The Twitter Files Playbook Comes For The US Government

Failures

from the the-stupid-government-files dept

Remember the Twitter Files? That carefully orchestrated “exposé” where incredibly gullible hand-picked journalists were given selective access to internal documents to manufacture misleading outrage about Twitter’s content moderation?

Get ready for the government edition.

If you want to predict what’s coming next in Elon Musk’s governmental power grab, look no further than his Twitter takeover playbook. As we noted last week, the parallels are striking – and dangerous. That’s gone into overdrive this weekend with excellent reporting from multiple sources including Wired getting the details on a half dozen Musk-connected kids, aged 19 to 24, with no experience or knowledge, systematically violating what appear to be a whole bunch of laws as they ransack the US government:

WIRED has identified six young men—all apparently between the ages of 19 and 24, according to public databases, their online presences, and other records—who have little to no government experience and are now playing critical roles in Musk’s so-called Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) project, tasked by executive order with “modernizing Federal technology and software to maximize governmental efficiency and productivity.” The engineers all hold nebulous job titles within DOGE, and at least one appears to be working as a volunteer.

The engineers are Akash Bobba, Edward Coristine, Luke Farritor, Gautier Cole Killian, Gavin Kliger, and Ethan Shaotran. None have responded to requests for comment from WIRED. Representatives from OPM, GSA, and DOGE did not respond to requests for comment.

Already, Musk’s lackeys have taken control of the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) and General Services Administration (GSA), and have gained access to the Treasury Department’s payment system, potentially allowing him access to a vast range of sensitive information about tens of millions of citizens, businesses, and more. On Sunday, CNN reported that DOGE personnel attempted to improperly access classified information and security systems at the US Agency for International Development (USAID), and that top USAID security officials who thwarted the attempt were subsequently put on leave. The AP reported that DOGE personnel had indeed accessed classified material.

“What we’re seeing is unprecedented in that you have these actors who are not really public officials gaining access to the most sensitive data in government,” says Don Moynihan, a professor of public policy at the University of Michigan. “We really have very little eyes on what’s going on. Congress has no ability to really intervene and monitor what’s happening because these aren’t really accountable public officials. So this feels like a hostile takeover of the machinery of governments by the richest man in the world.”

This pattern of hostile takeover escalated further when DOGE personnel demanded access to USAID’s security systems and personnel files — systems that contain not just employee data, but detailed intelligence about humanitarian operations, diplomatic communications, and information about vulnerable populations in crisis regions that could put lives at risk if compromised. When career security officials refused to grant unauthorized access to these critical systems, they were promptly put on administrative leave — a clear signal of what happens to those who stand in the way of Musk’s information grab.

Later on, Musk (operating without any clear legal authority or Senate confirmation) made a whole bunch of wildly false claims about USAID, including that it is “a criminal organization,” arguing that it funds all sorts of things it does not (including the idea that it funds “woke prosecutors”), that it’s a “terror organization”, and more. He even claimed it helped fund the creation of COVID-19.

The pattern is familiar: ExTwitter users spin elaborate red-yarn-on-corkboard conspiracy theories, and Musk treats each one as revealed truth. The result is a government increasingly run on paranoid hallucinated fever dreams rather than expertise – imagine NASA’s Apollo Program being handed over to flat-earth conspiracy theorists while the actual engineers are sidelined, and you’ll get the idea.

The danger isn’t just bad policy — it’s the replacement of accountable governance with conspiracy-driven chaos that threatens everything from disaster response to diplomatic relations.

The playbook becomes even more apparent in Musk’s attack on USAID’s “Countering Disinformation Guide” by CEPPS. Just as the Twitter Files took internal content moderation discussions wildly out of context, Musk transforms a guide about fighting disinformation through education into supposed evidence of government censorship.

The irony would be comical if it weren’t so dangerous. The actual guide explicitly warns against censorship, emphasizing that content restriction laws often backfire by giving advantages to bad actors operating outside domestic jurisdictions. It’s a handbook for promoting more speech and better information, not less. Yet Musk and his followers, in an act of meta-disinformation, completely invert its message to fit their “deep state censorship” narrative.

Anyone can verify this — the guide is publicly available. But just as with the Twitter Files, Musk knows his audience won’t read the primary sources. They’ll simply amplify his misleading interpretation, creating another example of the very disinformation the guide warns against.

