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The White House on Thursday blasted a federal court’s decision to block many of President Donald Trump’s sweeping tariffs, marking a major setback to his trade strategy.Since returning to the presidency in January, Trump has moved to redraw his country’s trade ties with the world while using tariffs as a negotiating tactic to pressure foreign governments to the table.But the stop-start rollout of levies, impacting both friend and foe, has roiled markets and snarled supply chains.The three-judge Court of International Trade ruled Wednesday that Trump had overstepped his authority, and barred most of the duties announced since he took office.The White House called this ruling “blatantly wrong” on social media, expressing confidence that the decision would be overturned on appeal.Attorneys for the Trump administration have filed an appeal against the ruling, which gave the White House 10 days to complete the process of halting affected tariffs.- ‘Nothing’s really changed -Trump’s trade adviser Peter Navarro told Bloomberg Television: “Nothing’s really changed.””If anybody thinks this caught the administration by surprise, think again,” he added.Kevin Hassett, director of the National Economic Council, told Fox Business that although officials have other options that would “take a couple of months” to implement, they are not planning to pursue these right now.He insisted that “hiccups” because of decisions by “activist judges” would not affect negotiations with other trading partners, adding that three deals are close to finalization.Trump’s global trade war has roiled markets with import levies aimed at punishing economies that sell more to the United States than they buy.He argued that resulting trade deficits and the threat posed by drug smuggling constituted a “national emergency” that justified the widespread tariffs — which the court ruled against.White House spokesman Kush Desai earlier said: “It is not for unelected judges to decide how to properly address a national emergency.”- China: ‘cancel wrongful tariffs’ -Trump has been using tariffs as leverage in trade negotiations, including with the European Union and China.Beijing — which was hit by additional 145 percent tariffs before they were temporarily reduced to give space for negotiations — reacted by saying Washington should scrap the levies.”China urges the United States to heed the rational voices from the international community and domestic stakeholders and fully cancel the wrongful unilateral tariff measures,” said commerce ministry spokeswoman He Yongqian.Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney said his government welcomed the court decision, but warned that trade ties remain “profoundly and adversely threatened” by the remaining sector-specific levies and further threats.Japan’s tariffs envoy Ryosei Akazawa said Tokyo would study the ruling, as he left for a fourth round of talks in Washington.Trump unveiled sweeping import duties on nearly all trading partners in April, at a baseline 10 percent — plus steeper levies on dozens of economies including China and the EU, which have since been paused.The US court’s ruling also quashes duties that Trump imposed on Canada, Mexico and China separately using emergency powers.But it leaves intact 25 percent duties on imported autos, steel and aluminum.Asian markets rallied Thursday but US indexes were mixed around midday. Europe closed slightly down as realization sank in that the decision might not be a definitive moment.- ‘Extraordinary threat’ -The federal trade court was ruling in two separate cases — brought by businesses and a coalition of state governments — arguing that the president had violated Congress’s power of the purse.The judges said the cases rested on whether the International Emergency Economic Powers Act of 1977 (IEEPA) delegate such powers to the president “in the form of authority to impose unlimited tariffs on goods from nearly every country in the world.””The court does not read IEEPA to confer such unbounded authority and sets aside the challenged tariffs imposed thereunder,” they said. The judges stated that any interpretation of the IEEPA that “delegates unlimited tariff authority is unconstitutional.”Analysts at London-based research group Capital Economics said the case may end up with the Supreme Court, but would be unlikely to mark the end of the tariff war.Trump could explore other sections of US law or seek congressional approval for tariffs.burs-amc-dk-bys/st

