Support justice-driven, accurate and transparent news — make a quick donation to Truthout today! As Anita Wolfe sat in the hallway of a Charleston, West Virginia, county courtroom, waiting to testify against the U.S. government, she thought of her dad, who first started working as a coal miner when he was around 12. She remembered...
Defenders of Social Security are responding with critical anger to a ruling by the U.S. Supreme Court on Friday that sides with the Trump administration in a legal battle over access to sensitive data of tens of millions of Americans by the Department of Government Efficiency, the government-eviscerating group first spearheaded by right-wing libertarian and...
This story was originally published by ProPublica. ProPublica is a nonprofit newsroom that investigates abuses of power. Sign up to receive our biggest stories as soon as they’re published. As the Trump administration prepared to cancel contracts at the Department of Veterans Affairs this year, officials turned to a software engineer with no health care...
On Wednesday evening, the world’s wealthiest man announced that his sojourn in the nation’s capital is almost over. “As my scheduled time as a Special Government Employee comes to an end, I would like to thank President (Donald Trump) for the opportunity to reduce wasteful spending,” Elon Musk posted to X,...
The billionaire’s term as a “special government employee” is set to end, but his outsized influence remains. Billionaire Elon Musk announced late Wednesday that he is leaving the Trump administration after spearheading a monthslong, lawless rampage through the government that hollowed out entire agencies, hurled critical functions such as the distribution of Social Security benefits...
The world’s richest man spent nearly 130 days working with the Trump administration to slash the federal government. From attending the president’s inauguration, taking his son ‘Lil X’ – as Musk calls him – to the Oval Office, showing off a Tesla at the White House and then criticising Trump’s “big, beautiful bill”, these are...
Watch: Elon Musk says he is “disappointed” with Trump’s “big, beautiful bill”, in interview with CBS Sunday Morning Billionaire Elon Musk has said his time leading President Donald Trump’s cost-cutting task force is coming “to an end”. In a post on his social media platform X, Musk thanked Trump for the opportunity to help run...
What happened to the DOGE cuts? It took four months and a scolding from Ron DeSantis yesterday, but it finally looks like the process may get underway. According to Politico, the first rescission request will get sent next week, but only for a small sampling of the DOGE targets: The planned transmission of the “rescissions”...
This story was originally published by Grist. Sign up for Grist’s weekly newsletter here. After devastating fires tore through Los Angeles in January, a crew of more than 300 young people showed up to help, many of them members of the national service program AmeriCorps. Among them was Julian Nava-Cortez, who traveled from northern California...
This story was originally published by ProPublica. ProPublica is a Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative newsroom. Sign up for The Big Story newsletter to receive stories like this one in your inbox Earlier this year, doctors at Veterans Affairs hospitals in Pennsylvania sounded an alarm. Sweeping cuts imposed by the Trump administration, they told higher-ups in an...
I have to say that was one of the best hours I’ve ever had glued to the tube. We watch Jesse Watters every night – he really is pretty entertaining – but we had no idea that the little secret assignment he’d alluded to when explaining his absence was going to make for such an...
Lucy Gilder, Jake Horton and the Data Science team BBC Verify BBC Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (Doge) – set up to cut US government spending – claims to have saved, on average, more than $10bn a week since President Trump entered office. “We’re talking about almost $200bn and rising fast,” Trump told the...
Watch: Musk defends government cuts in surprise White House appearance Tesla boss Elon Musk has pledged to “significantly” cut back his role in Doge, the body tasked with reducing US government spending and cutting jobs. The Department of Government Efficiency has faced legal challenges over the scope of its work, and Musk and his team...
Elon Musk is clearly proud of his time at DOGE. He posted this yesterday. ???? https://t.co/bcMZLov2La — Elon Musk (@elonmusk) April 21, 2025 But he’s also facing some real backlash from the left, some of it violent, over his position with DOGE. That pushback is starting to impact the bottom line for Tesla. Today, after...
Lily Jamali Reporting fromSan Francisco Reuters Tesla boss Elon Musk says he will cut back his role in the Trump administration as the company’s profits and revenues plunged during the first three months of the year. Sales slumped and the brand has faced backlash as Musk became a political fixture in the White House. On...