WIRED News Update: DOGE’s Many Conflicts of Interest & Elon’s Weekend Email Chaos
Uncanny Valley | WIRED
WIRED
4.1 • 575 Ratings
🗓️ 26 February 2025
⏱️ 24 minutes
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Summary
WIRED’s Deputy Editor Brian Barrett joins Global Editorial Director Katie Drummond to talk about the many conflicts of interests within DOGE which are popping up across the federal government, including most recently at the Department of Housing and Urban Development. Plus, they unpack the chaos which followed an email that Elon Musk sent to federal workers over the weekend.
Articles mentioned in this episode: DOGE Staffers at HUD Are From an AI Real Estate Firm and a Mobile Home Operator, These Are the SpaceX Engineers Already Working Inside the FAA, DOGE Put Him in the Treasury Department. His Company Has Federal Contracts Worth Millions, Elon Musk Threatens FBI Agents and Air Traffic Controllers With Forced Resignation if They Don't Respond to an Email, DOGE Email Throws Federal Agencies Into Chaos and Confusion, No, 150-Year-Olds Aren’t Collecting Social Security Benefits, The Delirious, Violent, Impossible True Story of the Zizians
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Welcome to Wired's Uncanny Valley. |
| 0:03.7 | I'm Wired's global editorial director, Katie Drummond. |
| 0:06.6 | Today on the show, the many conflicts of interest at the heart of Doge, and the email Elon Musk sent to federal workers over the weekend. |
| 0:15.4 | I'm joined today by Wired's executive editor Brian Barrett. |
| 0:18.0 | Brian, welcome to Uncanny Valley. |
| 0:20.1 | Hey, Katie. Thanks so much. All right. So, Brian, let to Uncanny Valley. Hey, Katie, thanks so much. |
| 0:21.8 | All right. So, Brian, let's get right into it. Over the last several weeks, we have been |
| 0:26.4 | chronicling a number of conflicts of interest within Doge that are popping up across federal |
| 0:32.5 | agencies, across the federal government, including a story that we actually just published on wire.com |
| 0:37.4 | today, |
| 0:38.7 | one this time at the Department of Housing and Urban Development. Tell everyone a little bit about |
| 0:43.6 | this story in particular. Sure. This is a story that I think speaks to some of the bigger issues |
| 0:49.5 | around the conflict of interest that you were just talking about. What we are reporting has shown |
| 0:53.5 | is that there |
| 0:54.2 | are two people working at the Department of Housing and Urban Development that both have ties |
| 0:59.7 | to the real estate industry. One of them, in fact, is a guy named Scott Langmack. He is currently |
| 1:05.7 | also the chief operating officer of a company called Kekoon, which is spelled KUKUN. Why not? |
| 1:11.1 | Because, yeah, sure. |
| 1:12.4 | Sure. |
| 1:12.9 | And so Kekoon is a company that works to get information to homeowners and real |
| 1:17.9 | estate investors about how much return on investment they'll get if they renovate their |
| 1:22.1 | properties. |
... |
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