Anne Applebaum: Outside the Rule of Law

If the Chinese hacked the U.S. government the way private citizen Elon has, it would be a major act of cyber warfare. And since Elon is a government contractor, he's now in a position to make policy calls that benefit his own companies and hurt his competitors—following the Russian oligarch model. We are in a completely lawless realm, and this is likely to continue until he is stopped. Meanwhile, government employees are being forced to choose between conforming or protecting the public. Plus, Elon is also sabotaging America's soft power and influence in Africa while he and the other tech overlords plot how to derail Europe's effort to regulate them.

Anne Applebaum joins Tim Miller. show notes

• Wired article on the young, inexperienced engineers helping Elon

• Anne's 2020 piece about complicity (gifted)

• Josh Marshall's piece about Elon's operative *already* rewriting code at the Treasury Department

• Book Anne mentioned, "The Captive Mind"

• Anne's piece, "Europe's Elon Musk Problem" (gifted)