this post was submitted on 08 Apr 2025
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Trump administration officials have told some U.S. government employees that Elon Musk's DOGE team of technologists is using artificial intelligence to surveil at least one federal agency’s communications for hostility to President Donald Trump and his agenda, said two people with knowledge of the matter.

While much of Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency remains shrouded in secrecy, the surveillance would mark an extraordinary use of technology to identify expressions of perceived disloyalty in a workforce already upended by widespread firings and severe cost cutting.

The DOGE team is also using the Signal app to communicate, according to one other person with direct knowledge of the matter, potentially violating federal record-keeping rules because messages can be set to disappear after a period of time.

And they have “heavily” deployed Musk’s Grok AI chatbot – an aspiring ChatGPT rival – as part of their work slashing the federal government, said that person. Reuters could not establish exactly how Grok was being used.

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[–] [email protected] 20 points 4 days ago (1 children)

I figure they're scanning emails and teams chat messages, maybe even text messages on work phones for anti-trump sentiments. There's no expectation of privacy when using software/hardware supplied by your IT dept.

If they're scanning social media too, it would be good to know which ones to purge

[–] [email protected] 6 points 4 days ago (1 children)

Where it can get wild is if they want to get into social media likes, based on accounts with profile pics showing similar facial signatures, and time of day being duty hours. Easy termination for cause with only a few steps being you emailing a colleague a vauguely notb positive enough word about the boss.

Want to take bets if it's Dept of ED or USAID?

[–] [email protected] 1 points 4 days ago (1 children)

this is musk’s team - they are not competent enough to get to that level of surveillance (yet) not like they care about cause anyways

[–] [email protected] 1 points 4 days ago

No, they contract that to Palintir or a dozen other companies that do this.

And they absolutely do care about being able to deprive anyone "disloyal" that took the Fork of their retirement.

[–] [email protected] 19 points 4 days ago

Reuters could not establish exactly how Grok was being used.

Poorly....

[–] [email protected] 5 points 4 days ago (1 children)

ehhh, what could go wrong?! Grok and Signal will save us all. 🤮

[–] [email protected] 4 points 4 days ago (1 children)

I'm not sure why you've included Signal.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago) (2 children)

It helps to read the article.

(or at least the blurb in this post)

[–] [email protected] 8 points 4 days ago

They shouldn't be using Signal like this, but the product and company is top notch.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 4 days ago

Yes, but Signal is actually a great thing, whereas Grok is not. It's just not for classified documents or correspondence.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 4 days ago (1 children)

The moral compas of current American administration is so fucked up it almost makes Nazis look like the good guys.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 4 days ago (1 children)

not even in the same category, don't diminish what WWII was

[–] [email protected] 1 points 4 days ago

It took years from Nazi takeover in 1933 to annexation of Austria and part of Czechoslovakia in 1938 to full blown war in Europe in 1939. In first years of their rules it was all about building strong business and national pride and burning books and beating socialists and persecuting transsexuals.