(JOURNALISTIC) MADNESS: When "Catturd" launched a bogus claim...

WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 12, 2025

...Citizen Musk affirmed it: Is something "wrong" with Elon Musk? How about with Donald J. Trump?

To our eye and to our ear, Musk has the possible feel of a stone-cold nut, with the commander not far behind. Under current arrangements, major American journalists may be required to pretend that they haven't quite read the same vibe.

Yesterday, the world's richest person saved a couple of bucks on childcare as he appeared in the Oval Office. He was accompanied by the nominal president, but also by a 4-year-old boy who was initially thought to be one of Musk's "engineers."

The richest person proceeded to emit a lengthy string of claims.  Is something possibly "wrong' with Musk, even if only colloquially? How about with Glebova and Nelson, the "journalists" at the New York Post who assembled this (imitation of a) news report:

Musk defends mass DOGE firings, says the US should not ‘live in a bureaucracy’

Elon Musk defended the work of the Department of Government Efficiency Tuesday, saying the US should not be run by a “bureaucracy.”

Speaking next to President Trump in the Oval Office, the tech mogul argued he’s carrying out the commander-in-chief’s mandate by moving to fire thousands of government workers and cutting back on federal spending.

So the report began. In time, the journalists offered their account of Musk's various claims:

“We do find it sort of rather odd that there are quite a few people in the bureaucracy who have, ostensibly a salary of a few hundred thousand dollars but somehow managed to accrue tens of millions of dollars in net worth while they are in that position,” Musk claimed.

“Which is what happened to USAID. We’re just curious as to where it came from….I think the reality is that they’re getting wealthier at taxpayer expense.”

Musk did not provide any specific examples, though foreign contracting historically has been vulnerable to fraudulent self-dealing.

[...]

Musk, the CEO of Tesla and SpaceX, claimed that his team has found instances of 150 year old people collecting Social Security benefits and suspiciously rich federal workers who he suspects of self-dealing.

“Just a cursory examination of Social Security, and we got people in there that are 150 years old. Now, do you know anyone 150? I don’t, okay. They should be on the Guinness Book of World Records. They’re missing out,” Musk said.

“I think they’re probably dead. That’s my guess. Or they should be very famous. One of the two.”

The DOGE leader further highlighted what he said was a confounding issue slowing the pace of federal retirements.

“We were told that the most number of people that could retire possibly in a month is 10,000…because all the retirement paperwork is manual on paper. It’s manually calculated. They’re written down on a piece of paper. Then it goes down a mine,” he said.

“There’s a limestone mine where we store all the retirement paperwork… we will post some pictures afterwards…and the limiting factor is the speed at which the mine shaft elevator can move determines how many people can retire from the federal government.”

Musk also acknowledged that he can be wrong at times as he highlights examples of the alleged waste on X, which he owns—including recent criticism of $50 million in US-funded condoms for Gaza, which turned out to be Gaza province, Mozambique, rather than the Hamas-ruled Palestinian enclave.

“Some of the things that I say will be incorrect and should be corrected. so nobody’s going to bat 1,000. You know, we will make mistakes, but we’ll act quickly to correct any mistakes,” he said.

“I’m not sure we should be sending $50 million worth of condoms to anywhere, frankly…That is really an enormous number of condoms if you think about it. But you know, if it went to Mozambique instead of Gaza, I’m like, ‘Okay, that’s not as bad. But still, you know, why are we doing that?’

He said we shouldn't be shipping that many condoms anywhere! That's how the "news report" ended.

Is something wrong with Musk and Trump? For now, let's start with the messaging tandem turned loose by the New York Post—with the way they chose to report Musk's various declarations.

Over at the New York Times, Haberman, Schleifer and Kanno-Youngs also filed a news report about Musk's presentation. Their offering sits on today's front page, but their report starts with words of warning, right from the headline on down:

Appearing With Trump, Musk Makes Broad Claims of Federal Fraud Without Proof

The billionaire Elon Musk said in an extraordinary Oval Office appearance on Tuesday that he was providing maximum transparency in his government cost-cutting initiative, but offered no evidence for his sweeping claims that the federal bureaucracy had been corrupted by cheats and officials who had approved money for “fraudsters.”

Answering questions from the media for the first time since his arrival in Washington to run the Department of Government Efficiency, Mr. Musk stood next to the Resolute Desk and asserted that his work was in the interest of the public and democracy. President Trump sat behind the desk, chiming in with approval as he let the world’s richest man expound for roughly 30 minutes on the rationale for the drastic overhaul of the federal bureaucracy.

The goal is to “restore democracy,” Mr. Musk said. “If the bureaucracy’s in charge, then what meaning does democracy actually have?”

Among Mr. Musk’s claims, which he offered without providing evidence, was that some officials at the now-gutted U.S. Agency for International Development had been taking “kickbacks.” He said that “quite a few people” in the bureaucracy somehow had “managed to accrue tens of millions of dollars in net worth while they are in that position,” without explaining how he had made that assessment. He later claimed that some recipients of Social Security checks were as old as 150.

And so on from there. First in the headline, then all through the report, the Times reporters stressed the fact that Musk had "offered no evidence" in support of his various claims, even as the nominal president was "chiming in with approval." 

Citizen Musk hadn't "explained how he made" his assessments, the Times reporters noted. He had advanced an array of claims "which he offered without providing evidence."  

