People gather for a "Save the Civil Service" rally hosted by the American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE) on Feb. 11, the day President Donald Trump signed an executive order calling on DOGE to cut federal jobs. The Supreme Court said Tuesday those cuts could proceed, for now. (Photo by Kent Nishimura/Getty Images)

The U.S. Supreme Court late Tuesday lifted lower court injunctions that had blocked attempts by  President Donald Trump and his DOGE Service to restructure the federal government.

Labor unions, advocates and local governments that sued to block the cuts said the president exceeded his authority with the executive order by moving to dismantle the federal government without congressional approval.

A U.S. District Court judge in Northern California agreed and issued preliminary injunction to stall the executive order while the case was heard. A divided 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld that decision.

But the White House pressed an emergency appeal to the Supreme Court, arguing that Trump’s executive order did not restructure the government but merely called for reductions in force, which it said is within the president’s power.

The Supreme Court agreed in a one-page order Tuesday, saying the government was likely to prevail on its claim and the injunction should be stayed while the case proceeded.

In a sharp, 15-page dissent, Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson said the district court judge had determined that the administration plan would not just cut jobs but would “fundamentally restructure” the federal government. He made a “reasoned determination” that the order should be stayed while the case was heard, she wrote.

“But that temporary, practical, harm-reducing preservation of the status quo was no match for this Court’s demonstrated enthusiasm for greenlighting this President’s legally dubious actions in an emergency posture,” she wrote.

“At bottom, this case is about whether that action amounts to a structural overhaul that usurps Congress’s policymaking prerogatives — and it is hard to imagine deciding that question in any meaningful way after those changes have happened,” she wrote. “Yet, for some reason, this Court sees fit to step in now and release the President’s wrecking ball at the outset of this litigation.”

Justice Sonia Sotomayor, in a brief concurrence, said she agreed with Jackson that the president does not have the authority to remake government without congressional approval. But she said the executive order and an implementing memo from the Office of Management and the Office of Personnel Management call for the changes to be “consistent with applicable law,” and it’s for lower courts to determine if they are.

A White House spokesperson called the decision a “another definitive victory” for the Trump administration.

“It clearly rebukes the continued assaults on the President’s constitutionally authorized executive powers by leftist judges who are trying to prevent the President from achieving government efficiency across the federal government,” the spokesperson, Harrison Fields, said in a written statement.

But labor unions, advocates and political leaders say that the decision undermines the value of federal employees, threatens the operation of federal services, and could even endanger American citizens.

In a statement Tuesday evening, the American Federation of Government Employees, along with the rest of the coalition of unions, nonprofits and municipalities bringing the suit against the administration, decried the Supreme Court’s decision as a “serious blow to our democracy.”

The coalition said the decision put “services that the American people rely on in grave jeopardy.”

“This decision does not change the simple and clear fact that reorganizing government functions and laying off federal workers en masse haphazardly without any congressional approval is not allowed by our Constitution,” the statement read. “While we are disappointed in this decision, we will continue to fight on behalf of the communities we represent and argue this case to protect critical public services that we rely on to stay safe and healthy.”

Maryland Gov. Wes Moore (D) said that as a state with a high concentration of federal workers, “any action against our federal employees is a direct strike against Maryland’s people and economy.”

“Today’s Supreme Court ruling on AFGE v. Trump will embolden President Trump in his mission to dismantle the federal government and threatens to upend the lives of countless public servants who wake up every day to deliver essential services and benefits that people rely on,” Moore said in a written statement. He noted that thousands of Maryland residents have already been laid off from federal agencies under the Trump administration.

In a post to X on Tuesday evening, U.S. Rep. Steny Hoyer (D-5th) wrote that Trump and OMB Director Russell Vought are continuing to “vilify and traumatize the patriots serving our nation, unconstitutionally reorganizing the federal government.”

“The Supreme Court’s decision today demonstrates that federal employees, their families and livelihoods, and the vital services they provide to the American people are of no concern to the Trump Administration,” Hoyer wrote. “I stand with our federal employees against these attacks.”

U.S. Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-8th) said in an X post that the ruling “will give Trump’s wrecking crew more awful ideas about sacking critical federal workers,” referencing layoffs at the National Weather Service and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration who help notify state and local agencies about impending dangerous weather.

U.S. Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.) added that layoffs could also put Americans at risk by “decimating essential public services” like food inspections and Social Security.

“As Justice Jackson put it in her dissent, ‘this was the wrong decision at the wrong moment, given what little this Court knows about what is actually happening on the ground,’” Van Hollen said in a statment. “She is right. The Court’s decision to allow this damage to be done before ruling on the merits shows how detached they are from the reality of the moment.”

Van Hollen said the administration’s plan “isn’t about efficiency, it’s about rigging the government to only benefit the wealthy and powerful special interests.”

“We are not done fighting in Congress, in the courts, and in our communities to defend the dedicated public servants who go to work on behalf of the American people day in and day out,” he said.

The Feb. 11 executive order directed federal agencies to prepeare for “large-scale reductions in force” and to work with members of the Department of Government Efficiency — the DOGE Service that was run at the time by billionaire Elon Musk — to develop a plan to reduce the size of the workforce. Military personnel were exempted, but virtually every other federal agency was affected.

The order was quickly challenged in court by labor unions, taxpayer and good government groups and by a hafl-dozen local governments: Harris County, Texas, Martin Luther King Jr. County, Washington, and San Francisco City and County, California; and the cities of Chicago, Baltimore, and Santa Rosa, California.

They argued that the goals of the executive order far exceeded the president’s authority to reduce the size of agencies. Under the DOGE plan, they argued to the Supreme Court, “functions across the federal government will be abolished, agencies will be radically downsized from what Congress authorized, critical government services will be lost, and hundreds of thousands of federal employees will lose their jobs.”

“There will be no way to unscramble that egg: If the courts ultimately deem the President to have overstepped his authority and intruded upon that of Congress, as a practical matter there will be no way to go back in time to restore those agencies, functions, and services,” their court filing said.

That was echoed by Jackson, who said the district court judge was in the best position to determine if the president’s order consisted of “minor workforce reductions” or whether it was a massive reorganization that overstepped executive authority.

“With scant justification, the majority permits the immediate and potentially devastating aggrandizement of one branch (the Executive) at the expense of another (Congress), and once again leaves the People paying the price for its reckless emergency-docket determinations,” she wrote.

Maryland Matters is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Maryland Matters maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Steve Crane for questions: editor@marylandmatters.org.

Tesla has officially entered the deep waters of robotaxi service but is doing so in its own, distinctive way. The service is very limited as of this writing; it comes with a silent Tesla employee in every front passenger seat and consists of Model Ys that were secretly modified. It’s not exactly what you might think at first, but it’s interesting nonetheless.

Elon Musk has several times mentioned that the Model Ys in Robotaxi service are the same ones that everyday folks can buy. According to a new report, that’s not exactly true, and before anyone asks, no, it doesn’t appear that the Robotaxis have a brake built into the front passenger handle. What they do have is another set of safety measures, though.

More: Tesla’s Robotaxi Was Caught Making A Turn It Immediately Regretted

According to Business Insider, Tesla has a program called Halo that modifies these cars. Every autonomous car gets self-cleaning cameras and additional protection for the cameras to keep them from getting damaged. In addition, they have not one but two telecommunications units built into the car, each providing detailed GPS data and allows Tesla’s remote operators to control the car if needed. That said, it’s worth noting that these modifications aren’t all that odd.

Tesla’s system relies so heavily on camera clarity that keeping lenses safe, clean, and in perfect working order is paramount. In addition, the standard Model Y already comes with a telecommunications unit, so in this case, Tesla is simply doubling up, likely to increase redundancy should one become non-operational.

That's a wrap! In the last 36 hours, I've taken a total of 20 @Tesla Robotaxi rides and traveled 92 miles. No interventions, no critical safety issues. All my rides were smooth and comfortable.

Thank you, Tesla, for letting me be a part of this experience—and congrats to the… pic.twitter.com/VNpSUVMuz6

— Sawyer Merritt (@SawyerMerritt) June 24, 2025

It’ll be interesting to see how the court of public opinion rules out on this one. Will it praise Musk for adding safety measures to the robotaxi program, or will it chastise him for not being 100 percent accurate when he said these cars were identical to the ones that the general public can buy?

Optics aside, does it really matter? What does is that people who take a ride in a Tesla Robotaxi can breathe a little easier knowing that the cars come with extra safety equipment built into them. And we wouldn’t be surprised if, at some point in the not-so-distant future, those features make it into Model Ys that we can actually purchase.

👀What an interesting interaction. A Waymo ended up in the wrong lane, and a Tesla Robotaxi handled it like a pro.

No headlines about this will likely be made by mainstream media, of course.pic.twitter.com/I1Qw2GsIFj

— TESLARATI (@Teslarati) June 26, 2025

While some Democratic lawmakers urged Tesla to delay the rollout of its robotaxi service in Austin, Texas, the program officially kicked off on Sunday. It’s believed that around 12 Tesla Model Y robotaxis have hit the city streets and are operating in a small, geofenced area. And while the vehicles are indeed driving themselves, the company is keeping a light foot on the accelerator when it comes to public exposure.

Read: Tesla’s Robotaxi Launch Comes With Strict Rules And A ‘Safety Monitor’

Videos from early users, mostly influencers, reveal that each Robotaxi comes with a “safety driver” seated in the passenger seat. Yes, the passenger seat. It’s not entirely clear why Tesla made that choice, except maybe to reinforce the optics of a driverless experience.

After all, someone behind the wheel would be a dead giveaway that the system still needs supervision. Putting them in the passenger seat keeps up appearance, technically driverless, but not totally.