Even more telling is Musk’s claim about “stopping” USAID’s supposed funding of Bill Kristol:

This claim reveals both a profound misunderstanding of charitable giving structures and a willingness to weaponize that ignorance. It’s so stupid that it requires layers of explanation just to explain why it’s so stupid.

First off, Kristol — despite his own role in degrading Republican discourse for decades through moves like championing Sarah Palin’s vice presidential nomination and supporting treating Americans as idiots in the run-up to the Iraq war — became a vocal anti-Trump voice after 2016, establishing Defending Democracy Together, a 501(c)(4) advocacy group of “Never Trump” Republicans.

The basis for Musk’s claim is an ignorant fool on Twitter pointing out that Defending Democracy received donations via Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors, asserting that this is USAID money. But… it’s not. Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors is a Donor Advised Fund — think of it as a charitable banking service where donors deposit money into their own accounts and then direct it to various nonprofits. Just as having an account at Wells Fargo doesn’t mean you’re financially connected to every other Wells Fargo customer, using RPA for charitable giving doesn’t create connections between different donors’ grants.

As for where USAID comes into this… um… it doesn’t, really. The State Department gave $13.8 million to RPA, in association with USAID, which appears to have been used for migration and refugee assistance in South Africa. Which is all public info (if this government webpage stays up, which it might not). That has nothing whatsoever to do with other donors using the funds they put into RPA accounts to then donate to Kristol’s org.

Claiming USAID funds Kristol through RPA is like saying two organizations are connected because they both use the same bank. It’s a fundamental misunderstanding of how charitable giving works – or more likely, a deliberate misrepresentation.

But Musk claims he’s stopping USAID from funding Kristol based on this functionally illiterate conspiracy theory, and we’re going to hear more idiots insisting he actually stopped the thing that anyone who knew anything about how charitable giving works would know is untrue.

This pattern of manufactured outrage points clearly to what’s coming next. I fully expect that we’ll get a functional equivalent of “The Twitter Files.” Just as when Musk took over Twitter, and insisted that the old management was up to all sorts of no good, from being infused with “woke” ideology to government infiltration.

His playbook then was simple: hand-pick credulous journalists, give them selective access to internal documents, and let confirmation bias do the rest.

We reported extensively on what was revealed in “The Twitter Files” and the answer was abso-fucking-lutely nothing. The documents revealed thoughtful policy discussions and principled content moderation approaches, not the scandal Musk promised.

Yet thanks to relentless repetition by right-wing media and congressional allies, many remain absolutely 100% convinced the Twitter Files exposed massive wrongdoing on an epic scale.

Now, we should expect the same with this government takeover. These rumors and nonsense about USAID and other agencies will lead to some of the most absolute bullshit reporting in a long while. Elon will have little trouble finding willing amplifiers for his narratives.

Just as the Twitter Files transformed routine content moderation into imaginary censorship campaigns, mundane government operations will become evidence of sinister plots.

Meanwhile, mainstream media will likely fall into their familiar trap of false equivalence, wrapping obviously false claims in the careful language of “allegedly” and “according to reports,” rather than directly challenging the premise.

Is there waste, fraud, and abuse in the US government? Hell yes. But having Elon Musk and his crew of rando power-mad kids randomly deciding what’s legit and what’s not isn’t how you fix things. We literally have Inspectors General across the government who actually do a pretty good job of rooting out waste, fraud, and abuse by doing actual research to truly understand things. But, of course, Trump fired most of them.

All government agencies need oversight — but replacing professional, trained, experienced scrutiny with conspiracy theorists and dank meme ExTwitter accounts doesn’t seem like the most efficient method.

So, consider this a blaring warning: we’re going to see a bunch of false and misleading nonsense pushed by Elon and his crew, claiming all sorts of waste, fraud, and abuse. Most of it won’t actually be any of those things. Much of it will actually be important (sometimes life-saving) programs. They may stumble upon actual problems — those always exist. But they’re going to destroy hugely consequential elements of US infrastructure to get there.

And then we’re going to be lied to about it all by dimwit reporters for years on end.

The Twitter Files were just the dress rehearsal. The real performance is about to begin, and this time, the damage won’t be limited to content moderation decisions at one social media platform — it threatens to undermine crucial government functions from international aid to public health infrastructure.

Filed Under: conspiracy theories, dank memes, elon musk, government files, twitter files, usaid
Companies: twitter, x