Musk came, he saw, and he left, having wrecked the place.
There were no victories.
There was no gain.
It is estimated that 1,500 babies a day are now being born with HIV because his attack on USAID left their mothers without the protections that they need from that disease, meaning that their children are born with this condition.
The poorest, the most vulnerable, and those already facing the greatest stress in society, both in the USA and in countries impacted by cuts in USAID around the world, are those who have suffered the most as a result of Musk's reckless irresponsibility.
And, as he admitted as he departed the scene, reforming the government is not as easy as he thought. That is because, just like almost all the simple-minded people who strike it lucky in business and who, as a consequence, believe they can solve any problem by issuing autocratic instruction which those who work for them must comply with or face immediate risk of losing their jobs, the complexity of government is beyond their comprehension.
Government systems are not set up for the limited purposes of keeping bosses happy, if necessary by the supply of misinformation, and of ensuring organisation survival, as is the case with too much private sector enterprise. Instead, they actually try to meet need.
This is a goal almost beyond the comprehension of those business leaders who are most critical of government. They are so singular in their outlook that they genuinely believe that the world shares their belief that the perpetuation of growth in their wealth is the only worthy objective of humankind. The possibility that an organisation might not only be required to, but actually does, take account of the needs of those whom it serves, and is served by people who might have genuine concern for others beyond their own self interest, is so baffling to these supposed business leaders that they completely fail to understand the systems created by those who embrace this type of thinking.
As a result, they are quite unable to comprehend the multifaceted nature of the systems that must be created when the impact of actions has to be taken into account when any decision is made, because the potential risks those impacts might give rise to are of concern to the decision-maker.
Of course, Musk failed as a result of this.
Over many decades, I have heard right-wing politicians complaining that government is wasteful, and if only they were given an opportunity, then they would cut its costs for the benefit of society. Then, when they reach office, they invariably discover that no such possibility exists. Instead, they realise that there are good reasons for the complex arrangements that government uses, not least because it seeks to avoid adverse consequences of any actions it takes (by and large, and I know there are exceptions).
Musk does, then, join a long line of those simpletons from the business community who have failed when taking on the challenge of government because the problems of managing an organisation with diverse, integrated, and socially essential goals is beyond their comprehension when they believe that every organisation exists solely for the purposes of maximising the wealth of its owners. This is most especially the case when they struggle to understand that government does not, as such, have owners, but is instead accountable to people on the basis of a relationship of trust that is not contractual.
The only problem in the case of Musk was that he was given unfettered power beyond the rule of law by a person at the peak moment of his ability to create havoc, before the forces of law began to constrain him, however much he wished otherwise. The result is that mayhem was unleashed, and it will take years, if not decades, to correct.
Meanwhile, lives will have been harmed irreparably as a consequence, and many will have been lost.
The price of Musk will, quite literally, be seen in death, sickness, chronic anxiety, destroyed well-being, devastated businesses, the abandonment of hope, the destruction of US soft power, a loss of faith in government, and disdain for all that he ever does again.
The world needs to learn a lesson from Musk and from his sponsor. That is that the far right cannot deliver. What is more, those who seek to copy them, as they move further to the right as they exit the neoliberal centre, also lack that capacity. That is because all those on the far right are devoid of the essential characteristic of successful politics, which is the capacity to care. The absence of this essential quality is why they will always fail, eventually.
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Last night’s show in the Oval Office left me bewildered, though I also accept naivete on my part. It presumably was for the benefit of his base on Fox News and elsewhere to persuade them that Musk has done a wonderful job. There was certainly no attempt to persuade anyone who doesn’t support him. I thought that was part of a politician’s job. The repetition of the lie about the transgendered mice did it for me as well as taking questions only from those craven journalists who threw him the softest of soft balls.
In a decent world Musk would be sent to prison for the rest of his sordid life.
Probably total and utter rubbish, however my personal belief is the day that Musk brought his kid to the oval office, who then hissed at Trump that he wasn’t the president, was the end of the racist, saffer nazi’s project!
It was chilling viewing.
The Right do not care who suffers or dies. It was the horrible truth that we saw with the Johnson administration over Covid. The only thing that mattered were the optics … and the opportunities to reap huge profits.