Among the first people to use the service were vetted customers who received early-access invitations from Tesla. As reported by TechCrunch, many of these are strong supporters of the Tesla brand. Evidently, the electric car manufacturer doesn’t yet want the general public to experience the service, obviously aware that mistakes or hiccups with the service could instantly draw a lot of criticism.

A $4.20 Ride with a Side of Caution

Early rides are priced at a very on-brand $4.20 flat rate, and the service runs from 6:00 a.m. to midnight, seven days a week, unless bad weather rolls in. In that case, the robotaxis are grounded. Probably a wise move considering even humans struggle with Texas thunderstorms.

The service appears to operate in a very similar way to Waymo’s. Users need to download a specific Robotaxi app and can then order a ride. Once inside, the vehicle’s rear passenger display will display navigation details and the expected arrival time. Additionally, passengers can control the audio through the rear screen.  

For the most part, the system appears to perform quite well, navigating certain roads in South Austin with relative ease. However, one video shared to YouTube by a TechCrunch reporter shows a Model Y Robotaxi unnecessarily braking and coming to a stop twice, after passing several parked police cars at a nearby crime scene.

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Just hours after Minnesotans learned that Democratic House leader Melissa Hortman had been assassinated, right-wing influencer Collin Rugg, who has 1.8 million followers on X, posted a report that hinted that she’d been killed because of a recent vote on ending undocumented adults’ ability to enroll in MinnesotaCare, a subsidized health insurance for the working poor.

Mike Cernovich, another right-wing influencer who has 1.4 million followers on X, took Rugg’s post and amped it up, but in the “just asking questions” style of many conspiracy theories:

“Did Tim Walz have her executed to send a message?”

They were deeply ignorant about the MinnesotaCare issue.

Walz and Hortman — who was instrumental in passing legislation allowing undocumented people to sign up for MinnesotaCare as speaker of the House in 2023 — negotiated a compromise with Republicans in the Minnesota Legislature to end eligibility for adults, but keep it for children. They did so to win necessary Republican support in the 67-67 House to pass a state budget. Without it, state government would have shut down on July 1.

Both Hortman and Walz signed the compromise agreement in mid-May. This week, Hortman spoke tearfully about how difficult the vote was for her, but she was bound to vote yes on the issue because of the prior agreement.

Rugg and Cernovich’s posts were shared widely and just the start of the disinformation.

Once law enforcement sources began revealing a suspect, right-wing influencers ran with an insignificant detail: That Vance Luther Boelter was a “Walz appointee.”

Like many states, but even more so here, Minnesota is home to hundreds of nonpartisan and bipartisan boards and commissions, which are composed of thousands of people who typically win the appointment by simply volunteering. There are currently 342 open positions on Minnesota boards and commissions. Boelter was appointed to the Workforce Development Council by Walz’s predecessor Gov. Mark Dayton and reappointed by Walz.

It was the equivalent of calling a Sunday school volunteer an “appointee of the bishop.”

No matter, the Murdoch media machine, specifically the New York Post, had their headline: “Former appointee of Tim Walz sought….”

Cernovich had his greasy foil hot dog wrapper and began constructing a hat:

“The Vice President candidate for the Democrat party is directly connected to a domestic terrorist, that is confirmed, the only question is whether Tim Walz himself ordered the political hit against a rival who voted against Walz’s plan to give free healthcare to illegals.”

Walz had no such plan. He had signed an agreement to end eligibility for undocumented adults.

Joey Mannarino, who has more than 600,000 followers on X, was more crass:

“Rumor has it she was preparing to switch parties. The Democrats are VIOLENT SCUM.”

It was a ridiculous “rumor.” One of the last photos of Hortman alive was an image of her at the Democratic-Farmer-Labor’s big annual fundraising event, the Humphrey-Mondale dinner, which took place just hours before her assassination.

No matter, Cernovich wanted his new friends in federal law enforcement to act:

“The FBI must take Tim Walz into custody immediately.”

Finally, fresh off his humiliating defeat at the hands of President Donald Trump, world’s richest man Elon Musk quote-tweeted someone again falsely alleging Hortman was killed by “the left”  and added:

“The far left is murderously violent.” 

The suspect’s “hit list,” according to an official who has seen the list, comprised Minnesotans who have been outspoken in favor of abortion rights. CNN reported that it also included several abortion clinics, which doesn’t sound like the work of “the left.”

Right-wing influencers marred Hortman’s death and smeared Walz on a pile of lies.

In a different, saner world, they would be humiliated and slink away. But the smart money is that during the next moment of national crisis and mourning, they will again lie for profit.

Minnesota Reformer is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Minnesota Reformer maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor J. Patrick Coolican for questions: info@minnesotareformer.com.

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A government watchdog group in Wisconsin filed a lawsuit Wednesday seeking to prohibit billionaire Elon Musk from ever again offering cash payments to voters in the battleground state like he did in this spring’s hotly contested Supreme Court race.

Musk handed out $1 million checks to three Wisconsin voters, including two in person just days before the state’s April 1 Supreme Court election, in an effort to help elect conservative candidate Brad Schimel. Two weeks before the election, Musk’s political action committee, America PAC, offered $100 to voters who signed a petition in opposition to “activist judges,” or referred someone to sign it.

It was all part of more than $20 million that Musk and groups he supports spent on the race in an effort to flip majority control of the Wisconsin Supreme Court. More than $100 million was spent by both sides, making it the most expensive court race in U.S. history.

Musk’s preferred candidate lost to Democratic-backed Susan Crawford by 10 percentage points. Her victory cemented the 4-3 liberal majority on the Wisconsin Supreme Court until at least 2028.

Since that election, Musk announced he will spend less on political campaigns and then feuded publicly with President Donald Trump after exiting his administration.

The lawsuit filed Wednesday in state court by the Wisconsin Democracy Campaign says that Musk’s actions create “the risk that Wisconsin elections will become an open auction, where votes go to the preferred candidates of the highest bidders and the election outcome is determined by which candidate has a patron willing and able to pay the highest sum to Wisconsin voters.”

The lawsuit says that Musk and two groups he funds violated prohibitions on vote bribery and unauthorized lotteries and says his actions were an unlawful conspiracy and public nuisance. The lawsuit asks the court to order that Musk never offer similar payments to voters again.

A spokesperson for Musk’s America PAC did not immediately return a text message Wednesday seeking comment.

There is another Wisconsin Supreme Court election in April. In November 2026, control of the Legislature and the governor’s office, as well as the state’s eight congressional districts, will be decided.

The latest lawsuit was filed on behalf of the Wisconsin Democracy Campaign and a pair of voters by the liberal Wisconsin-based Law Forward and the Washington-based Democracy Defenders Fund. It was filed against Musk, his group America PAC that announced the petition and the Musk-funded group United States of America Inc. that made the payments.

The court that Crawford joins in August could ultimately hear the new lawsuit. Crawford would almost certainly be asked to recuse from the case, and if she did, the court would be left with a 3-3 split between conservative and liberal justices.

The current court, also controlled 4-3 by liberals, declined to hear a similar hastily filed lawsuit brought by Wisconsin’s Democratic attorney general seeking to block Musk’s handing out of two $1 million checks to voters two days before the election.

Two lower courts rejected that lawsuit before the Supreme Court declined to hear it on procedural grounds.

Musk’s attorneys argued in that case that Musk was exercising his free speech rights with the giveaways and any attempt to restrict that would violate both the Wisconsin and U.S. constitutions.

Musk’s political action committee used a nearly identical tactic before the presidential election last year, offering to pay $1 million a day to voters in Wisconsin and six other battleground states who signed a petition supporting the First and Second amendments. A judge in Pennsylvania said prosecutors failed to show the effort was an illegal lottery and allowed it to continue through Election Day.

A federal lawsuit filed in Pennsylvania in April alleges that Musk and his political action committee failed to pay more than $20,000 for getting people to sign that petition in 2024. America PAC on Monday filed a motion to dismiss. That case is pending.

Wisconsin Watch is a nonprofit and nonpartisan newsroom. Subscribe to our newsletters to get our investigative stories and Friday news roundup. This story is published in partnership with The Associated Press.

Wisconsin lawsuit seeks to ban Elon Musk from offering $1 million checks to voters is a post from Wisconsin Watch, a non-profit investigative news site covering Wisconsin since 2009. Please consider making a contribution to support our journalism.

Tesla CEO Elon Musk listens as President Donald Trump speaks to reporters in the Oval Office of the White House on May 30, 2025 in Washington, D.C. (Photo by Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images)

The Wisconsin Democracy Campaign is suing billionaire Elon Musk over allegations that he violated multiple state laws, including the election bribery statute, when he offered voters a potential $1 million award for signing a petition as part of his effort to sway the result of Wisconsin’s April Supreme Court election. 

Represented by Wisconsin’s Law Forward, Democracy Defenders Fund and New York-based law firm Hecker Fink, the lawsuit accuses the world’s richest man of implementing “a brazen scheme to bribe Wisconsin citizens to vote.” 

Musk and his political action committee, America PAC, played a major role in this spring’s election becoming the most expensive judicial campaign in American history. Musk’s involvement in the race, which came as he was leading President Donald Trump’s cost-cutting initiatives and firing thousands of federal employees through the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), was widely seen as causing a backlash and helping Dane County Judge Susan Crawford defeat Musk-backed Waukesha County Judge Brad Schimel. 

Musk and his PAC spent more than $20 million on the race. 

Prior to the election, America PAC offered voters $100 if they signed a petition “in opposition to activist judges,” and another $100 if they referred another voter to sign the petition. Later, at a pre-election rally in Green Bay, Musk handed out two $1 million checks to voters, which had been advertised as awards “in appreciation for you taking the time to vote.” 

The lawsuit, filed in Dane County court, notes it is against the law to offer anyone more than $1 to induce them to go to the polls, vote or vote for a particular candidate. 

