In May, former GEO Group executive David Venturella became the acting director of ICE. Venturella’s ascent marked the latest victory for GEO Group, a behemoth in the world of private prisons and detention centers, which saw its annual profit rise nearly eightfold during the first year of Trump’s second term. After years of weaving its profit-making machinery into the fabric of the prison…
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Ahead of the initial public offering for SpaceX, we speak with historian Quinn Slobodian, author of Muskism: A Guide for the Perplexed. He says Elon Musk is “creating a situation where he becomes deeply reliant on state contracts” as the U.S. government then becomes reliant on Musk. “It’s not about demolishing the government,” Slobodian says of his work with DOGE, the so-called Department of…
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A federal judge ruled last week that millions of dollars in cuts made by the so-called “Department of Government Efficiency” (DOGE), a quasi-government entity led by billionaire Elon Musk, improperly targeted grants distributed by the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) by targeting terminology relating to protected statuses. The NEH cuts by DOGE staffers “blatantly used” race, gender…
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In the new book, Muskism: A Guide for the Perplexed, authors Quinn Slobodian and Ben Tarnoff look at the worldview that shaped Elon Musk and the ideology that has coalesced around him. They call Muskism “an operating system for the 21st century.” Musk runs rocket company SpaceX, AI startup xAI, electric car maker Tesla and the social media platform X, formerly Twitter.
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In Memphis, Tennessee, questions about AI data centers are rising nearly as quickly as their price tags. Recent reporting shows that Elon Musk’s artificial intelligence company xAI now has properties in Memphis appraised at roughly $3.4 billion, a staggering valuation that will shape how much the company contributes in property taxes and how local officials frame its economic impact.
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The Trump administration purged the State Department of its oil and gas experts last year, prior to launching its war on Iran, including people who would be responsible for examining scenarios related to the closure of the Strait of Hormuz, a new report says as the gas prices spike. NOTUS reports that the administration laid off a wide swath of oil and gas analysts in the State Department’s…
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