Johnson and co not only deliberately excluded any public health experts with their decades of experience but actively promoted the spread of the virus in a mistaken beliefs about herd immunity. If they had initially eliminated each outbreak as they arose, we could have avoided lockdowns and dependence on vaccinations. Instead, the infection was allowed to get out of hand and a lockdown became the only viable option. However, not before we had had a massive death toll.
As I said, the Trumpian/Johnson (Modi, Orban etc) Right do not care who suffers or dies. Gaza is a terrifying example.
The Herd Immunity rubbish from Johnson was the point I got very scared indeed that Downing St. were going to kill a very large number of people.
(which they did)
Vaccinations and herd immunity were something I knew about as a retired farm vet. they are really important, foot and mouth, swine fever, bovine viral diarrhoea, distemper, rabies etc etc.
Then for humans, polio, measles, German measles, mumps, influenza,
There are decades of experience and mountains of data about this, it was well understood – yet Johnson managed to avoid all the right advice, and lurch around like the supermarket trolley he was, causing death and mayhem.
There has never ever been a single instance of a panzootic/pandemic viral disease that was dealt with by means of “herd immunity” without the use of vaccination. (the “zootic” bit means animals not humans). That was public knowledge at the time that Johnson made his stupid remarks. He had no excuse. If he didn’t understand what he was saying he should have stuck to his brief from his scientific advisers.
It was a lunatic crazy stupid utterly reckless ill-informed criminally culpable thing to say and even worse, to DO. But he did it, until someone explained to him what a disaster it would be. And lots of stupid people on the right picked it up and ran with it. That killed people.
Many vulnerable people who weren’t educated about vaccines and immunity (and I don’t blame them) were deceived (and in my opinion killed) by people who knew exactly what they were doing and didn’t care.
I won’t get into discussions about lockdowns and vaccinations, it’s too complicated, but the issue of herd immunity is very very simple.
Without vaccination, it’s bollocks. Impossible.
And at the time Johnson was plugging it there was NO VACCINE and absolutely certainty that pursuing a policy akin to “measles parties” was going to kill people. Which it did.
He and Carrie are celebrating their latest child (no doubt at least partly financed for by all that money we paid him for being PM and all those donations and freebies he got from those whose fortunes he was able to enhance during Covid)
Had Johnson been sent to jail, Carrie’s life would be very very different and that child would not have been born.
I wish them every happiness.
Hold on !
Wasn’t the issue with small pox in the UK that UK does not use vaccines (and charges more on that basis) compared to farmers elsewhere?
Please correct me if I’m wrong. As a proclaimed vet…. Please confirm the legal position and the practice.
I believe yesterday’s story in the New York Times about his drug taking and his ambition to impregnate any woman who wants to. It was well sourced and Musk quickly disparaged the newspaper when asked about it yesterday. That’s usually a good sign as to veracity.
For more on this subject (Musk), and the latest idiocy from Trump it’s well worth watching the top segment and the fourth down from Chris Hayes.The second down (‘We’re all going to die’, is also relevant as it gives a peak into the mindset of the mind of a right wing politician). https://www.msnbc.com/all
Thanks
I note Peter Thiel and his company Palantir have moved into the space created by Musks exit taking over the lead in DOGE. Thiels company already run software for several departments in the US including Homeland securirty, health and human services, they have been awarded a new $795 million contract on top of the $113 million already given by Trump. Palantir are now in talks to run IRS and Social Security amongst others under discussion, they are building a huge privately run computer system with little oversight. The UK government also using Palantir who are in the early stages of running our services.
They are creeping into the NHS
This corruption of the social state by a mobster oligarchy is not just happening at breakneck speed in the US. Thiel, that good buddy of the late influential Epstein’s mate, Mandelson, is also well invested in the policing of Britain. According to research carried out by European Powell: https://europeanpowell.substack.com/p/peter-thiels-palantir-has-11-confirmed?utm_source=substack&utm_campaign=posts-open-in-app&utm_medium=email&utm_content=post&triedRedirect=true
There is a disturbing pattern emerging of a choreographed Call to (very profitable for some) Arms with Hegseth’s recent sabre rattling, Trump’s promise of an Israeli style Golden Dome and Starmer’s growth based plans, to be announced tomorrow, of increased munitions production with six new mega factories and proposed state funding for cadet training in the UK state school system. Although I wonder how the latter will be justified and rolled out within Northern Ireland.