“By offering and paying Wisconsin citizens amounts far greater than $1 to vote, Defendants violated Wisconsin’s election bribery law,” the lawsuit states. “Defendants’ payments and offers of payment to Wisconsin voters, made with the clear intent to aid one candidate and induce Wisconsinites to vote, threatened the integrity of the election and damaged public confidence in the electoral system.”

Jeff Mandell, Law Forward’s general counsel, said the lawsuit was meant to prevent efforts like Musk’s from becoming a regular occurrence. 

“We are fighting for free and fair elections,” Mandell said. “We believe our democracy demands better than schemes like the one detailed in our complaint. So, we are working to hold Musk accountable and stop this from becoming the new normal.”

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U.S. Senate Majority Leader Sen. John Thune, R-S.D., left, listens as Sen. Mike Crapo, R-Idaho, center, speaks to reporters outside of the West Wing of the White House on June4, 2025 in Washington, D.C.  (Photo by Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images)

WASHINGTON — U.S. Senate Republican Leader John Thune will spend a crucial next few weeks working behind the scenes with other top GOP senators to reshape the party’s “big beautiful bill” — a balancing test accompanied in recent days by incendiary exchanges between President Donald Trump and billionaire Elon Musk over whether the current proposals are so bad that Congress should just go back to the drawing board.

South Dakota’s Thune will need to gain support from deficit hawks, who want to see the mega-bill cut at least $2 trillion in spending, and moderates, who are closely monitoring how less federal funding for safety net programs like Medicaid and food assistance could harm their constituents and home-state institutions like rural hospitals.

Interviews by States Newsroom with Republican senators in early June showed many major elements of the package could change, including provisions that would put states on the hook for unanticipated costs. Arkansas Sen. John Boozman, for example, indicated the Senate may rewrite a proposal in the House-passed bill that would shift some of the cost of the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, which provides food aid to low-income people, to state governments.

“We can do whatever we want to do,” the Agriculture, Nutrition and Forestry Committee chairman said when asked by States Newsroom about amending that policy.

The final deal — intended to extend the 2017 tax cuts — cannot lose more than three GOP senators and still make it back across the Capitol to the House for final approval, since all Democrats are expected to oppose the bill. Thune only needs a majority vote in the Senate for the special process being used by Republicans.

Internal debates about just how to rework the Trump-backed tax and spending cuts measure began in the first week of June during meetings on Capitol Hill and at the White House, as GOP senators began critiquing the House-passed package line-by-line to ensure it complies with their strict rules for the complex reconciliation process and their policy goals.

Republicans said during interviews that several provisions in the House version likely won’t comply with the chamber’s Byrd rule, which could force lawmakers to toss out some provisions.

Complicating all of it was the very public back-and-forth between not just Trump but GOP leaders and former White House adviser Musk over the bill, which Musk on social media labeled “a disgusting abomination” and a “big, ugly spending bill” for its effect on the deficit and debt limit. “KILL the BILL,” Musk said on X, the platform he owns. Senate leaders so far have dismissed Musk’s criticisms.

Fragile House coalition

The talks, and whatever the legislation looks like after a marathon amendment voting session expected in late June, have already raised deep concerns among House GOP lawmakers, who will have to vote on the bill again in order to send it to Trump.

The extremely narrow majorities mean House Republican leaders cannot lose more than four of their own members if all the lawmakers in that chamber vote on the party-line bill.

Any changes the Senate makes could unbalance the fragile coalition of votes Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., cobbled together last month for a 215-214 vote. But GOP senators are adamant they will amend the legislation.

Complicating matters is a new report from the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office that shows the proposed changes to tax law, Medicaid, the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program and higher education aid wouldn’t actually help to reduce deficits during the next decade but raise them by more than $2.4 trillion.

The numbers are the exact opposite for what Republicans hoped their sweeping tax and spending cuts package would accomplish.

Scrutiny begins

The first stop for the House-passed reconciliation package in the Senate appears to be the parliamentarian’s office, where staff have begun evaluating whether each provision in the current version of the bill complies with the upper chamber’s strict rules.

Boozman said staff on his panel have already begun meeting with the parliamentarian to go over the House provisions within its jurisdiction.

He expects that section of the package will have to change to comply with the strict rules that govern the reconciliation process in the Senate and to better fit that chamber’s policy goals.

“We can’t really decide exactly what we want to use in the House version until we know what’s eligible,” Boozman said. “We’ve got some other ideas too that we asked them about. But we need to know, of the ideas that we have, what would be viable options as far as being Byrd eligible.”

The Byrd rule, which is actually a law, requires reconciliation bills to address federal revenue, spending, or the debt limit. This generally bars lawmakers from using the special budget process to change policies that don’t have a significant impact on those three areas.

Alabama Sen. Tommy Tuberville, who is campaigning to become his home state’s next governor, said pushing some of the cost of the nutrition program to states may be problematic.

“We’re trying to send more costs to the states. Most states can’t afford that, so we want to take care of people, but we need people to go back to work,” Tuberville said. “It’s not a forever entitlement. It’s for part-time, you know, take care of yourself until you get a job, go back to work and let people that need it really, really get it.”

Rural hospitals on edge

Senate GOP leaders will have to navigate how best to reduce federal spending on Medicaid, the state-federal health program for lower-income people and some with disabilities, that is relied on by tens of millions of Americans, many of whom are loyal Republican voters.

The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office projects that 7.8 million people would lose access to Medicaid during the next decade if the House’s policy changes are implemented as written.

There are also concerns among GOP lawmakers about how losing the revenue that comes with treating Medicaid patients would impact rural health care access and hospitals.

Missouri Sen. Josh Hawley said under no circumstances would he vote for a bill that cuts benefits to Medicaid recipients and is worried about how provisions in the House package would affect rural hospitals.

“They’re very concerned about it, rightly so,” Hawley said, referring to conversations he’s had with health care systems in his home state.

“This is something that we need to work on. I don’t know why we would penalize rural hospitals,” he added. “If you want to reduce health care spending, then cap the price of prescription drugs. I mean, that’s the way to do it. If you want to get major savings in the health care sector, don’t close rural hospitals, don’t take away benefits from working people. Cap the costs, cap the price that (the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services) is going to pay for prescription drugs.”

West Virginia Sen. Shelley Moore Capito said she’s not yet come to a decision about whether to keep, amend, or completely scrap some of the House changes to Medicaid.

“I talked to a lot of our hospitals when I was home to see what the impacts would be, because we have a very high Medicaid population,” Capito said. “I want to see it work and be preserved, but I want it to be there for future generations. And it’s just getting way out of control on the spend side. So right now, we’re looking at everything.”

Louisiana Sen. Bill Cassidy — chairman of the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee — said he doesn’t expect all of the health care provisions in the House bill make it through the “Byrd bath” with the parliamentarian. But he declined to go into detail.

“Some of it is more regulatory, that’s all I can say,” Cassidy said.

West Virginia’s Sen. Jim Justice said he is in favor of requiring some Medicaid enrollees to work, participate in community service, or attend an educational program at least 80 hours a month to stay on the program, a sentiment shared by many of his GOP colleagues.

“I’m good with every bit of that,” he said. 

But Justice expects the Senate will make its own changes to the package and that it will be “proud of their own pond.”

“Any frog that’s not proud of your own pond’s not much of a frog,” Justice said.

He did not go into detail on what those changes would entail.

SALT shakers

The state and local tax deduction, or SALT, represents another tightrope  for Thune, who is no fan of the changes made in the House. But he has said repeatedly this week he understands altering that language too much could mean a Senate-amended version of the bill never makes it back through the House to actually become law.

Thune said outside the White House following a June 4 meeting with Trump and others that there will very likely be changes to SALT.

“There isn’t a single Republican senator who cares much about the SALT issue,” Thune said. “It’s just not an issue that plays.” States that are most affected generally don’t elect Republicans to the Senate.

The House tax-writing panel originally proposed raising the SALT cap from $10,000 to $30,000, but Johnson had to raise that to $40,000 in order to secure votes from House Republicans who represent higher tax states like California, New Jersey and New York. The revised cap would benefit more high-income taxpayers in their states.

“In 2017, that was one of the best reforms we had in the bill,” Thune said. “But we understand it’s about 51 and 218. So we will work with our House counterparts and with the White House to try to get that issue in a place where we can deliver the votes and get the bill across the finish line.”

Republicans hold 53 seats in the Senate, but can rely on Vice President J.D. Vance to break a tied vote if necessary.

At least 218 House lawmakers must vote to pass bills when all 435 seats are filled. But with three vacancies at the moment, legislation can move through that chamber with 216 votes. The GOP has 220 seats at the moment, meaning Johnson can afford four defections on party-line bills.

North Dakota Sen. John Hoeven told reporters this week that he’d like to see GOP senators rework the SALT section of the bill, even if that causes challenges for Speaker Johnson’s ability to pass a final version.

“Let’s talk about SALT, for example. The House has a very large SALT number. The Senate is probably going to take a look at that,” Hoeven said. “There’ll be a lot of areas we can look at. There’ll be other things we’re going to look at. We’d like to get to $2 trillion in savings.”

Ohio Sen. Bernie Moreno joined in putting his House colleagues on notice that they likely won’t get the agreement they struck with the speaker in the final version of the bill.

“I think we’re going to make common-sense changes. For example, the SALT cap, by the way, something that definitely helps very wealthy people in blue states,” Moreno said. “I think that cap, the 400% increase, is too much, so we’re going to work on tweaking that.”

Hawley, of Missouri, speaking more generally about the tax provisions, said he would like the Senate to make sure middle-class Americans benefit from the tax changes, just as much as companies.

“I want to be clear, I’m in favor of additional tax relief for working people. So my view is this corporate tax rate, which they lowered in 2017, they made that permanent back then. I know some workers that would like permanent tax relief,” Hawley said. “So I think it’s imperative that we do some addition to tax relief for workers. So I think that’s important.”