He had made "broad claims without proof."

Over at the New York Post, Glebova and Nelson—perhaps like Trump—had apparently failed to notice such omissions. They had also failed to notice the fuzziness of some of the fellow's claims—for example, the claim about the number of people who are able to retire each month from the federal government.

The gentleman said the number was only ten thousand—rather, he said that's what he'd been told. He didn't say if he'd fact-checked the thing he said he'd been told. He did seem to imply that this state of affairs represented a major problem—was part of a "confounding issue.".

Only ten thousand per month! Multiplying by twelve, that would work out to 120,000 such retirements in the course of a single year.

That said, how many federal workers want to retire in the course of a year? We can't say with total certainty, nor can we report the extent to which the situation Musk described creates a major problem.

We can tell you this:

The limestone mine Musk almost seemed to have discovered was reported, in great detail, all the way back in 2014, in this detailed news report by the Washington Post. Musk's team had quite possibly broken this story by reading an eleven-year-old mainstream news report! 

(For Sarah Rumpf's report on this matter, you can just click this.)

As a four-year-old crawled over his neck, Musk reported what he said he'd been told about this confounding issue. At this site, we don't know if he was ever told any such thing. Also, has he ever tried to determine if the number he says he's been given represents some sort of "confounding issue?"

We don't have the slightest idea, and neither does Donald J. Trump. That said, other claims and suggestions by Musk seem to be baldly inaccurate (or worse), a fact the writers at the New York Post managed to walk on by.

Consider again this eye-catching claim, reported by the Post:

"There are quite a few people in the bureaucracy who have, ostensibly, a salary of a few hundred thousand dollars but somehow managed to accrue tens of millions of dollars in net worth." 

That sounds like a troubling claim! That said, what lies behind it?  

For starters, understand this. This statement by Musk was triggered by a question from the seated commander. As you can see in the third minute of this CNN videotape, the nominal president made this early request of the world's richest person:

TRUMP (2/11/25): Could you mention some of the things that your team has found, some of the crazy numbers, including the woman that walked away with about thirty million?

MUSK: Right...

As you can see, it was in response to that request that Musk offered a fuzzier version of an earlier bogus claim. 

As you can learn at Mediaite, Trump's request seemed to refer to an earlier bungled claim about Samantha Power, former head of USAID. We refer to an online claim by the mental giant named "Catturd"—a claim which Musk had seemed to reinforce in his typical reckless way.

Full disclosure! Major news orgs may be inclined to avoid fact checks of such claims, knowing that any discussion of such bogus claims will only result in their wider promulgation.

That said, Forbes fact-checked and rejected this claim when Catturd and Musk advanced it. (Headline: "Elon Musk Pushes False Claim Ex-USAID Chief Earned $23 Million.") 

That said, so what? Yesterday, there sat the president of a failing nation, asking to hear that song again. In response, Musk offering a fuzzier version of the discredited hit. 

Meanwhile, are there any real examples of federal employees who end up as inexplicable multimillionaires? If there are, Musk has never provided them. We know of no obvious reason to assume that he ever will.

All in all, the stupid sh*t went on and on from this apparent nutcase. As has been noted again and again, his initial claim about the $50 million in condoms-to-Gaza had been clownishly wrong. 

Regarding those condoms, Musk now said they'd been sent to Gaza province in Mozambique, not to the Gaza strip. That also seems to be wrong—but over at the New York Post, Glebova and Nelson ended their pseudo-report with that adjusted assertion by Musk, letting readers believe that the wondrous fellow had only been partially wrong.

Final question: 

Has this fellow really discovered "that some recipients of Social Security checks are as old as 150?" We know of no reason to assume that he has, but that claim would be easy to document. 

Does any such situation exist? Such claims can get all around the world before such questions can even get asked. Do you believe there are any such recipients? Do you think Musk will ever be asked?

Is something wrong with Elon Musk? To our eye and ear, the reckless person in question qualifies (colloquially) as a possible bit of an apparent nutcase. 

This afternoon, we'll link you to the Wall Steet Journal's detailed report about his apparent drug use in the fairly recent past. To our eye and ear, something does seem to be wrong with this reckless man, though we have no idea what it is.

To our eye and ear, the man in question qualifies (colloquially) as a possible nutcase. On a journalistic basis, yesterday's performance in the Oval was as an imitation of life.

It was an imitation of rational life. So too with the "news report" in the New York Post.

That said, this kind of (journalistic) madness is general over the culture. Over at the Fox News Channel, is Greg Gutfeld involved in some such form of (colloquial) madness?

It's as we noted in yesterday's report. Last Friday night, he seemed to make an array of very strange claims about the work of USAID—about its work around the globe but also here at home.

He was surrounded by four helpmates. Tomorrow, we'll say their names.

After his nightly dose of ugly "jokes," Gutfeld made an array of peculiar claims in his "monologue." After he finished his oration, it was time for the Stepfords to speak.

What did these four imitations say? Tomorrow, we'll continue with our portrait of the "night assault" on the dying culture of our own sacred Troy.

That's what we'll do tomorrow. Yesterday, Donald J. Trump said this:

Tell us about that woman again! Tell us what Catturd said!

Donald J. Trump lodged that request. Musk did his best to comply.

Tomorrow: Each panel member agreed!