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The Socialist Program with Brian Becker

Unelected Billionaire Elon Musk Takes Even More Power in Treasury Grab

The Socialist Program with Brian Becker

The Socialist Program

Politics, News

4.7587 Ratings

🗓️ 5 February 2025

⏱️ 37 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

On today's episode Nicole Roussell and Prof. Richard Wolff discuss Elon Musk's promises to cancel contracts, grants, and myriad payments from the U.S. Treasury Department. U.S. capitalism has already allowed Musk to control hundreds of billions of dollars and therefore control lots of our society's production—this is the billionaire agenda, which gives him even more control of our resources and U.S. residents even less.


Professor Richard Wolff is an author & co-founder of the organization Democracy at Work. You can find his work at rdwolff.com.


Please make an urgently-needed contribution to The Socialist Program by joining our Patreon community at patreon.com/thesocialistprogram. We rely on the generous support of our listeners to keep bringing you consistent, high-quality shows. All Patreon donors of $5 a month or more are invited to join the monthly Q&A seminar with Brian.

Transcript

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0:00.0

Elon Musk now has access to the payment system for the entire U.S. Treasury Department and wants

0:06.1

to cancel contracts. In other words, one unelected billionaire without oversight or approval wants

0:11.9

to unilaterally cancel payments without due process or review.

0:16.5

We need a new system. We need a new society. We need to demand that which may have sounded impossible even a few weeks ago, but is not only realizable, but an imperative necessity. We're very excited to have Professor Richard Wolfe join us for our regular weekly segment

0:55.3

where we discuss the biggest stories relating to the economy, the state of the working class,

0:59.2

and the crimes of big business.

1:01.2

I'm Nicole Roussel, sitting in for your host, Brian Becker.

1:04.1

The Socialist Program brings you content several days a week thanks to the support of our patrons

1:08.2

at patreon.com slash the Socialist Program.

1:11.3

We appreciate all of your support and encourage you to become a patron today if you enjoy listening to this show.

1:17.7

Richard Wolfe is the co-founder of the organization Democracy at Work and the author of many books,

1:22.2

including understanding capitalism, which is available at democracy at work.info.

1:27.7

Richard, as I said in the introduction, I mean, essentially Elon Musk, as I think people have

1:32.4

probably seen, now has access to the entire payment system for the U.S. Treasury.

1:36.2

I want to read a couple of paragraphs from a Washington Post article about this.

1:41.2

Officials affiliated with Musk's Department of Governmental Efficiency

1:44.3

have been asking since after the election for access to the system

1:47.4

requests that were reiterated more recently, including after Trump's inauguration.

1:51.7

Tom Krause, a Silicon Valley executive, who has now been detailed to the Treasury,

1:56.0

is among those involved, but did not respond to request for comment.

1:59.8

Typically, only a small number of career

2:02.2

officials, so not political officials who are appointed, these are people who have been working

...

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