A new $4 trillion debt limit

Deficit hawks in the Senate have also voiced objections to raising the nation’s debt limit by $4 trillion, arguing that GOP leaders haven’t done enough to assuage their concerns about the nation’s fiscal trajectory.

Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul argued that the debt limit increase is more about next year’s midterm elections than good governance.

“​​This is really about avoiding having to talk about the debt during election times because people like to go home and talk to the Rotary or the Lions Club and tell them how they’re fiscally conservative and they’re against debt,” Paul said. “It’s embarrassing to them to have to vote to keep raising the debt. But they’re unwilling to have the courage to actually look at all spending.”

Paul suggested that House Republicans created problems by inflating some of the spending levels in their package, including to continue construction of a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border. Paul is chairman of the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee.

“The $46.5 billion for the wall is eight times higher than the current cost of the wall. If you’re going to do 1,000 miles, you can actually do it for $6.5 billion. They want $46.5 billion,” Paul said. “We can’t be fiscally conservative until it comes to the border, and then we’re no longer fiscally conservative.”

The border wall has been a constant focus for Trump, who made it a central part of his 2016 presidential campaign, when he said repeatedly that the United States would build it and Mexico would pay for it.

South Carolina’s Lindsey Graham, chairman of the Budget Committee, hinted during a brief interview that Congress can only cut so much spending without going near programs like Social Security, which accounted for $1.5 trillion in expenditures last year, or Medicare, which spent $865 billion. Both are normally considered untouchable.

“I think we’re going to make some changes to try to find more spending reductions. I think that’s a fair criticism of the bill, but you can’t do Social Security by law,” Graham said, referring to one of the many rules that govern the reconciliation process. “Nobody’s proposed anything in the Medicare area.”

Graham added that “trying to make the bill more fiscally responsible is a good thing, but we need to pass it.” 

Donald Trump and Elon Musk seemed like a match made in heaven as they’re both rich, egotistical billionaires that crave attention. However, they both have thin skin, a questionable definition of the truth, and a tendency to retaliate.

The latter three characteristics are now on full display as their bromance has ended in a rather public fight. Musk got the ball rolling by attacking Trump’s Big, Beautiful Bill as a “disgusting abomination.” He went on to call it a “massive, outrageous, pork-filled Congressional spending bill” … that “contains the largest increase in the debt ceiling in US history!”

More: Trump’s Tax Bill Promises Car Loan Relief But The Devil Is In The Details

Musk described it as the “Debt Slavery Bill” and urged Congress to kill it. He also told his 220 million followers on X to call their legislators as “bankrupting America is NOT ok!”

President Trump was initially quiet on the criticism, but he tore into Musk today. In a series of posts on Truth Social, Trump claimed he asked Elon to leave his administration as he was “wearing thin.” Trump also said Musk went “CRAZY” after “I took away his EV Mandate that forced everyone to buy electric cars that nobody else wanted.”

Trump then made a not so subtle threat, despite claiming “I don’t mind Elon turning against me.” In particular, he said the “easiest way to save money … is to terminate Elon’s governmental subsidies and contracts.”

That’s a rather blatant threat of retaliation and Wall Street appears to be taking it seriously. Tesla stock plummeted 14.27% today to close down $47.37 per share at $284.68.

Time to drop the really big bomb:@realDonaldTrump is in the Epstein files. That is the real reason they have not been made public.

Have a nice day, DJT!

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) June 5, 2025

In response to Trump’s threat, Musk said SpaceX will “begin decommissioning its Dragon spacecraft immediately.” This would effectively leave NASA up a creek without a paddle, although they could use Boeing’s troubled Starliner.

Aside from that, Musk said Trump is “in the Epstein files” and claimed “that is the real reason they have not been made public.” He went on to suggest Trump’s tariffs will cause a recession in the second half of this year.

The mudslinging will likely continue for the foreseeable future, although it will be interesting to see if the two can mend fences. If not, Tesla could have just added to its increasingly complex set of challenges.

The Trump tariffs will cause a recession in the second half of this year https://t.co/rbBC11iynE

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) June 5, 2025

When tech collides with the real world, the consequences are rarely theoretical. In late 2023, a tragic accident happened in Arizona. Of 40,901 traffic fatalities that year, it was unique. It was the only one that involved a pedestrian and a Tesla reportedly running on Full Self-Driving (Supervised) mode. Now, as Tesla begins its Robotaxi launch in Austin, it’s raising questions about safety now and in the future.

The accident happened in November of that year when Johna Story, a 71-year-old grandmother, was pulled over on the interstate. She was stopped in an effort to help others who had already been in an earlier accident. Video from the Tesla shows that the roadway leading up to the crash was obscured by direct sunlight on the horizon.

More: Dodge Says Charger Daytona’s Unintended Acceleration Is A Feature Not A Bug

That said, the video obtained by Bloomberg of the crash does show warning signs that something was wrong. While the roadway is impossible to see, the car in the right lane slows down. Other vehicles are parked on the right shoulder. A bystander was waving their hands for traffic to slow down.

Before he knew it, Tesla driver Karl Stock was veering left, then back toward the road before hitting a parked Toyota 4Runner and Story head-on. She passed away at the scene. “Sorry everything happened so fast,” Stock wrote in a witness statement for police. “There were cars stopped in front of me and by the time I saw them, I had no place to go to avoid them.”

Notably, Bloomberg claims that FSD was engaged at the time of the accident. “He [Stock] had engaged what the carmaker calls Full Self-Driving, or FSD,” the report claims. This isn’t substantiated by the police report. Neither the reporting officers nor Stock mentions FSD, Autopilot, or any sort of cruise control or autonomous system. That said, it’s possible that the publication gained access to the non-public NHTSA crash report and that more data is available there.

Vision Vs. Lidar & Radar

Ultimately, crashes like this highlight what seems like the most obvious concern for Tesla’s FSD. Vision-based systems aren’t wildly dissimilar from the way that humans perceive the road. That means that when humans struggle to see the roadway ahead, as is the case with bright sunlight on the horizon, or in smoke-filled or foggy conditions, vision-based systems can struggle too.

As mentioned, it seems unclear when exactly FSD was engaged and when it wasn’t. That said, even if the system disengaged in time for Stock to avoid the crash, it’s unclear how he would’ve seen what was coming to do so. In fact, this crash and others like it, albeit without additional fatalities, led the NHTSA to kick off an investigation into FSD that is still ongoing.

“A Tesla vehicle experienced a crash after entering an area of reduced roadway visibility conditions with FSD -Beta or FSD -Supervised (collectively, FSD) engaged. In these crashes, the reduced roadway visibility arose from conditions such as sun glare, fog, or airborne dust,” the investigation called out.

On the flip side, systems that rely on radar or lidar can ‘see’ beyond fog, light glare, and smoke. They can pick up on obstacles that vision-based systems sometimes have real trouble with. In this case, a lidar-equipped system could’ve potentially alerted Stock to the stopped obstacles. That doesn’t make them perfect.

Cruise famously shut down after billions worth of investment because of crashes. Those cars all used radar and lidar and still failed. All of that said, it’s still a bit of a wonder as to why Tesla and its CEO, Elon Musk, are so staunch in their use of vision-only systems. Only time will tell if that changes.

The Robot Elephant In The Room

We might learn sooner rather than later whether or not Tesla sticks with its vision-only system. The automaker is already testing robotaxis and driverless cars and is set to expand that this month in Austin, Texas. Musk has promised that the program will expand throughout the year and that Level 5 autonomous driving is coming soon.

Of course, Tesla has continually improved FSD over the years. It’s a dramatically more capable system than it was in 2023 but it still has some major issues. Just a few weeks ago, a Tesla, reportedly with FSD engaged, crashed on an open road with no obstacles, no visual queues, or any other explicable reasoning. We’ve yet to confirm the details, but in the video, the car literally drove off of the road and into a tree at around 55 mph. These two crashes are things that Tesla’s Robotaxis cannot do if the automaker ever wants them to be mainstream. For now, there’s little more to do than to wait and see what happens.

Tesla’s Take

Here is the full, 36-page crash report of that Arizona incident, with both police and eye-witness reports and everything: https://t.co/wvfvgl8ET3 pic.twitter.com/3y5DSgDzpU

— Jaan of the EVwire.com ⚡ (@TheEVuniverse) June 4, 2025

The automaker is famous for its lack of a PR department [until it really wants to get a message out]. That said, it does sometimes speak about why it continues to push for Autopilot and FSD usage among its customers.

Two years ago, when it recalled over a million cars, it said, “We at Tesla believe that we have a moral obligation to continue improving our already best-in-class safety systems. At the same time, we also believe it is morally indefensible not to make these systems available to a wider set of consumers, given the incontrovertible data that shows it is saving lives and preventing injury.”

While Tesla is notoriously opaque about the safety data it gathers, it does claim that its cars are safer on average than human drivers. Since third parties don’t have full access to that data to validate it, it’s hard to simply accept those claims. Nevertheless, if they’re accurate, Tesla has a point. At the end of the day, nobody in this equation wants to risk lives. The question is, which route is the safest, not just in the future, but right now?

Lead image Bloomberg/YouTube

Elon Musk arrives for a meeting with Senate Republicans at the U.S. Capitol on March 5, 2025 in Washington, D.C. (Photo by Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images)

WASHINGTON — Billionaire and former Trump administration official Elon Musk published a flurry of social media posts Tuesday slamming the “big, beautiful bill” in Congress, but his criticisms were mostly ignored or brushed aside by Republican senators.

Musk wrote that the “massive, outrageous, pork-filled Congressional spending bill is a disgusting abomination” and told the GOP lawmakers who voted for it in the House that they “did wrong.”

“In November next year, we fire all politicians who betrayed the American people,” he wrote in a later post.

But Musk’s frustrations largely fell flat.

