Elon Musk, known for leading technology companies like Tesla and SpaceX, has been appointed by the Trump administration to reduce federal spending through the Department of Government Efficiency. Musk’s allies within government agencies are working to implement artificial intelligence to identify budget cuts and detect waste and abuse. Thomas Shedd, a former Tesla engineer now heading technology efforts at the General Services Administration, has emphasized the importance of A.I. to reduce costs and has tasked agency staff with cutting 50 percent of its budget. A.I. will be used to pool government contracts, detect redundancies, and assess for potential budget reductions. Mr. Musk and his allies have expressed confidence in A.I.’s ability to identify overspending and fraud within the government. President Trump has praised Musk’s ability to shrink government, with Musk warning of A.I.’s destructive potential if not controlled. Mr. Musk has also been involved in legal battles with competitors like OpenAI over breaches of contract and copyright infringement.
The Trump administration has shown a strong interest in increasing federal spending on A.I. technologies. David Sacks, a venture capitalist and ally of Musk, has been appointed the White House A.I. and Crypto Czar. The administration has announced a $100 billion A.I. initiative with OpenAI, Oracle, and SoftBank to develop computing infrastructure for artificial intelligence. Mr. Musk claims that addressing waste, fraud, and abuse within the government could save trillions of dollars, despite lacking detail on how these numbers were calculated.
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