Trending Now
We have updated our Privacy Policy and Terms of Use for Eurasia Group and its affiliates, including GZERO Media, to clarify the types of data we collect, how we collect it, how we use data and with whom we share data. By using our website you consent to our Terms and Conditions and Privacy Policy, including the transfer of your personal data to the United States from your country of residence, and our use of cookies described in our Cookie Policy.
{{ subpage.title }}
Elon Musk speaks during the first Cabinet meeting hosted by President Donald Trump at the White House on Feb. 26, 2025.
HARD NUMBERS: Anti-Musk petition grows, Measles on the move, Trump hawks gold cards, Polls gauge president’s approval
95 and 124: Measles is on the move in Canada and the US. So far this year in Canada, there have been 97 cases of the disease, which is particularly dangerous to young children, compared to 147 cases all of last year. The latest outbreak has been traced to cases in New Brunswick last fall. Meanwhile, in West Texas, a measles outbreak has sickened at least 124 people and killed a child. California, Georgia, New Jersey, New York City, Rhode Island, and New Mexico have also seen measles cases in recent weeks. Experts say that slower uptake of measles vaccines may be contributing to the outbreaks.
5 million: Want to be a US citizen? Well, if you’ve got $5 million burning a hole in your pocket, you’re in luck! Donald Trump is now planning to sell “gold cards” for that amount, which grant foreigners the right to live and work in the US and provide them with a swift path to citizenship.
44: After about a month in office, Donald Trump’s approval rating is 44%, according to a new Reuters/Ipsos poll. His disapproval rating is at 50%. For comparison, Trump’s approval rating is about the same as it was at this point in Trump’s first term, but about 10 points lower than the analogous rating for Joe Biden.U.S. President Donald Trump hosts his first cabinet meeting with Elon Musk in attendance as he sits next to U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio, in Washington, D.C., U.S., February 26, 2025.
The rundown of Trump’s first Cabinet meeting
Donald Trump hosted the first Cabinet meeting of his second administration on Wednesday. Here’s what went down.
Ukraine. Trump said Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky was expected to sign an agreement in Washington on sharing its mineral wealth, and that it should look to Europe for security guarantees – not the US.
Elon Musk. The “special government employee” received a round of applause as Trump insisted to Cabinet members and reporters present that “everybody’s on board” with Musk’s efforts to shrink the size of the federal government to lower the country’s deficit. While he sat off to the side of the room, Musk’s presence was a show of unity after his email requesting federal employees send the Department of Government Efficiency a list of “five things” they did last week – and threatening them with job loss for noncompliance – spread confusion throughout Washington this week and led to pushback from some government departments.
Musk and Trump reinforced the email, saying it was intended to see “if you have a pulse and two neurons and you can reply to an email,” and said they were convinced some of the federal employees had not replied because they were dead but still being paid.
Golden ticket for citizenship. Trump outlined his plan to sell $5 million “gold cards” to wealthy foreigners seeking US citizenship. He presented this initiative as a significant measure to address the federal deficit, saying “people that can pay $5 million, they’re going to create jobs.”
Demonstrators protest against U.S. President Donald Trump and Elon Musk outside the U.S. Capitol as Republicans prepare to vote on Trump's tax-cut agenda, in Washington, D.C., U.S., February 25, 2025.
Trump administration faces internal tensions over DOGE demands
What was that ultimatum? Over the weekend, federal employees were sent an email by DOGE requiring them to list five things they accomplished last week – failure to respond, it said, would signal they had resigned – which was met with opposition from agency heads who told their employees to ignore the email, primarily from national security agencies fearing intelligence leaks.
Several key federal departments are pushing back against demands from the Department of Government Efficiency, saying that employees do not have to respond since they do not answer to DOGE, marking the first significant resistance from MAGA-aligned forces within the Trump administration.
The resistance – including the Departments of Defense and Homeland Security, as well as the Federal Bureau of Investigation – is noteworthy because these agencies are currently led by loyal MAGA appointees who have generally supported the administration’s efficiency initiatives. It suggests that national security could be a boundary for DOGE, and one where Trump appointees aren’t afraid to break from the president’s favorite billionaire.
Ultimately, the Office of Personnel Management – which is responsible for firing and hiring employees and has been working closely with DOGE – told workers that responding to the email was voluntary. However, Musk’s post seemed to contradict this directive.
DOGE’s public approval ratings currently rest at just 34%, according to a recent Washington Post-Ipsos poll. But the only factor that is likely to curtail DOGE is Donald Trump, who thus far has shown no indication of withdrawing support for the department's efforts.Elon Musk speaks next to U.S. President Donald Trump (not pictured) in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington, D.C., U.S., February 11, 2025.