White House press Secretary Karoline Leavitt dismissed Musk’s opposition, saying that President Donald Trump is well aware of his views on the legislation and will be moving forward anyway.

Musk last week said he will continue to advise Trump despite stepping away from his official role as a special government employee who oversaw dramatic spending cuts as head of the U.S. DOGE Service.

The tax and spending package would cut about $1.5 trillion in federal funding for several programs during the next decade, including Medicaid and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program. The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office is expected to release its full analysis of the package Wednesday, including how changes made just before the bill went to the floor will impact state budgets and people’s access to safety net programs.

‘We have a job to do’

Leavitt’s comments came just before Republican senators were peppered with questions about Musk’s statements following a closed-door working lunch on Capitol Hill.

Many disregarded Musk’s lobbying efforts during brief interviews, saying they don’t expect his opposition to affect Senate debate on the sweeping tax and spending cuts package that the House passed last month.

Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., said that he and Musk clearly held differing opinions about the package, which he said was possibly based on Musk’s reading of analysis from the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office.

Thune said that he expects the tax and spending cuts policies included in the package would “lead to significant growth” and that would lead to a reduction in the annual deficit.

“My hope is that as he has an opportunity to further assess what this bill actually does, that he’ll come to a different conclusion,” Thune said. “But nevertheless, we have a job to do, the American people elected us to do. We have an agenda that everybody campaigned on, most notably the president of the United States, and we’re going to deliver on that agenda.”

Thune added he expects the legislation “can be strengthened in the Senate in a number of ways,” though he didn’t detail exactly what those would be.

‘We’ll see what President Trump does’

West Virginia Sen. Shelley Moore Capito said that Musk is “entitled to his opinion” and that GOP lawmakers are well aware that he’s “frank,” but that likely won’t sway them in the weeks ahead.

“President Trump is the one that’s going to be the biggest advocate, biggest influencer, in terms of how the Senate deals with this vote,” Capito said. “So no matter what Elon Musk or anybody else says — and I don’t want to diminish him, because I don’t think that’s fair — it’s still going to be second fiddle to President Trump. So we’ll see what President Trump does.”

Arkansas Sen. John Boozman said he doesn’t expect Musk’s tweets will have much of an impact on internal GOP debates about the bill.

“He’s entitled to his opinion. I don’t think it will make any difference,” Boozman said, adding efforts to cut spending are already a central part of the GOP’s goals for the package.

North Carolina Sen. Thom Tillis said the tweets won’t have any influence on which amendments GOP senators propose to the legislation.

“No,” Tillis said, when asked about Musk’s overall sway.

Ohio Sen. Bernie Moreno said people raising concerns with the legislation need to give that chamber time to review what the House passed and figure out what they’re going to keep and what they’re going to change.

“We have to refocus and remember that this bill, all along, wasn’t supposed to solve every problem on Earth,” Moreno said. “This bill was about making certain that President Trump had the resources to secure our border, that was the biggest part of the election; to avoid a $4 trillion tax increase, that is something that Americans care a lot about; and to start a process of reducing government spending. So that’s what we’re doing.”

‘Donald Trump is our president, not Elon Musk’

Missouri Sen. Josh Hawley said he didn’t have much of a reaction to the social media posts, while laughing, other than to say that Musk is “entitled to his opinion.”

Hawley said he doesn’t expect Musk’s lobbying efforts would have any impact on how GOP senators amend the bill, before sending it back to the House.

West Virginia Sen. Jim Justice noted that Musk isn’t the president, when asked how the tweets might impact his deliberations on the legislation.

“Y’all may like this or not like this, but you know, Donald Trump is our president, not Elon Musk,” Justice said.

“And really and truly, I don’t know of the disagreement that they may have with one another or what they have going on,” Justice added. “I really respect Elon Musk, and I think he did a great job and I’m very, very pleased with all the things that he uncovered. But with all that being said, I think we all should stand by our president.”

‘All of us are a little frustrated’ 

Alabama Sen. Tommy Tuberville said he hopes Musk’s attempts to influence lawmaking will yield more spending cuts than the $1.5 trillion in the House bill, though he didn’t say he’d oppose the measure if that doesn’t happen.

“Well, I think all of us are a little frustrated. We’re not getting as much cuts as we thought we would, but we could in the long run, because we’re not done with it,” Tuberville said. “So I think that was a little bit of an encouragement.”

Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul said he shares Musk’s skepticism about the legislation’s impact on the annual federal deficit and the rising national debt.

But when asked how influential Musk has been at swaying Republican senators to oppose the package, Paul noted that anyone standing against the bill risks “the ire of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue,” referring to the White House’s address.

Paul said that if he and Wisconsin Sen. Ron Johnson, who has also raised concerns about the way the package is written, can get the support of two more GOP senators, then they believe they can begin direct talks with Trump.

“The president will negotiate if he needs to,” Paul said. He won’t if he doesn’t need to.”

Electric vehicle drivers in New Jersey may want to rethink their charging routines. A major shakeup is underway on the New Jersey Turnpike, and it involves the one company that’s basically synonymous with EV charging.

The state’s Turnpike authority isn’t renewing a contract with Tesla but is instead going to employ chargers from Applegreen. The move could prove more costly and trialsome for New Jersey residents, but Tesla appears ready for anything.

More: Tesla Dumping Unsold Cybertrucks At Mall Parking Lot And The City’s Fed Up

The automaker, rather than the state, actually announced the change on Friday. “The New Jersey Turnpike Authority (“NJTA”) has chosen a sole third-party charging provider to serve the New Jersey Turnpike and is not allowing us to co-locate. As a result, NJTA requested 64 existing Supercharger stalls on the New Jersey Turnpike to not be renewed and be decommissioned,” it said in a statement on X.

A Smaller Network With Higher Prices

It went on to claim that it offered the state “above-market commercial terms” and access for all EVs to keep the contract going. It would’ve built more stations and upgraded existing ones with screens and CCS1 ‘magic docks’ as well. For whatever reason, the state said no and instead went with Applegreen for the foreseeable future. That’s a fascinating decision since Applegreen’s network is almost comically smaller than Tesla’s.

At present, in the USA, it only serves a few states like New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut. In New Jersey, it has only a few stations installed. Elon Musk went as far as to posit that “corruption” played a part in the decision. Even after it finishes installing the chargers it plans to put in place, things might be worse off for most drivers.

Sounds like corruption

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) May 30, 2025

Notably, a little number crunching from InsideEVs suggests that this won’t help consumers. “Superchargers along the NJ Turnpike range from $0.20 to $0.45 per kWh, depending on the time of day. Applegreen, on the other hand, varies from $0.35 to $0.59,” it found.

If those figures hold, drivers could end up paying more to power their cars than they did before. It’s possible the state stands to gain more financially under the new arrangement, though no public statements have been made by the NJTA to confirm or clarify that.

Tesla Already Moving On

All of that said, Tesla says it knew this was a potential outcome and has already supplemented the decommissioning of 64 charging bays with the creation of 116 stalls off of the turnpike. Interestingly, this might not be how the story ends. Tesla says it’s willing to return to the negotiating table should NJ authorities change their tune.

“We are still willing to invest in New Jersey Turnpike sites if the NJTA or Governor Murphy decide to reverse this decision. Otherwise, we will continue expanding the best charging infrastructure off the Turnpike to serve EV drivers in New Jersey,” the automaker said. In a part of the world where charging infrastructure isn’t exactly super-reliable, this could be a step in the wrong direction. Only time will tell. 

Tesla CEO Elon Musk listens as President Donald Trump speaks to reporters in the Oval Office of the White House on May 30, 2025 in Washington, D.C. (Photo by Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images)

WASHINGTON — Billionaire Elon Musk said Friday he will continue to advise President Donald Trump despite stepping away from his official role as a special government employee.

During a wide-ranging Oval Office press conference, Musk — sporting a bruised right eye he blamed on a punch he invited from one of his sons, 5-year-old X — also said he expects U.S. DOGE Service will continue trying to cut at least $1 trillion in federal spending, setting the middle of next year as a target date.

“This is not the end of DOGE, but really the beginning,” Musk said. “My time as a special government employee necessarily had to end — it was a limited time thing, it’s 134 days I believe, which ends in a few days. So it comes with a time limit. But the DOGE team will only grow stronger over time. The DOGE influence will only grow stronger.”

Musk then compared his initiative to Buddhism, a religion practiced by hundreds of millions of people, saying DOGE jobs were “like a way of life” that he hoped would permeate throughout the federal government.

DOGE’s efforts so far have led to about $160 billion in spending cuts, Musk said. That’s a small fraction of the $6.8 trillion the federal government spent during the most recent fiscal year and short of the goal he set before joining the administration.

Musk said DOGE was “relentlessly pursuing” at least $1 trillion in spending cuts to benefit American taxpayers, shortly after pointing out a golden eagle on the ceiling of the Oval Office that Trump said used to be plaster.

“Nobody ever really saw it. They didn’t know the eagle was up there, and we highlighted it,” Trump said. “Essentially it’s a landmark, a great landmark, and that’s 24-karat gold. And everybody loved it. Now, they all see it when they come in. So it’s been good.”

Musk hailed Trump for ensuring the Oval Office “finally has the majesty that it deserves.” Neither man shared how much was spent to redesign the eagle.

Musk plans to refocus his professional efforts on his companies, including Tesla and SpaceX.

New York Times story on Musk drug use

Trump said he “hopes” that Musk continues to advise him on government issues, even though he will no longer be employed by the White House.

Republican lawmakers, Trump said, are “totally committed to making the DOGE cuts permanent and stopping much more of the waste in the months to come.”

“We want to get our great, big, beautiful bill finished and done,” Trump said, referring to a tax and spending cuts package the House passed earlier this month. “We put some of this into the bill, but most of it’s going to come later. We’re going to have it (codified) by Congress, affirmed by Congress. In some cases, we’ll make cuts, in some cases we’ll just use it in a different layer to save the money. But it’s hundreds of billions of dollars.”

