US President Donald Trump, Billionaire Elon Musk and evolving US Governance or mis- Governance a live Reality

 From being the Director or person in charge for D.O.G.E, Mr Elon Musk's role has shifted to being an informal Advisor to the US President Donald Trump. That is the explanation given by US President Donald Trump, Billionaire and Tech expert Mr.ElonMusk and others in the government. But there is a small issue with regard to this explanation.

For according to relevant positive law with US Code under Title 5, regarding appointment of informal Advisor there is a provision made- "the arrangement is of a personal nature and the informal personal Advisor does not have to adhere to ethics requirement which formal or even temporary advisors adhere too. At the same time , if the informal advisor assumes a more formal role in course of time, then the person should be evaluated as a regular employee or SGE.

According to the US Code if the advisor has deviated from the role of an informal advisor by undertaking official tasks such as chairing meetings on a particular issue or coordinating government activities on specific issues. Here it is apparent the Advisor is working under supervision or direction of the President or another person. Under such circumstances the Advisor should be given a formal role and the Advisor can't continue as informal personal Advisor 

Mr.Elon.Musk has been clearly carrying out official or formal activities :-

a) When he tweets about the actions (formal) he has taken along with his team, which includes terminating services of Staff in different agencies, shutting down agencies or departments, ensuring disruption of agencies by terminating services of staff or even sending them home. When he does these activities he is taking measures far beyond that of  a personal informal advisor.

b) When he tweets final  judgement on Government and Federal agencies or department with clear statements that he and team are carrying out these measures as they have been given the authority to do so.

c) When Mr. Elon was with the US President during interaction with media at the Oval office and Mr.Elon elaborated on activities and purpose of D.O.G.E.

 In fact breech from being informal advisor occured way back in November 2024, when the then President elect, before taking office, spoke about D.O.G.E and role of  Mr.Elon Musk.

For according to US Code 1005, " the President may delegate responsibility for evaluating and taking action, where appropriate with respect to public recommendation..."

"Within one year after Presidential advisory committee submits a public report to the President,  the  President or President delegate shall submit to Congress a report stating either proposals for action or reasons for inaction with regard to recommendations contained in the public report.

But, the then President Elect Donald Trump not only did not wait till he became President, he also gave interviews to the media and stated " Musk along with Republican Vivek Ramaswamy would dismantle Government bureaucracy, slash excessive regulation, cut wasteful expenditure and restructure Federal Agencies".

Further it was stated as per BBC and as documented by Wikipedia that, Elon Musk played an active role in being party to facilitate call between US President Donald Trump and Ukrainian President Zelensky.

Clearly Mr.Musk was not being an informal Advisor and nor was his role conceived to be as such by US President Donald Trump.

Artificial Intelligence and Governance:

In spite of the country protesting against the unconstitutional manner in which D.O.G.E went about doing it's so called evaluation or  assessment of Federal Agencies, (it is the first time in history conclusion of an evaluation was stated before  even initiating an evaluation), the US President has not changed his plans or relooked at it based on turn of events.

Now, he seeks more Presidential control over financial systems, to specify criteria for transportation safety, broadcast, satellite and broadband communication, basic consumer protection among others.

The US President is seeking for more control in all areas where technology can play a greater role and reduce need for human resource. Take for example the accident when Air Traffic Control Officers were terminated over night. A Tech expert could use these instances to highlight need for greater role of AI and reduce human resource. But this far from the truth on the issue. For example as per data available on-line through Google search, AI  systems manage repetitive tasks, while ATCOs manage more complex decision making and oversee of airspace traffic.

According to a paper on aviation traffic presented at SESAR  Innovation Day 2024, by Due-Thinti Pham et al, the best is Human- AI hybrid paradigm as ATCOs judgement, intuition, and adaptability prove relevant. Hence depending purely on AI can be dicey.

Hypothetically, this may be the course of events of D.O.G.E reality. It came to existence presumably to reduce fraud, corruption and through which also to also reduce national debt. (With regard to national debt there something unclear, when the discussion initially started on D.O.G.E  the national debt was mentioned as 45 trillion USD but after a couple of days during senate discussion the debt came down to 36 trillion USD. It seems magical by pure discussion US has managed to reduce its debt by 9 trillion USD, retrospectively).

Hypothetical explanation for the course of events could be:

a) Elon Musk and team were given access to huge raw data of US program in US and outside, with clear directive to make diversity, equity and inclusivity irrelevant in these programs. It was an evaluation with finding already provided for action.

It is natural to use goal as key words and prompt to identify all programs that contain the same, and thereby set them to be terminated. This biased approach has nothing to do with evaluation or National debt but everything to do with assumption positive discrimination towards select tech elite is the way forward.

b) After identification moving forward without subject matter expertise is not possible, so disruption through firing can be seen as a way to identity problems and critical issues in certain instances. For example air traffic accident can become live events to explore for prompts even video itself could become prompts.

Thus disruptions and accidents throw up rich data for AI tools to be used. This indicates the desired goal is to shift towards controlled AI based governance and not national debt reduction. This also explains strong measures against migrants even when they are part of informal work force especially in food and agricultural industry.

Recently US President indicated that every document related to administrative changes, presumably with regard to D.O.G.E will be kept away from public scrutiny through Presidential Records Act.

 But then Presidential Records Act only covers official records and not informal ones be it through Elon Musk or D.O.G.E. If the President wants to make them official to cover them under Presidential Records Act, then the President has to ensure:

a) there exists standards to govern the establishment, operations, administration and duration for functioning

b) the entity should be advisory alone, with all matters considered in accordance with law...

c) Congress and public should be kept informed with regard to purpose, number of members, the members activities and cost of advisory committee...

d) no advisory committee will meet or take action until an charter regarding the committee has been filed, the charter will contain details of persons involved; committee's objectives and scope; details as to the agency or official they would report to; description of duties for which committee is responsible, if such activities are not solely advisory, then specification of the authority for such functions...

In the absence of all these measures, the bare minimum, how can Presidential Records Act cover all these?

Mr. President  evidently there is a need to set your house in order before invading your neighbour Canada or Greenland  or taking over Gaza to set up a personal Riviera.

Molly Charles