Trump, Musk sow election interference controversy in India - and Europe
The fallout: India’s governing Bharatiya Janata Party, or BJP,accused Congress Party Leader Rahul Gandhi last Thursday of having solicited foreign interference at a speaking engagement in England in 2024, before that year’s Indian elections. Congress denied the allegations and asked the government foran investigation of Trump’s claim.
The findings. On Monday, the Indian Finance Ministry reported that in 2024,USAID gave $750 million to seven projects related to agriculture, renewable energy, and health care, none of which was related to elections. Indian mediaalso reported that the funding was designated for Bangladesh, not India, to support youth civic engagement initiatives there before that country’s January 2024 elections – and that $13.4 million was utilized. Congress General Secretary in-Charge Jairam Rameshthen accused the BJP of spreading “fake news” about Gandhi and called the party “a procession of liars and illiterates.”
More than just India? While Russia has long been the focus of foreign interference allegations, the United States’ role in foreign elections is under the microscope as well. Musk stands accused ofelection interference in Romania and also was fiercely criticized for his interventions in the German election campaign by new Chancellor Friedrich Merz, who compared them to interference from Russia. “The interventions from Washington were no less dramatic and drastic and ultimately outrageous than the interventions we have seen from Moscow,” Merz said. “We are under so much pressure from two sides that my absolute priority now really is to create unity in Europe.”Elon Musk holds a chainsaw onstage as he attends the Conservative Political Action Conference in National Harbor, Maryland, on Feb. 20, 2025. The idea is that he's taking a chainsaw to the federal bureaucracy.
Musk seeks productivity lists amid federal crackdown as discontent emerges
Mimicking a tactic he used to slash the size of Twitter’s workforce, White House senior adviser Elon Musk on Saturday instructed all 2.3 million federal employees to list five things they “accomplished last week.” The deadline to respond is Monday by 11:59 p.m.
“Failure to respond will be taken as a resignation,” Musk wrote on social media.
This move is the latest effort from the Trump administration to remove government employees en masse. The White House offered buyouts to workers who chose to quit — roughly 65,000 reportedly accepted — and effectively mothballed the US Agency for International Development. The Pentagon started its own purge on Friday by ousting Gen. Charles Q. Brown, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, as well as Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Lisa Franchetti, and Air Force Vice Chief James C. Slife.
Several agencies, including the Department of Defense and the Federal Bureau of Investigation, told their employees on Sunday to hold off on responding to Musk’s email, in part over concerns about sharing classified information. The US Department of State informed its workers that it would respond to Musk’s email on their behalf. Others, like the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security, ordered their staff to reply.
Meanwhile, a backlash appears to be brewing in conservative parts of the country against Musk and US President Donald Trump over their planned government cuts. A group of voters in Georgia jeered their Republican congressman at a town hall on Thursday for backing the administration proposals. A Wisconsin lawmaker faced similar heckling on Friday in his rural conservative district. One Ohio Republican, who also represents a right-leaning area, tacitly rebuked Musk by reiterating that it was Congress who controls the purse, not him.
“What is bothering people is the sense that Donald Trump really does believe he’s king or ought to be,” Larry Sabato, a politics professor at the University of Virginia, told GZERO. “People who don’t take seriously his discussion about running for a third term are dead wrong.”
Tesla CEO Elon Musk, right, sits beside then-Senior Counselor to the President Steve Bannon, left, as President Donald Trump hosts a strategy and policy forum with chief executives of major US companies at the White House in February 2017.
Daggers out for Elon Musk
What does former senior Donald Trump adviser Steve Bannon think of current Trump senior adviser Elon Musk? He’s shared plenty of public insults. “Musk is a parasitic illegal immigrant,” Bannon recently told a reporter. “He wants to impose his freak experiments and play-act as God without any respect for the country’s history, values, or traditions.” He dismissed Musk’s cost-cutting projects in government as “performative.”
This latest Bannon salvo at Musk reflects the sharpening of already rough-edged rivalries within Trump’s circle between hard-core populists (like Bannon) and hyper-libertarians (like Musk). For his part, Musk has mostly ignored Bannon’s attacks. In a recent tweet, Musk dismissed Bannon as “a great talker. Not a great doer.”
That may be in part because Musk knows Bannon and others have little real leverage to use against him. In past administrations, members of the president’s party in Congress or major party donors could use their influence with the chief executive to sideline an unpopular aide. But Musk’s money gives him a potent weapon to use against lawmakers fearful of well-funded election challengers, and no donor has ever offered a candidate more than Musk gave Trump in 2024. Former Trump Communications Chief Anthony Scaramucci predicts that though the president won’t “jettison” Musk, his influence on Trump is “not sustainable.” We’ll see.
The sniping will continue as Musk racks up both successes and failures in the coming weeks. But the only person who can undermine Musk is President Trump, who has given no indication of dissatisfaction.