Musk declined to answer a question about a bombshell New York Times report published earlier in the day that detailed his ongoing use of drugs, including ketamine, ecstasy and psychedelic mushrooms.

Trump desires bigger tax cuts from Senate

Trump said during the press conference he hopes the U.S. Senate amends the “big, beautiful bill” by cutting more government spending, without specifying which programs.

That package would cut about $1.5 trillion in federal funding for several programs during the next decade, including Medicaid and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program. The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office is expected to release its full analysis of the package next week, including how changes made just before the bill went to the floor will impact state budgets and people’s access to safety net programs.

Trump also called on senators to further lower taxes in the package,

“It’s an unbelievable bill…It cuts, you know, it’s a huge cutting,” Trump said. “But there’s things I’d like to see, maybe cut a little bit more. I’d like to see a bigger cut in taxes. It’s going to be the largest tax decrease or cut in the history of our country. I’d like to see it get down to an even lower number. I was shooting for a slightly lower number. I would have liked to have done that.”

Trump appeared to renew his call for Congress to completely eliminate the debt limit, even though the tax and spending cuts package would raise that ceiling by $4 trillion.

“I agree with Elizabeth Warren on that. I think we should get rid of it,” Trump said, referring to the Democratic senator from Massachusetts. “It’s too catastrophic.”

Billionaire and SpaceX owner Elon Musk said in an interview with CBS News that he was “disappointed” in the U.S. House GOP’s massive legislative package of tax cuts, border funding and more of President Donald Trump’s domestic policy priorities. (Photo courtesy of CBS Sunday Morning)

Elon Musk says in an interview excerpt that he was “disappointed” in the U.S. House GOP’s massive legislative package of tax cuts, border funding and more of President Donald Trump’s domestic policy priorities, telling CBS News the bill would undermine the work of his U.S. DOGE Service to cut government spending.

The interview, a portion of which was published Tuesday evening as a preview of this weekend’s edition of “CBS Sunday Morning,” marks the first public rift between Musk, the world’s richest man and a major funder of Trump’s 2024 campaign, and the president who gave him an influential position in his second White House stint.

After a day of news reports on Musk’s criticism of the bill Trump has championed Musk tweeted Wednesday evening he was officially leaving his White House role. Musk’s social media posts in recent weeks appeared to show he’d shifted his attention back to his private-sector interests. 

“As my scheduled time as a Special Government Employee comes to an end, I would like to thank President @realDonaldTrump for the opportunity to reduce wasteful spending,” Musk wrote Wednesday. “The @DOGE mission will only strengthen over time as it becomes a way of life throughout the government.”

During the closing days of the presidential campaign, Musk said he could find $2 trillion per year in the federal budget to cut.

The legislation that Trump has promoted as the “big, beautiful bill” works against the goals Musk set as he spearheaded the Department of Government Efficiency that sought to slash the size of the federal workforce, Musk said.

“I was disappointed to see the massive spending bill, frankly, which increases the budget deficit, not just decreases it, and undermines the work that the DOGE team is doing,” Musk said.  “I think a bill can be big or it can be beautiful. But I don’t know if it can be both. My personal opinion.”

GOP bill cuts Medicaid, adds to deficit

The U.S. House narrowly passed the 1,100-page bill last week with all Democrats and two Republicans voting against it. Senate Republicans are planning to use the complex budget reconciliation process to pass the bill without subjecting it to the chamber’s usual 60-vote threshold for legislation.

The measure includes an extension of the 2017 tax cuts, changes to Medicaid and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program that are expected to reduce federal spending on benefits by nearly $1 trillion over a decade, and increased funding for Defense Department and border security initiatives.

The House’s bill would add $2.3 trillion to the federal deficit over 10 years, according to the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office.

Musk and Republicans who wish to downsize the federal government have called for taking actions based on DOGE’s recommendations.

Trump ‘not happy about certain aspects’

Asked about Musk’s comments during an Oval Office event Wednesday, Trump praised the work of House Speaker Mike Johnson and Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., and noted the slim majorities in both chambers.

He also touted the tax cuts included in the bill, but conceded he was “not happy about certain aspects of” the bill — although the administration issued a Statement of Administration Policy supporting it and saying Trump would sign it into law.

“But I’m thrilled by other aspects of it,” he said. “That’s the way they go. It’s very big. It’s the big, beautiful bill. But the beautiful is because of all of the things we have. The biggest thing being, I would say, the level of tax cutting that we’re going to be doing.”

Johnson, who spent weeks negotiating with disparate factions of his conference to win passage of the measure, attempted to soothe Musk’s concerns in a Wednesday post to X, which Musk owns.

The Louisiana Republican praised Musk’s work while promising spending cuts would come in bills that are outside the budget reconciliation process: annual appropriations bills and a recissions package that takes away unspent money from previous appropriations laws.

“@ElonMusk and the entire @DOGE team have done INCREDIBLE work exposing waste, fraud, and abuse across the federal government,” Johnson wrote. “The House is eager and ready to act on DOGE’s findings so we can deliver even more cuts to big government that President Trump wants and the American people demand.”

New plan for billions in cuts said to be on the way

Johnson echoed a post from White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller, who said the rules around budget reconciliation made it difficult to cut significant chunks of discretionary spending, which is separate from the major cuts projected to hit the mandatory Medicaid and SNAP programs.

The administration is planning to send to House Republicans next week a proposal to rescind $9.4 billion in federal spending, according to a Wednesday report in Politico that cited unnamed House Republican and administration sources. The report was published after the Musk comments appeared on CBS News’ website.

On X, Johnson said the annual appropriations bills, which Congress began formal work on this month with department heads appearing at subcommittee hearings, would also provide spending cuts.

Appropriators, though, have cautioned against the aggressive cuts sought by the administration.

Rep. Mike Simpson, an Idaho Republican who chairs the House Appropriations subcommittee that writes the funding bill for environmental programs, told Interior Secretary Doug Burgum the panel would likely fund his department above what the administration request.

Burgum said he would comply with whatever spending amount Congress approves.

 

 

Being one of the world’s richest and most influential figures definitely has its perks. Those private jets and space-bound adventures aren’t going to pay for themselves, after all. But it also puts a target on your back. Elon Musk is, undoubtedly, one such person, no matter what you might think of him, and he is no exception to the rule.

More: Furious Protesters Smash A Tesla To Pieces In ‘Everyone Hates Elon’ Event

One actor who is alleged to have tried to gain access to Musk is one of America’s oldest enemies: Russia. Or at least that’s what ex-FBI agent-turned-whistleblower Jonathan Buma alleges. Although the 48-year-old didn’t divulge details on why Musk was targeted by Russian operatives, he firmly believes that it was a real threat.

A Clear And Present Danger

He did say that the way in which Russians tried to get access to Musk was by placing certain individuals, who at the time got influence with him, within his inner circle. “Those efforts were intense and they were ongoing”, he told German broadcaster ZDF and UK news outlet The Guardian. “I can’t go into too much more detail,” he conceded, but did note that Musk himself wasn’t under investigation by the FBI.

Apparently, it was reported that Buma wasn’t the only one concerned about Musk falling under Russian influence. In July 2022, the Wall Street Journal reported that his wealth manager, Jared Birchall, had “cornered” his employer about a new adviser named Igor Kurganov. He was a Russian-born ex-professional gambler who, according to Birchall, “suddenly had immense influence on what to do with Musk’s money” after having spent some time with him during the pandemic.

The FBI reportedly took interest into Elon’s new friend, with an agent making inquiries as part of his duty to “watch out for foreign interference in US companies”. Nevertheless, he had no known connections to Russia, apart from being born there, and was never named a foreign agent. Still, according to the report from the Wall Street Journal, Birchall asked Musk to remove Kurganov from his post at the latter’s private foundation in May 2022, which he did.

Musk’s Contacts

How Elon chose to spend his money was of no real interest to the US intelligence gathering community. On the other hand, whom the head honcho of not just Tesla but, more importantly, SpaceX did talk to about personal issues, business and geopolitical topics, likely was.

According to the same WSJ report from 2024, Musk had allegedly been “in regular contact” with Russia’s president, Vladimir Putin, since late 2022. Musk, however, denied this, stating as recently as last week during an interview with Bloomberg that, aside from a video call five years ago, he hasn’t spoken to the Russian president.

More: Musk Says Only Way Tesla Gets A New CEO Is If He Dies

Now, China may be the new superpower that replaced the USSR as the true US antagonist in the world scene, but underestimating Putin’s Russia would be a grave mistake. The ongoing war in Ukraine is as stark as reminder as anyone would need, if there was ever any doubt about that. While not as technologically advanced as America or the People’s Republic, it still has a huge amount of geopolitical clout so it can sit on the table with the other two and demand to have a say in how the world is run.

Tesla Needs To Solve Its Issues, Not Worry About Its CEO

All this could place Musk and Tesla between a rock and a hard place, especially if he’s being targeted by enemy #1 while his company builds cars in enemy #2’s soil. Even if that’s the case, it doesn’t prove Elon is compromised in any way – he could just be another businessman trying to maximize his companies’ profits.

Nevertheless, with Musk getting very political and becoming a close ally to US President Donald Trump, things have become much more complicated. True, they always are when money, politics and, ultimately, power come together. Tesla has, so far, faced more than its fair share of backlash against Musk’s politics. Ultimately, though, falling stock prices and plunging sales may just be the tip of the iceberg – and, ironically, Elon himself could be held accountable for many of his company’s problems.

Tesla boss Elon Musk has made plenty of wildly ambitious – and frequently inaccurate – claims about Tesla’s upcoming fleet of robotaxis. But now, after years of eyebrow-raising promises, the first of them is actually set to hit public roads next month. As part of a pilot program in Austin, Texas, Tesla will finally launch its long-hyped robotaxi service in a bid to close the wide lead Waymo currently holds in the autonomous vehicle race.

