It’s a Coup, But It’s Not Just Musk’s Coup

This piece at The Verge from Elizabeth Lopatto is a great recap of Elon Musk’s coordinated attack on the infrastructure of the US federal government. I particularly appreciate the dozens of links throughout the piece that provide context for the text, a demonstration of the powerful utility of hypertext.

But I do have a criticism and I think it’s an important one: this is not solely Elon Musk’s coup. Here’s the lede:

Almost 250 years after the Declaration of Independence, America has gotten herself a new king. His name is Elon Musk.

“Wait a minute,” you may be saying. “What about President Donald Trump?” Trump ran, much like Silvio Berlusconi before him, primarily to avoid prosecutions. He has never liked being president and he has already gotten what he wants. He’s not the power center. Musk is.

Consequently I will not be bothering with whatever statements Katie Miller of DOGE and White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt are putting out. We all have eyes; we can see what is going on. Musk has taken over the civilian government. This is a billionaire pulling a heist on the entire nation.

The Verge is not alone in asserting this — Carole Cadwalladr’s latest piece is almost entirely about Musk’s actions. While I agree that Musk is the sharp end of the spear and what he’s doing (and has already done) is of unprecedentedly massive concern, this single villain view of the coup is incomplete, for two main reasons:

1. The executive branch is fully participating in the coup. Musk is acting on behalf of Trump and with his public approval. This cover matters, even if Trump isn’t actively directing what Musk is doing (he surely isn’t), even if Trump doesn’t actually know what exactly Musk is up to and why (he probably doesn’t), and whether Musk’s and Trump’s agendas overlap (only partially).

   Additionally, through his executive orders, Trump is also attempting to seize governmental power that doesn’t reside in the office of the president. The data & systems that Musk now has access to will be useful to Trump in executing these power seizures. The chaos Musk is creating will also be useful in distracting from Trump’s own authoritarian objectives.

2. In standing by and allowing Trump & Musk to seize power that is not constitutionally theirs, the Republican-controlled Congress is fully participating in the coup. Most of the power being grabbed here is that of Congress…and they are just letting it happen.

Let me put it this way: let’s say this afternoon Elon Musk is somehow stopped, fired, thrown out of the country, divested of all his companies. The coup would continue. Perhaps not as vigorously as before, but it would continue because the executive branch and Congress are fully on board. It’s important that we don’t lose sight of this larger picture.

• 2025 Coup
• Carole Cadwalladr
• Donald Trump
• Elizabeth Lopatto
• Elon Musk
• politics
• USA

Social Media Sites Are Metaphorical Aquariums

I loved reading Elizabeth Lopatto’s stab at a “unified taxonomy of text-based social media”.

The successful social media network is an aquarium. The influencers and posters are the denizens — jellyfish, filter feeders, sharks, octopuses, rays, squid, clownfish, and so on. The lurkers are the visitors, marveling at the shape and color of the aquarium’s denizens.

Lopatto was spurred to post because she feels that Threads is too much gift shop:

Threads is also unbalanced as an ecosystem, skewed toward Brands, a particularly noxious infraclass of influencer that is nonetheless profitable for the network. But for Threads to be valuable to Brands — more valuable than, say, TikTok — there needs to be a strong base of lurkers. Most lurkers will tolerate Brands, but Brands themselves aren’t a draw. They’re just the gift shop at the aquarium.

• Elizabeth Lopatto
• Threads
• Twitter

Impossible Foods Announces Their New Impossible Pork Product

Impossible Foods is expanding from faux beef to faux pork. Impossible Pork is their newest product made entirely from plants that is engineered to look and taste as close to the real thing as possible.

From the press release:

Impossible Pork is delicious in any ground meat dish, including spring rolls, stuffed vegetables, dumplings, wontons or sausage links. Like ground meat from pigs, Impossible Pork is characterized by its mild savory flavor, adding delicate depth and umami richness without being gamey or overpowering.

Although they don’t specifically connect the dots, Impossible Pork seems to be the base for another new product of theirs: Impossible Sausage, which is debuting in breakfast sandwiches at Burger King later this month. (I mean, you can’t make sausage without pork, right?!)

In a review of Impossible Pork for The Verge, long-time vegetarian Elizabeth Lopatto says it’s mostly a success, calling it “a savory base of protein for a lot of foods that traditionally call for pork”.

• Elizabeth Lopatto
• food
• Impossible Foods
• video