the [latter] part of the month," he said.
As helpful as this sort of advice may be, however, it’s no substitute for common-sense drug policy — especially if enough patients find out about this one weird trick.
"That's sort of the vagaries of distribution," Dodson said. "The DEA plan is cumbersome, stupid. It doesn't work well, and they are completely resistant to any modification."
Of all people, Dodson knows. As he told Futurism, the "only reason" he’s able to criticize the DEA as strongly as he does is because he’s retired from practice — and as such, is less concerned about getting blowback from what calls the "thuggish" agency.
At some point over the next month, he said the DEA is expected to sit down with drug manufacturers in what’s "supposed to be a negotiation" and tell them point-blank how much of each stimulant they’re allowed to produce over the next nine months.
"In some cases," he continued, "they're trying to guess what the needs are going to be 20 months in advance. It's the whole next calendar year, and they're doing it in March and April."
In sum, Dodson likens the DEA to the cartels it's nominally fighting against. (When we reached out to the DEA, a spokesperson had no comment on Dodson's advice, but responded with links to the agency's <a href="https://www.deadiversion.usdoj.gov/quotas/methylphenidate.html">own press releases</a> about slightly upping quotas <a href="https://www.deadiversion.usdoj.gov/quotas/methylphenidate.html">year over year</a>.)
Ahead of its upcoming non-negotiations, the DEA has, as we’ve learned from an agency update the psychiatrist shared with us, slightly raised its production quota on methylphenidate, or generic Ritalin. Last fall, it <a href="https://filtermag.org/dea-vyvanse-adhd-med-shortage/">did the same for generic Vyvanse</a>.
While that update is certainly welcome to those who've had to go without their meds, it's hard to say now whether the DEA's policies will shift significantly under the new Trump administration. As Dodson assured us, the <a href="https://futurism.com/neoscope/rfk-jr-adderall-labor-camps">known Adderall-hating Robert F Kennedy Jr</a>, who now sits in charge of our country's healthcare, has no authority over the DEA.
More on drug shortages: <a href="https://futurism.com/neoscope/hims-lobby-fda-ozempic-knockoff">Hims Is Begging Customers to Lobby the FDA to Keep Its Ozempic Knockoffs Legal</a>

Expert Advice

Rx/Medicines

"The vagaries of distribution."

To Fill Your Adderall Prescription Amid Shortage, Try Getting It Filled on This Particular Day of the Month

As billionaire Elon Musk continues to ravage the government's budget with the help of his so-called Department of Government Efficiency, sources inside the White House are increasingly getting fed up with his antics.
As <a href="https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-features/elon-musk-trump-doge-destruction-1235314218/">Rolling Stone reported today</a>, some senior State Department officials <a href="https://futurism.com/trump-officials-calling-musk-crazy-uncle-elon">have come to call him</a> "Crazy Uncle Elon," a nod towards his grating persona. But the story contained another alarming revelation: the depth of Musk's antipathy toward the people's whose lives he's been turning upside down.
The effects of the budget cuts he's overseen so far have been devastating, to say the least. Tens of thousands of federal employees have been fired. Lifesaving aid and research are being canceled, and the nation's <a href="https://futurism.com/social-security-elon-musk-crash-system">Social Security system is hanging on by a thread</a>.
Just last week, the Social Security Administration <a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/news/social-security-doge-ssi-error-message-currently-not-receiving-payments/">wrongfully informed</a> some recipients of Supplemental Security Income, financial assistance for disabled Americans and low-income senior citizens, that they were no longer receiving benefits, causing chaos.
But to Musk, the massive amount of hurt he's inflicting on all those people has come as a source of amusement. According to Rolling Stone, the billionaire has been reacting with laugh-crying emojis to reports of federal staffers' lives being upended.
The reporting highlights the richest man in the world's active disdain for federal employees. Case in point, earlier this year, Musk <a class="underline hover:text-futurism hover:no-underline transition-all duration-200 ease-in-out" href="https://www.thedailybeast.com/musk-boosts-claim-that-hitler-wasnt-to-blame-for-holocaust/?utm_campaign=owned_social&amp;via=twitter_page&amp;utm_source=twitter_owned_tdb&amp;utm_medium=socialflow">retweeted</a> a post that blamed the atrocities committed by Adolf Hitler, Joseph Stalin, and Mao Zedong on public sector workers.
Workers who haven't yet been caught up in the sweeping layoffs will have to contend with a very different working environment and a new level of workplace scrutiny. Earlier this week, news emerged that DOGE was <a href="https://fortune.com/2025/04/09/musks-doge-reportedly-deploys-ai-to-monitor-federal-workers-for-anti-trump-sentiment-the-willingness-to-skirt-laws-is-brazen/">using AI to monitor federal workers</a> for anti-Trump sentiment.
Musk also blasted out an email in February, requiring all federal employees to report what "they got done last week."
"Failure to respond will be taken as a resignation," Musk wrote in the email.
A day later, several federal agencies <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2025/2/23/us-agencies-tell-workers-to-ignore-musk-what-did-you-do-last-week-email">told employees not to respond</a> to the demand, sowing even more confusion.
Employees have also had to deal with Musk's army of teenage and early-2o-something operatives who have threatened officials and grilled Pentagon employees about guarded information, per Rolling Stone.
In short, Musk's gutting of the federal government isn't just <a href="https://www.thedailybeast.com/elon-musks-doge-found-something-it-can-cutits-1-trillion-savings-target/">falling far short of saving $1 trillion</a>, as he'd previously promised. It's also being led by a billionaire who is reportedly getting a kick out of making federal employees' lives as miserable as possible.
How long the cruel farce will keep going remains unclear. According to the president,  Musk will be leaving his post in the upcoming months, a move that'll likely come as a big sigh of relief for countless federal workers.
More on DOGE: <a href="https://futurism.com/congress-elon-musk-nasa-conflict-interest">Congress Investigating Whether Elon Musk Is Using NASA to Enrich Himself</a>