[astroid]

It's probably because absolutely no one is using real sources in these articles.

I won't muddy the comments repeating myself - but I have been fascinated by how quickly people latched on to this, have been absolutely incapable of finding any first party sourcing, and asked CoPilot to analyze each of these stories (13 so far!) and every single one is 'trust me bro, I heard it in a convo'.

I really really hope this isn't true for all the same reasons as people are freaking out... but at this point it has as much merit as saying "the sky is always green, I heard a guy say it the other week who I won't name but it's true"

Ctrl-F 'astroid' or click my last post in this thread for the complete breakdown of every source referenced, and ask yourself if there is enough info to warrant entertaining this fantasy.

Honestly I am shocked at how little critical thinking is being applied here. I know this website hates these guys, but there is usually a facade of critical thinking at the least.

[stubish]

It is annoying that the more inflammatory and 'breaking news(?)' articles are what remain. All of the articles from reputable news sources citing their sources this last weekend got flagged in minutes. I think only the Wired article that outed the people involved in the federal payments system takeover managed to get unflagged (again, inflammatory).

[astroid]

Honestly the wired one should have gotten flagged too - it's as unsourced as the other 12:

"Wired: Reports that Marko Elez, a 25-year-old engineer linked to Elon Musk, has direct access to Treasury Department systems responsible for nearly all payments made by the U.S. government. The sources are unnamed, and they claim Elez has administrator-level privileges, including the ability to write code on the Payment Automation Manager and Secure Payment System."

It's an endless circle. No one is willing to stand behind the reporting, no one is willing to go on record. I almost regret wasting as much time trying to get to the bottom of the story because I feel stupid for trying to peel back on these layers and finding nothing -- like they were trying to take people on a ride and I fell for it.

I guess it could be worse though - I could have just taken them all at face value. Even the 'anonymous sources' appear to be second or third party on TOP of being anonymous.

EDIT: To clarify, if you were referring to https://www.wired.com/story/elon-musk-associate-bfs-federal-... that is the one with no real sources. If you meant another source about the audit in general I shouldn't have assumed -- it's just in the list of the 13 I have reviewed with no substance.

[stubish]

Yes, and I've generally not considered Wired a reputable news source in any case. If you are interested in names, https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2025/feb/02/elon-musk... is one article (flagged several times here) citing "Ron Wyden, a Democratic senator from Oregon and the ranking member of the Senate finance committee", and contains links to several other posts from alternative news organizations that may also be helpful.

(Politics? Interesting that The Guardian files this under Technology)

[brohee]

The fact that no one will go on the record can mean two things: that there is no story or that people are afraid bad things will happen to them if they do. "Bad things" being rather unbounded if this is effectively a coup.

So it's either lots of news outlets (journos but also fact checkers) being fooled, or that people are only willing to speak of the record because they fear for their career/freedom/life. All feds fear at the minimum for their career right now...