Blair/Mandelson Inc and the UK’s uniparty ruling class look set to become even wealthier soon, yet again off the backs of the vulnerable and suffering.
My deepest concern is that if we are facing a new world of increasing armed conflicts having such simple minded greed brains in positions of political power will lead to inevitable chaos and unnecessary loss of life. As has been experienced with Johnson and Covid and with Elon Musk’s Dogefathers.
Did you see that video of Musk rolling his eyes at the ceiling and generally looking off his head? This is just one of quite a few similar videos.
https://www.tiktok.com/@elite_buy/video/7462446366179052822
Well said Richard.
Musk – “The fundamental weakness of Western civilization is empathy”
And with this as his guiding philosophy he tore through the Federal Government like an deranged orca set amongst a herd of seals. Turns out that one of the crucial qualities he needed for the task was the one he was so keen to disown.
He may have gone but others of a similar ilk are waiting in the wings; whether Thiel, Vought, Ramaswamy, or other. Trump himself is completely devoid of any of the finer qualities needed for the Presidency, clearly he’ll never pick anyone with such qualities as he’s incapable of recognising them. Here, Farage is baked in the same mould so he sides with the same tellingly – it makes me think that if you want to become a member of the Far Right all one needs do is to dispossess oneself of any empathy – that way there is also no need to have any sense of responsibility.
Dark days indeed.
If Musk/Trump were not so arrogant in the belief in their own powers and if they really wanted to make Gov. more efficient they could have asked government workers for their advice on how to make efficiencies… but that would have eroded their belief in their own magnificence but it could have led to meaningful cuts! I see today RFK Junior has cancelled Moderna’s research into a bird flu vaccination. Oh, well I guess we hope for the best. Stupidity/arrogance is so dangerous! Did we notice that Musk had a black eye? So delicious to speculate how he got it!!
Follow up to previous …
There are many examples of herd immunity … Let’s just use measles for one. Lots from post ww2.
I am not trying to justify BoJo’s policy … I just want the critique to be valid. Otherwise, rational argument is picked apart.
This is misleading – measles was endemic until vaccination in the 1960’s.
See this chart-
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Measles_incidence_England%26Wales_1940-2007.png
Perhaps you need to explain what you are referring to with your reference to measles and post-WW2. It wasn’t elimination, and measles killed people – 400-500 deaths a year in the USA.
I state again – there is not a single case of elimination of a viral disease by herd immunity in the absence of vaccination.
https://vaccineknowledge.ox.ac.uk/herd-immunity#How-does-herd-immunity-work
But it is herd immunity brought about by vaccination that protects those who cannot be vaccinated or for whom vaccination is ineffective.
That is also why antivax is such a dangerous argument.
Need to clarify.
For avoidance of doubt, I am not anti-vaccine.
I was questioning things like foot and mouth (i typed pox when I should have used foot and mouth) — my understanding is that UK doesn’t use vaccines (they do in Europe) for that — because it allows farmers to have a premium price. When there is an outbreak, farmers seem to be paid anyway…..
As I understand, we have “herd immunity” for things like measles …. And are unlikely to get outbreaks as long as about 95% are immunised.
I’m not disputing Bojo’s idiocy …. I fear it may be limitless!
I was just questioning that for some things (like foot and mouth) we don’t immunise …. Instead there is an attempt to stamp out infection when it is found?
@Ex-teacher
https://www.taxresearch.org.uk/Blog/2025/05/31/the-failure-of-musk-is-not-by-chance/comment-page-1/#comment-1023621
We now seem to have established there has never been an example of eliminating an endemic viral disease, by establishing herd immunity, in the absence of vaccination? Agreed?
You have not come back on “post WW2 measles” not having been eliminated till vaccination in the 1960s, so I assume we have also agreed on that, on the basis of the actual statistics on the record?
As to FMD, I spent several years as a member of a contracted reserve “draw-down” task force of vets and agricultural staff (mostly inseminators, livestock hauliers and animal health inspectors who could not work during an FMD outbreak) set up precisely to carry out vaccination in the face of an out of control outbreak – the key words being “out of control”.
