That is the sad and sorry state of things as the bromance between Elon Musk and Donald Trump comes to its predictable conclusion, an “unscheduled rapid disassembly,” I believe is the technical term for when a device (or a relationship) that was shoddy and badly designed to begin with comes to its inevitable resolution. We knew it wouldn’t last forever, but I’ll confess, I didn’t think it would blow up so soon. That said, they had a transactional relationship and usually in a situation like that, once the expected payoffs slow down or stop coming altogether, things get ugly and quick.
The fact of the matter is that Trump holds the keys to literal armageddon, whereas Musk holds the keys to putting Americans’ lives into smoking ruins on a different, but no less real, level. Trump enabled Musk to get this kind of power. You will want to check out Olivia Troye’s essay on this subject:
If you’ve been reading my work, you know I’ve been raising alarms about the national security implications of this administration’s overreach for months, starting with what looked like a politically motivated purge at the NSA. That was the first clue. Now, we’re seeing the broader plan come into focus: a vast federal database powered by Palantir, bringing together the private records of millions of Americans.
Yes, Palantir, the company founded by Peter Thiel, a major Trump donor and MAGA megaphone. The same Palantir that’s been embedded within our intelligence community for years, developing tools to track terrorists and build connections across massive datasets for counterterrorism efforts. Tools that, when used with oversight and restraint, helped save lives. I know because I’m familiar with them, given I spent most of my career in national security. But those same tools, in the wrong hands, can become the backbone of a mass surveillance regime. And that should make all of us, regardless of our political affiliation, uncomfortable.
Palantir didn’t just appear out of nowhere. It has spent nearly two decades embedding itself within the U.S. government, from the Pentagon to the CIA, from the IRS to ICE, which recently awarded the company with a $30 million contract to target and also track the self-deporting of illegal aliens (the company has been on the books for ICE since 2009). Are they tracking all the U.S. Citizens and people legally residing in the United States, too, that ICE is “mistakenly” picking up during their raids? Perhaps Palantir could provide a better data system so the Trump Administration doesn’t lose track of the children being separated from their parents this time around…but I digress. Palantir has been a partner in navigating the post-9/11 security state and, over time, evolved into the go-to contractor for everything from border enforcement to COVID-19 vaccine distribution to battlefield intelligence, securing over $2.7 billion in U.S. government contracts since 2009.
It’s one thing to want to help the government fix its legion of data challenges. It’s another thing entirely to build a Stephen Miller domestic surveillance state.
Throughout the past week, reporting has surfaced that the Trump Administration has tapped Palantir to build what basically amounts to a national surveillance platform, one that likely links together Americans’ health data, financial transactions, education records, immigration history, and law enforcement files across agencies, into one master system. This is not speculation. This is happening right now under the direction of an administration that is openly working on punishing political enemies, attempting to control dissent, and bypassing legal checks.
Let me put this in plain terms: This is how authoritarian regimes take root–not overnight, but bit by bit under the guise of “efficiency,” “safety,” or “patriotism.” They collect the data, connect the dots, and then target the people.
And here’s the twist that should stop everyone in their tracks: Even Trump’s own base is sounding the alarm. MAGA influencers and far-right allies are now openly asking if Trump has turned on them. Longtime loyalists described the Palantir national citizen database plan as Orwellian, questioning why this administration, their administration, is building a database that could be used to track Americans like political enemies.
Nick Fuentes, a far-right Trump-supporting white nationalist, called the association between the Trump administration and Palantir “the ultimate betrayal of his own people” and then went on to called them the “deep state.”
So, if you’re a Democrat, Independent, or Republican, understand this: authoritarian surveillance doesn’t play favorites. Once a system like this is in place, everyone becomes a potential target.
If you’re reading this and thinking it sounds like a conspiracy theory, I get it. I can’t believe I’m writing these words either. But as someone who spent years inside the national security world and worked side by side with the agencies now being hollowed out or co-opted, I’ve seen firsthand how powerful these tools can be and how dangerous they become when political operatives are calling the shots.
The thing that is frightening, nay terrifying, is that we warned everybody about this during the election. But, Fox News is not worried about this and the mainstream media is too fearful to put the cards on the table like this, so unless you read left-leaning blogs, this is new information. That is a minority of the electorate that we’re talking about. So to the yous and mes this comes as no surprise. We share the same information silo and we pay attention. But to John Q. Public, this will be an overnight shock. And it could happen overnight. The groundwork has been laid and the infrastructure is already there.
It may be as black and white as being on a loyalty list or the blacklist. We’re talking about McCarthyism on steroids with 2025 technology assuring a dystopian takeover. The government is constructing a tool that knows as much about you as you know about you, your location (tracked by your phone) and where you live, your health status, education, where you shop, where you pump gas, and last but not least, your political opinions. As Olivia Troye points out, “It’s being built by a private company with political ties and zero public accountability.”
The time to start screaming bloody murder is yesterday. We are all at risk here. Musk is in fact more dangerous than Trump and Trump’s the guy holding the nuclear codes. Think about that.
Hmm. So, Fuentes is concerned about Mossad? I’d say that should be enough for Fuentes to be subjected to the same treatment as pro-Palestinian demonstrators and supporters even though Fuentes is a right-wing hack.
Why do I get the feeling he won’t be, though? Oh, yeah. That “right-wing hack” bit makes it fine and dandy for HIM to be an “anti-Semite.” But you can damned be sure if AOC made a “CIA/Mossad” comment, she’d be targeted by the usual AIPAC crew.
That’s why we need to go after Thiel and Planatir
Well, Musk has Trump’s data too, I think. On the other hand, when they say Trump will go nuclear on Musk, I don’t think they meant it THAT way. Oh wait … you mean which one should WE root for? Well, as for me, I’m just rooting for them to destroy each other.
I believe this situation has long been described as being caught between the devil and the deep blue sea. I hope the gulag I’m ‘relocated’ to has nice weather…
That we’re as old as we are and having this conversation says it all.
You said it.
The UK’s National Health Service have been intermittently trying to get all our patient records & medical history onto Palantir for several years 😱
https://medconfidential.org/news/