In 2019, Musk infamously claimed that by the end of that year, Tesla would have 1 million robotaxis on US roads. It does not currently have a single one, but next month, it will deploy approximately 10 robotaxis in Austin, and, if all goes well, could dramatically expand this to thousands of vehicles. Importantly, these will not be Tesla’s Cybercab, but rather versions of its current models equipped with the new Unsupervised Full-Self Driving system.

Read: Waymo’s Driverless Cars Kept Hitting Objects You See But They Don’t

During a recent interview with CNBC, Musk said it will be prudent for the company to be cautious in its roll-out of the system and that Tesla employees will monitor the fleet of robotaxis remotely.

“It’s prudent for us to start with a small number, confirm that things are going well and then scale it up,” Musk said. “We’ll be watching what the cars are doing very carefully and as confidence grows, less of that will be needed.”

To help ensure the roll-out of the robotaxi fleet is as smooth as possible, vehicles will be geofenced to certain areas of Austin. As the robotaxi fleet expands, Musk predicted that by the end of 2026, Tesla will have “hundreds of thousands, if not over a million Teslas doing self-driving in the US.” Like with all predictions from the world’s richest man, we’ll have to wait and see if this becomes a reality.

Buying Uber?

During the same interview, Musk was asked why Tesla doesn’t buy Uber. Musk sees no need to make such a move, noting the brand already has a large fleet of vehicles and everything it needs to run a successful robotaxi service. This will include the ability for private Tesla owners to add their vehicles to the fleet, meaning they can be used as robotaxis whenever the owner doesn’t need their car.

“We have millions of cars that will be able to operate autonomously,” Musk said. “And I should say that it’s a combination of a Tesla-owned fleet and also enabling Tesla owners to be able to add or subtract their car to the fleet, so that existing Tesla owners will be able to earn money by adding their car to the fleet for autonomous use.”

Elon Musk seems to have no plans of stepping down from Tesla anytime soon, despite the growing grumbles from shareholders who aren’t thrilled about his other ventures, especially when meddling in global politics. To solidify his grip on the company, he’s also eyeing a bigger slice of Tesla’s pie, aiming to raise his stake to around 25%, just to make sure no investors can force him out.

While speaking over video during the Qatar Economic Forum in Doha this week, Musk said he has “no doubt” he will remain CEO for at least the next five years, unless he dies in that time. A little grim, but we get the point.

Read: Elon Musk’s Latest Investor Power Play Just Made Suing Tesla Nearly Impossible

This news may upset some who were concerned Musk was getting distracted and was no longer fully committed to Tesla, but there’s no denying the fact Musk has led Tesla through a rapid expansion that transformed them from a fringe player into one of the world’s largest car manufacturers by volume, and the single most valuable by market cap.

It was recently reported that Tesla board members started to reach out to executive search firms to see if they could find a new CEO. It’s understood that board members had grown concerned Musk was spending too much time in Washington alongside President Trump. However, both Tesla and Musk later denied these assertions.

As reported by the Wall Street Journal, Musk isn’t going anywhere. He currently owns a 12.77% stake in Tesla that currently is worth more than $140 billion, but during a separate interview this week, he said he’d like to increase this to around 25%. He believes this will give him enough control to ensure he cannot be ousted by activist investors.

“It’s not a money thing,” Musk said. “It’s a reasonable control thing over the future of the company. That’s the number I’d feel comfortable at, because that’s where I have some control, but not so much control that I can’t be thrown out, [unless] I’m destroying the value of the company or if I’ve just gone flat-out crazy.”

It seems as though some of the blowback for his involvement in US politics has also gotten to Musk. He spent almost $300 million last year to help President Trump return to the Oval Office, but has confirmed he will “do a lot less” political spending in the future. “If I see a reason to do political spending in the future, I will do it,” he added, but said, “I do not currently see a reason.”

It wasn’t a major Tesla shareholder who took down Elon Musk’s record-breaking $56 billion pay package in court, but rather a guy with just nine Tesla shares. But, of course, Tesla isn’t keen on letting that happen again. So, earlier this month, the company quietly tweaked its corporate bylaws, making it harder for shareholders to sue the board or executives over suspected breaches of fiduciary duty.

Read: Musk Appeals For $56 Billion Tesla Payday, As Firing Thousands Just Doesn’t Pay Enough

Tesla’s latest filing reveals that to sue the EV company, an investor now has to hold at least 3% of Tesla’s outstanding shares. Given the automaker’s current market value, that means you’d need around 97 million shares worth more than $34 billion to even think about taking legal action. Good luck with that.

The Texas Twist

Why the change? Well, Tesla has been able to implement this thanks to its recent move to Texas, a state with laws that are a bit friendlier to corporations than Delaware, where Tesla was originally incorporated. Richard Tornetta, the shareholder who first sued over Musk’s compensation, filed the case when Tesla was still a Delaware company. But last year, Tesla made the leap to Texas after receiving shareholder approval, making it easier to adopt these new, lawsuit-limiting bylaws.

Speaking with CNBC, corporate and securities law trial attorney Ann Lipton said Tesla is making the most of more favorable laws in Texas that allow companies to limit shareholder lawsuits for alleged breaches of fiduciary duties. While the change will likely go unnoticed by the majority of Tesla shareholders, it does severely limit their ability to take Tesla to court for wrongdoings.

Musk’s Pay Saga

Elon Musk continues efforts to have his compensation package reinstated. In 2018, the world’s richest man decided against taking a salary at Tesla and struck a deal to buy 303 million Tesla shares at $23 apiece if the company met certain performance and valuation targets. It reached all of these targets, but in January 2024, Delaware Chancellor Kathaleen McCormick annulled the pay plan. According to her, the Tesla board members who approved it were essentially beholden to Musk.

Tesla shareholders were then asked to vote on the pay package again, and they approved it a second time. But the judge wasn’t having it and blocked the deal yet again. It’s a pay plan that just won’t die, and it seems like neither will Musk’s determination to get it reinstated.

In the wake of the US-China trade war, Tesla temporarily halted shipments of parts from China to the US. However, with both countries now agreeing to a 90-day truce and significantly reducing their respective tariffs, Tesla is looking to resume the import of critical components from China. Elon Musk may want to keep this news under wraps from President Trump, though, as his stance on tariffs is far from favorable.

Read: Tesla’s CyberCab Promises 300-Mile Range with Surprisingly Small Battery

An unnamed inside source told Reuters that Tesla will start shipping Cybercab and Semi parts from China at the end of this month. The electric automaker will reportedly start trial production of the Cybercab in October before moving ahead with mass production in 2026. Tesla has grandiose ambitions for the Cybercab and is betting on hundreds of thousands of units being sold in the US, forming the core of its long-awaited robotaxi service.

As the electric car maker gears up for production, many details about the Cybercab remain under wraps. What is known, however, is that the vehicle will be a compact, two-seater, completely eliminating the traditional steering wheel and pedals. Tesla is keeping specifics to a minimum, but early reports suggest the Cybercab will feature a battery pack smaller than 50 kWh, yet still offering an impressive range of approximately 300 miles (483 km).

Progress on the Tesla Semi

Production of the Tesla Semi officially began in late 2022, but progress has been slow. Full-scale production is expected to kick off next year at a new factory adjacent to the existing Gigafactory in Nevada, which will significantly expand Tesla’s production capabilities.

While Elon Musk and President Trump have found common ground on many issues in recent months, tariffs remain a notable point of disagreement. Trump has famously called tariffs “the most beautiful word to me in the dictionary,” yet Musk has long championed free trade. In fact, according to Reuters, he urged Trump to lower tariffs, though he ultimately left the decision in the President’s hands.

One of the unanticipated consequences of the tariffs was their negative impact on domestic production. Tesla’s CFO, Vaibhav Taneja, noted that the tariffs hurt the company’s US investments, as the company had to import equipment from China to expand its local production lines.

Until recently, Tesla lease customers were left with no option to buy their cars at the end of their lease term. Why? Because Elon Musk was sure that these cars were just biding their time until they could be turned into autonomous robotaxis.

Fast forward a few years, and, surprise, the robotaxi future hasn’t materialized. So, instead of the cars joining some high-tech fleet, Tesla decided to flip them for more profit, and customers aren’t exactly thrilled about it.

More: Yes, New Car Prices Did Jump After Trump Announced Tariffs, Data Proves

In a 2019 earnings call, Musk stated, “You don’t have the option of buying. We want them back.” The “them” being the cars, of course. He went on to confidently predict that by the following year, Tesla would have “over 1 million robotaxis on the road.” The idea was that the hundreds of thousands of leased Teslas would eventually join this futuristic fleet. Tesla even told its lease customers this was the exact reason they couldn’t buy the car they’d been driving.

According to a new report from Reuters, those same cars from 2019 to 2024 ended up with upgrades. And then, Tesla put them back up for sale or sold them via auction. From a business perspective, it’s a savvy move. It costs Tesla basically nothing to upgrade these cars via software and then “jack up the price”, according to an unnamed source who spoke to the outlet.

In some cases, that meant an acceleration boost worth around $2,000. In others, it meant the addition of Full Self-Driving (Supervised) tech, which has cost some customers up to $15,000 at times, though now it’s back down to $8,000.

On the used market, these cars fetched far more than they would have if Tesla had simply let the lessees buy them at the end of their term, particularly during the Covid-induced price surge. Needless to say, customers weren’t thrilled to learn their car had been sold off without their knowledge. One particularly upset owner even called out the brand publicly.

Wow so returning a .@tesla lease is a poor experience. Poor customer service, crazy charges, lies about not being able to buy out my lease, then the car gets sold at auction not turned into a robo taxi like I was told.
Slow clap @elonmusk
Also canceled my cybertruck order.