Elon Musk’s government takeover is powered by AI
Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency, aka DOGE, has sought massive cuts to the federal workforce, in particular targeting USAID, the Department of Education, and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, among other agencies.
But Musk isn’t just seizing control of the executive branch; he’s using artificial intelligence as his weapon of choice.
At the Education Department, DOGE representatives have reportedly fed sensitive data, including personally identifiable student loan information, into AI software through Microsoft’s Azure cloud service. A group of students from the University of California sued DOGE in federal court on Friday for allegedly violating federal privacy rules and exceeding their statutory authority. Additionally, congressional Democrats have demanded answers about allegations of a private server used at the Office of Personnel Management; federal workers have sued to stop this, while OPM officials deny it violates the law. And a federal judge on Saturday temporarily halted DOGE access to taxpayer information at the Treasury Department because, the judge wrote, it risks disclosure of “sensitive and confidential information and the heightened risk that the systems in question will be more vulnerable than before to hacking.”
At the General Services Administration, a former Tesla engineer is pushing an “AI-first strategy” that involves building a custom chatbot called GSAi to help draft memos faster and adopting an AI coding agent such as the popular assistant Cursor to assist with software development.
Privacy and security advocates warn that the integration of AI software into the federal government could create significant risks — especially if not done carefully. “Using AI to cut spending or reform government operations is dangerous,” said Kit Walsh, the Electronic Frontier Foundation’s AI director. “AI isn’t magic; it is generated using data collected by humans and often categorized by humans. Then it provides a way to quickly (and often sloppily) try to reproduce the patterns and categories that have been given to it.”
Calli Schroeder, senior counsel at the Electronic Privacy Information Center, said there’s also the risk that AI gobbles up sensitive data and helps train its model on it. “Many AI systems use input data to expand their training datasets in addition to using it to generate a prompt response,” she said. “This not only means security risk if the raw training data is exposed, but also puts the data at risk for further misuse.”
Schroeder noted that these revelations raised fundamental questions about government security protocols if DOGE is indeed using unsecured systems. “Any halfway responsible business or organization has many security procedures and policies about what products you can and cannot connect with company devices,” she said. “It appears that our government either does not meet this incredibly basic level of responsibility and good practice, or no one is enforcing existing policies or procedures.”
The Education Department claims that there’s nothing to worry about with regard to DOGE staff overhauling the department’s systems. “They have been sworn in, have the necessary background checks and clearances, and are focused on making the Department more cost-efficient, effective, and accountable to the taxpayers,” a spokesperson said in a statement to the press. “There is nothing inappropriate or nefarious going on.”
But a lack of transparency has pervaded the entire Musk takeover without comprehensive congressional oversight and with DOGE staffers at times refusing to even give their names while interrogating civil servants. It’s wholly unclear what’s going on mere weeks into the administration with major changes at multiple government departments and agencies — all seemingly with an element of AI. “We deserve lawful, transparent, and accountable decisions in government operations,” Walsh said. “It’s difficult to imagine that the technology at work here is fit for the purpose of making spending and personnel decisions — and Americans deserve better than to have to guess at how those decisions are being made.”Elon Musk wants to buy OpenAI
Elon Musk is leading a contingent of investors seeking to buy OpenAI, the developer of ChatGPT.
The group, which also includes the firms Valor Equity Partners, Baron Capital, Atreides Management, Vy Capital, and 8VC, reportedly offered $97.4 billion to buy OpenAI. The plan: To buy the biggest name in AI and merge it with Musk’s own AI firm, xAI, which makes the chatbot Grok.
This bid comes as Musk is taking a prominent role in the Trump administration and could help dictate the direction of AI investment in the country. Sam Altman has also sought to get into Trump’s good graces, despite being a longtime Democratic donor, standing by Trump last month to announce Stargate, a $500 billion AI infrastructure project.
Altman is also attempting to convert the nonprofit OpenAI to a for-profit company. In doing so, OpenAI is expected to soon close a historic funding round led by the Japanese investment house SoftBank, which could value OpenAI around $300 billion. Not only would that make OpenAI the most valuable privately held company in the world, but it’d also make Musk and Co.’s offer a serious lowball. However, Musk’s offer could complicate OpenAI’s attempts to establish a fair value for an untraditionally structured corporate entity.
Altman responded to the offer on X, which Musk owns. “No thank you but we will buy twitter for $9.74 billion if you want,” he said. In response, Musk called Altman “Scam Altman” and has previously claimed the company does not have the investment it’s claiming for Stargate, a rare point of tension between Musk and Trump, who heralded the deal.
Silicon Valley is taking center stage in the Trump administration, but two of the loudest voices in Trump’s ear — at least on AI — are in an increasingly hostile spat.