I have also done work with the Addington Fund phone bank, providing counselling to isolated farmers in outbreaks, and helping fill out grant application form for charitable support to buy fodder for animals they can’t move off the farm. It slso helped prevent suicides (levels of which are v high in the farming community due to the widespread availability of shotguns).
Herd immunity has nothing to do with UK methods of FMD control. It is a v highly contagious disease, it spreads primarily by the wind and physical contact, with the former being very important. Animals are infectious before they become symptomatic.
The classic method of FMD control in our island state, is to “kill it out” where infection occurs and prevent animal movements completely (a veterinary form of lockdown with heavy legal penalties and no financial compensation other than for slaughter). Nothing to do with immunity at all.
The role of vaccination, which we have so far never used, is two fold.
1 – vaccinate to kill. This uses “ring” vaccination to reduce the excretion of windborne virus, while killing teams slaughter out all the susceptible stock within a given area including the vaccinated ones. Movement controls are also in place.
2 – vaccinate to survive – usually used when the virus has become endemic, as it is in some parts of the world, to reduce spread and lower morbidity and allow eradication by traditional method of slaughter to overtake spread or to use vaccination alone to facilitate living with a less severe form of chronic disease.
It is impossible to eradicate FMD solely by means of vaccination because of the mild but debilitating chronic nature of the disease and the limited effectiveness of the vaccine and the existence of symptomless carriers.
Because we are an island, so far we have kept it at bay by eradicating it through slaughter and movement controls.
In the one instance when our vaccination task force WAS mobilised, the circumstances were unique – a unifocal outbreak due to a leak from Labs at Pirbright near Guildford in 2007.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2007_United_Kingdom_foot-and-mouth_outbreak
We spent a week at Duxford aerodrome, all mobilised plus all the portable kit, fencing, crushes etc.doing drills and lectures in a very hot August, while waiting for the will they/won’t they decision about vaccination.
You are correct in that the factors in a decision NOT to vaccinate included the loss of our FMD free status (required for meat exports) for 6 months after the end of any vaccination programme. That costs the food industry money. They lobby successfully against vaccination and did in 2007.
But factors influencing a YES decision to vaccinate include
– the public cost of eradication
– the nature of the outbreak, a multi focal outbreak detected after widespread dissemination of the virus, lack of manpower and resouces for a slaughter campaign
– resistance from public opinion to mass slaughter
– we can no longer incinerate carcasses nor bury them for environmental reasons
– lack of capacity to kill, & transport and render (with biosecurity, tens of thousands of carcasses.
So NEXT time, we may well see vaccination used to control a bad outbreak of FMD. But even then, it won’t be to establish “herd immunity”. Even WITH vaccination, at present, that is impossible with FMD because of the nature of the disease.
Every virus, every host species, animal or human, has its own epidemiology/epizoology, with a mixture of social, economic, political, and biological factors.
Unfortunately, FMD is uniquely UNsuited to a “herd immunity” approach with or without vaccination.
Very labile vaccines like Covid or inflenzua are less than ideal but it sort of works (but only for control, not eradication).
Smallpox is at the other end of the scale, and has been a rare eradication success, we hope.
Polio is an example of an (enteric) disease where herd immunity by vaccination (and good sanitation and water supplies) works well, but where it returns with a vengeance, when both vaccination and sanitation break down as in Gaza. UK water companies take note!
That was a long explanation, hope it was helpful.
By the way, the reason I “claim” to be a retired vet is because its true. I will be sending Richard an email today to identify myself to his satsfaction.
Thanks.
I had measles back in the 50s. I reckon I was about 6. It was very boring as my mother kept my curtains closed all the time, and I wasn’t allowed to read (my addiction even back then 🙂 ) She had the only radio in the house (it was before the time of TV!) so I just had to lie in bed in the dark and be bored out of my skull! I was lucky as I didn’t feel ill at all – just horribly bored for I can’t remember how long. I think it was only the rash that I had made her think I had measles – I don’t think she even bothered to get the doctor to come in to take a look.
My kids both vaccinated, and I’m sure their kids have been too,
I was lucky with my case of measles, but I think it can be a very awful disease, or the consequences can.