— PixelsandPeeps (@PixelsandPeeps) May 4, 2024

A Shift In Policy

Things changed in late 2024, however. On November 27, Tesla announced that lessees would now have the freedom to buy their car at the end of their term. Why the change, especially if the automaker is closer than ever to Level 5 autonomy as it claims? Values are dropping faster than ever before. On top of that, competition is getting better, and Tesla’s public perception is struggling right now.

Allowing lessees to buy their vehicle is what most of the auto industry sees as a no-brainer since the customer is already there and connected to the car in question. Of course, this depends on the buyout price, which, in many cases, is still inflated. For instance, the buyout price for a standard Model Y AWD is a hefty $33,251 before taxes, which is higher than current market prices for three year old examples.

Still, the damage done by Tesla to its customer base might be irreparable to a degree. One customer told Reuters that “I love the car, I just don’t like what has been going on at the top with the CEO. I don’t want to be associated with that anymore.” At least Tesla’s new plan seems to be to build its own Robotaxi fleet. Whether it gets to even call it that remains up for debate.

The seven members of the Wisconsin Supreme Court hear oral arguments. (Henry Redman/Wisconsin Examiner)

This story was published in partnership with the Center for Media and Democracy, 

The more than $100 million spent on this spring’s Supreme Court election in Wisconsin set a new national record for spending on a state judicial race. The figure almost doubles the previous record of $51 million, which donors poured into the Wisconsin Supreme Court race in 2023. 

“The spending in this race is an indication of just how dominant state high courts have become in the biggest political fights playing out today,” Douglas Keith, a senior counsel in the Brennan Center’s Judiciary Program, told the Center for Media and Democracy (CMD). He pointed to the “growing recognition” of the significance of state courts in ruling on both challenges to election laws and abortion rights since the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v Wade in 2022. 

The record spending on the 2025 Wisconsin race, the pathways the money traveled and the outsized influence of a few major donors raise questions about the future and fairness of judicial elections in Wisconsin and beyond. 

Outside spending

The campaign for liberal candidate Susan Crawford — who ultimately won the election by 10 points — raised more than $28.3 million, while her conservative counterpart Brad Schimel pulled in over $15.1 million in campaign funding, according to a CMD analysis of Wisconsin Ethics Commission filings. 

Special interest and ideological political action committees (PACs) accounted for the majority of the spending, dropping almost $57 million on both the liberal and conservative candidates. Thirteen of those outside groups spent more than $1 million each (and in many cases, well over $1 million) on the race, for a total of $48.8 million — more than the combined total raised by the two campaigns. 

 

“Big money has ruined us,” Janine Geske, a retired Wisconsin Supreme Court justice, told CMD. “It distresses me. It just goes to the heart of the independence of the judiciary.” 

Several of the highest spending groups are linked to just a small number of individuals. Billionaire Charles Koch’s astroturf operation Americans for Prosperity spent more than $3.3 million, while shipping giant Richard Uihlein’s Fair Courts America super PAC spent over $4.4 million. 

Few backers drew more attention than Trump’s top campaign donor Elon Musk, who funneled nearly $18.7 million into the race to boost Schimel through his America PAC and the Building America’s Future PAC, a group he has reportedly funded in part since 2022.

“The Musk involvement helped politicize [and polarize] the race,” Charles Franklin, professor of law and director of the Marquette Law School Poll, told CMD. “That was a brand new element.” 

There was a strong turnout in the April election, with 51% of Wisconsin’s eligible voters casting ballots — remarkably high for an election in which the state Supreme Court was the highest office on the ballot. 

“Voter turnout is up because the race is important, but it’s also up because so much money is being poured into it,” Franklin said, noting a 15-year rise in turnout in the state’s elections for its highest court. 

Political party loophole

Although Wisconsin Supreme Court elections are officially nonpartisan, the state’s Republican and Democratic parties played major roles. “It’s been so obviously a de facto partisan race for several cycles,” said Franklin, who also highlighted the significance of endorsements from President Trump and former President Obama in the election. 

The maximum amount that can be legally given to the campaign committee of a candidate running for the Wisconsin Supreme Court is $20,000. However, individuals can make unlimited contributions to a political party. Some donors use this as a legal loophole to funnel money to judicial candidates by first giving money to the state party, which then transfers the funds to the candidate’s campaign committee. 

In the most recent election, the Wisconsin Democratic Party gave more than $10.4 million to Crawford while the state GOP contributed over $9.5 million to Schimel, according to a CMD analysis of Wisconsin Ethics Commission filings. The contributions from the state parties accounted for almost two-thirds of Schimel’s overall campaign spending and more than a third of Crawford’s. 

The top donor to one of the two major political parties in Wisconsin is Diane Hendricks, who has given just under $3.6 million so far this year to the state GOP. She is the owner of Hendricks Holdings and a co-founder of ABC Roofing Supplies, the largest roofing supply company in the country. 

 

In addition to the $18.7 million Musk spent through PACs, he also gave $3 million to the Wisconsin GOP this year. Similarly, Richard Uihlein has given nearly $1.7 million to the

Wisconsin GOP in 2025 on top of the $4.4 million his PAC dropped on the race. His wife, Elizabeth Uihlein, gave more than $2.1 million to the state party. The couple each sent the maximum individual contribution of $20,000 to Schimel’s campaign as well. 

Major donations also flowed in on the Democratic side. Billionaire investor George Soros gave $2 million and Illinois Governor JB Pritzker gave $1.5 million to Wisconsin’s Democratic Party. 

Reform prospects 

The Marquette Law School Poll conducted in February found that 61% of respondents believe party contributions reduce the independence of judges. 

“It’s crucial that the public be able to look at courts and think they’re doing something different than raw politics,” Keith said. “This kind of an election makes it really hard for them to think of courts that way if the process for picking judges looks like the process for picking a U.S. senator.” 

Geske, who supports judicial elections in principle, shares that concern. “If there is no faith, we don’t have a system. It doesn’t work.” 

Yet, in that same poll, 90% of respondents said it was better to elect rather than appoint state Supreme Court justices. Wisconsin is one of 14 states that rely on nonpartisan elections to choose their Supreme Court justices, a practice it has followed since becoming a state in 1848. 

While the Marquette Law School Poll suggests there is broad public support for electing judges, record-breaking spending on those races raises concerns about judicial independence. 

The rising tide of outside spending is unlikely to recede, particularly given the U.S. Supreme Court’s landmark decision in Citizens United v. FEC (2010) allowing unlimited outside spending on elections, including for judicial races. 

“Citizens United really set us back,” Geske said. “It destroyed the ability to have an independent judicial race where people can really look at the quality of the candidate versus the politics of it.” 

In 2017, she was one of 54 judges who petitioned the Wisconsin Supreme Court for stricter ethics rules to prevent judges from hearing cases involving major campaign contributors. But since the petition was ultimately rejected, no state rule currently requires a judge’s recusal or automatic disqualification from hearing such a case. The decision to recuse is left up to each individual justice in each case. 

The U.S. Supreme Court ruling in Caperton v. A.T. Massey Coal Co. (2009) held that a judge’s recusal is required when the campaign support received is so significant that it creates a “serious risk of actual bias,” but that standard has rarely been applied since the decision.

Geske had hoped that Wisconsin’s highest court would revisit the possibility of stricter ethics rules in this context but now thinks that is unlikely given the significant financial contributions several justices have received. She believes that stronger guidelines rather than requiring mandatory recusal may be a more viable option. 

Even if recusal guidelines were strengthened, Geske noted there would be practical complications if a Wisconsin Supreme Court justice stepped aside from a case. Unlike some other states, Wisconsin has no system for replacing a recused justice. If one of the seven justices steps aside, the court could be left with risking a deadlocked 3–3 decision. 

Beyond the question of independence, Keith said more could be done to enhance transparency in Wisconsin judicial elections overall, such as requiring more frequent financial disclosures. “While we know a lot about what groups were spending and how much they spent, we know very little about where their money was coming from,” he pointed out. “A lot of it is informed guesswork.” 

“The unprecedented and obscenely high amount of political money being raised and spent in Wisconsin Supreme Court elections is a fairly new and horrific development in our state,” wrote Jay Heck, executive director of Common Cause Wisconsin, in 2024. “It wasn’t always this way here and it cannot and should not continue.” 

Heck pointed out that Wisconsin enacted the Impartial Justice Act in 2009, which provided public financing for state Supreme Court campaigns in exchange for a voluntary spending cap and a ban on soliciting private contributions. However, Republican Governor Scott Walker and the GOP-controlled legislature repealed the measure and dramatically weakened Wisconsin’s campaign finance laws. 

“We went from being the progressive good government promised land to the political wasteland of the country,” Heck said. 

Common Cause has called for updating and reinstating the 2009 reforms, along with strengthening recusal rules and prohibiting coordination between campaigns and outside groups. 

A recent poll by the Wisconsin Democracy Campaign found that almost three of four Wisconsin voters want limits on outside PACs, but that reform is not possible until the Citizens United decision is overturned. 

Next year’s Supreme Court election 

Major reforms are unlikely before the next election in April 2026, when conservative Justice Rebecca Bradley will be seeking to retain her seat. Spending will likely be lower than in this year’s race given that the court’s new 4–3 liberal majority will not be in play.

However, the scale and tone of the 2025 race may influence the 2026 election and others in different ways. Geske said she knows judges who would have previously considered running for the state Supreme Court but are no longer interested. 

“When you get into these kinds of numbers and that kind of race, they’re not going to put themselves and their families through it,” she said. “It narrows the number of people who are willing to run for the court.” 

Geske said that if judicial elections had been like this when she ran in 1993, she wouldn’t have run. “When I was running, we really tried to have bipartisan support,” she said. “Now it really is: ‘Whose side are you on?’” 

“I think that will continue and, as a result, I think that big money will continue to follow.”

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