GoKawiil
Tech News
In an interview on the podcast The Builders with Walter Isaacson, Palantir CEO Alex Karp argued that accurately taxing the wealth of the richest Americans would require AI-driven surveillance to catalog everything they own, down to individual household items. He said this data-gathering would be the 'logical consequence' of enforcing such a tax.
Federal workforce cuts have removed roughly 2,400 jobs at the CDC, including 18% of its overall staff and 27% of the 1,700-person Center on HIV and STD Prevention. The National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health was eliminated outright, cutting 1,600 positions, while the Administration for Children & Families lost about 700 jobs, including roughly half its Office of Child Care staff and 40-50% of Head Start regional offices, with five regional offices closed entirely.
Elon Musk contributed at least $474 million toward the 2026 midterm elections, according to The New York Times. Despite that spending, Democrats are now projected to win 259 House seats and at least 54 Senate seats, giving them a new congressional majority.
OpenAI has brought on security personnel with prior experience at the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), including individuals previously involved in breaching Anthropic's systems, to bolster its security operations. The company also announced it is raising rewards for critical vulnerability findings reported through its bug bounty program to more than four times their previous level.
Cybersecurity startup Cathedral, founded by former DOGE members, says its AI agents exploited vulnerabilities in third-party business software to access Anthropic's meeting transcripts, salary data, job offers and Slack messages within about 12 hours. Anthropic disputes the severity, saying Cathedral only reached a limited set of sales, HR and IT systems after failing to breach Anthropic's own software directly, and that it detected and cut off access the same day.
Cathedral, a cybersecurity startup founded by former Department of Government Efficiency staffers with ties to Trump, says it gained access to Anthropic's internal data and Slack messages. The firm claims it exploited vulnerabilities in third-party business software used by Anthropic, and says the intrusion took less than 12 hours.
Jeremy Lewin, a 28-year-old DOGE affiliate, was handed authority over USAID by Secretary of State Marco Rubio on March 18, 2025, despite having no background in government or foreign aid. Internal emails reviewed by WIRED show that for weeks afterward, USAID staff had no documentation of his employment, and security couldn't issue him an ID because no records existed. During this period he nonetheless canceled aid programs and signed off on mass staff terminations.
ProPublica reports that the Department of Homeland Security directed the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency to acquire a voting machine and test it for security flaws, citing two anonymous former officials. The same report says CISA staff were angered by the order, and that Elon Musk's DOGE initiative had already laid off CISA employees with the technical expertise to carry it out, leaving officials to tell the White House the task was not feasible.
President Trump says he still intends to send $5,000 checks to Americans after November's midterm elections, a promise he has floated amid political pressure. Interviews with attendees at recent Trump rallies in Alaska and Texas show mixed reactions, with some supporters skeptical the payments will materialize while others expressed full confidence.
According to two former administration officials, political appointees at the Department of Homeland Security asked CISA to secretly acquire a voting machine, hack it and report findings to the White House without notifying the manufacturer. CISA staff pushed back, calling the request a departure from standard practice, and the plan was ultimately not carried out partly because staff capable of the task had been laid off under Elon Musk's DOGE initiative.
A Government Accountability Office report released in late September found that several federal agencies, including the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, did not fully cooperate with investigators examining what data and systems Elon Musk's Department of Government Efficiency accessed. The CFPB disputed the findings, calling the report biased and misleading, while Democratic lawmakers are preparing to intensify oversight efforts if they regain control of Congress.
U.S. Magistrate Judge William Fitzpatrick ruled that Elon Musk, then heading DOGE, engaged in 'state sanctioned intimidation' when he posted on X accusing former FEMA CFO Mary Comans of 'criminal action' and funneling $58 million to migrant hotels in Manhattan. The Department of Homeland Security fired Comans and three colleagues the next day, calling them 'deep state activists.' The judge's order formally clears Comans' name.