On the PBS show Washington Week with The Atlantic on February 7, host Jeffrey Goldberg began: “Elon Musk, the unelected, unconfirmed, unofficial, but extremely powerful prime minister of the United States, is carrying out his plan to purge thousands of employees from the federal government.”
A few minutes later, NPR reporter Asma Khalid talked about Musk “increasing starvation rates.” Atlantic staff writer Anne Applebaum wondered, “are Americans willing to accept a high level of cruelty and death just, you know, on the president’s whim, on Elon Musk’s whim?”
There are several ironies here. First, no one elected anyone at PBS as they punish any limit on government. Second, an unelected billionaire named Laurene Powell Jobs owns The Atlantic, which completed a friendly takeover of the Washington Week show in August 2023.
Laurene, one of Kamala…