Two and a half years since ChatGPT rocked the world, scientist and writer Gary Marcus still remains generative artificial intelligence’s great skeptic, playing a counter-narrative to Silicon Valley’s AI true believers.Marcus became a prominent figure of the AI revolution in 2023, when he sat beside OpenAI chief Sam Altman at a Senate hearing in Washington as both men urged politicians to take the technology seriously and consider regulation.Much has changed since then. Altman has abandoned his calls for caution, instead teaming up with Japan’s SoftBank and funds in the Middle East to propel his company to sky-high valuations as he tries to make ChatGPT the next era-defining tech behemoth.”Sam’s not getting money anymore from the Silicon Valley establishment,” and his seeking funding from abroad is a sign of “desperation,” Marcus told AFP on the sidelines of the Web Summit in Vancouver, Canada.Marcus’s criticism centers on a fundamental belief: generative AI, the predictive technology that churns out seemingly human-level content, is simply too flawed to be transformative.The large language models (LLMs) that power these capabilities are inherently broken, he argues, and will never deliver on Silicon Valley’s grand promises.”I’m skeptical of AI as it is currently practiced,” he said. “I think AI could have tremendous value, but LLMs are not the way there. And I think the companies running it are not mostly the best people in the world.”His skepticism stands in stark contrast to the prevailing mood at the Web Summit, where most conversations among 15,000 attendees focused on generative AI’s seemingly infinite promise. Many believe humanity stands on the cusp of achieving super intelligence or artificial general intelligence (AGI) technology that could match and even surpass human capability.That optimism has driven OpenAI’s valuation to $300 billion, unprecedented levels for a startup, with billionaire Elon Musk’s xAI racing to keep pace. Yet for all the hype, the practical gains remain limited. The technology excels mainly at coding assistance for programmers and text generation for office work. AI-created images, while often entertaining, serve primarily as memes or deepfakes, offering little obvious benefit to society or business.Marcus, a longtime New York University professor, champions a fundamentally different approach to building AI — one he believes might actually achieve human-level intelligence in ways that current generative AI never will.”One consequence of going all-in on LLMs is that any alternative approach that might be better gets starved out,” he explained. This tunnel vision will “cause a delay in getting to AI that can help us beyond just coding — a waste of resources.”- ‘Right answers matter’ -Instead, Marcus advocates for neurosymbolic AI, an approach that attempts to rebuild human logic artificially rather than simply training computer models on vast datasets, as is done with ChatGPT and similar products like Google’s Gemini or Anthropic’s Claude.He dismisses fears that generative AI will eliminate white-collar jobs, citing a simple reality: “There are too many white-collar jobs where getting the right answer actually matters.”This points to AI’s most persistent problem: hallucinations, the technology’s well-documented tendency to produce confident-sounding mistakes. Even AI’s strongest advocates acknowledge this flaw may be impossible to eliminate.Marcus recalls a telling exchange from 2023 with LinkedIn founder Reid Hoffman, a Silicon Valley heavyweight: “He bet me any amount of money that hallucinations would go away in three months. I offered him $100,000 and he wouldn’t take the bet.”Looking ahead, Marcus warns of a darker consequence once investors realize generative AI’s limitations. Companies like OpenAI will inevitably monetize their most valuable asset: user data.”The people who put in all this money will want their returns, and I think that’s leading them toward surveillance,” he said, pointing to Orwellian risks for society. “They have all this private data, so they can sell that as a consolation prize.”Marcus acknowledges that generative AI will find useful applications in areas where occasional errors don’t matter much. “They’re very useful for auto-complete on steroids: coding, brainstorming, and stuff like that,” he said. “But nobody’s going to make much money off it because they’re expensive to run, and everybody has the same product.”

Boeing is eyeing approvals for significantly higher production of the 737 MAX in 2025 after US authorities allowed increased output on the 787 plane, the company’s CEO said Thursday.Boeing CEO Kelly Ortberg said the company could win US approval to raise MAX output at mid-year and again at the end of 2025. The faster than expected timeframe boosted shares.The Federal Aviation Administration in the last month green-lighted Boeing to produce seven 787 Dreamliner planes per month, up from five, Ortberg said at a financial conference.The FAA review is “the same process we’re going to use for the 737 MAX increase,” Ortberg said. “So I feel pretty good, and we talked with the FAA extensively to make sure we’re aligned.”The FAA has currently capped Boeing’s MAX production at 38 per month. The agency began more closely monitoring Boeing’s production processes following a January 2024 incident on an Alaska Airlines plane in which a window panel blew out mid-flight.The Alaska Airlines incident was the most significant involving a MAX plane since two fatal crashes in 2018 and 2019 spawned numerous lawsuits and government probes.Ortberg was recruited to Boeing last August following a leadership shakeup. Boosting plane output is essential to returning Boeing to profitability after a series of losses. Ortberg is targeting a mid-year FAA approval to 42 per month for the MAX in light of improved production processes. That could set the stage for an FAA approval to 47 per month around the end of 2025, although the company would not begin producing that many planes in 2025, he said.”Having said that, if we’re not ready we won’t do it,” Ortberg said. “Key performance indicators have to be there for us to move to the next rate. And you don’t know where you are until you move there, so we’ll see how things progress.”Ortberg also said Boeing was on track to complete FAA certification on the 777X and of new versions of the 737 MAX. On tariffs, Ortberg reiterated that the company’s bigger worry surrounds potential retaliation from trading partners rather than the impact of the levies on manufacturing supplies.He said China had reversed a ban on airlines accepting Boeing planes following the deescalation of the trade war between Washington and Beijing.”The first deliveries will be next month,” Ortberg said of Chinese carriers.Shares of Boeing jumped 4.4 percent in morning trading.

Harvard began its annual graduation ceremony Thursday as a federal judge considers the legality of punitive measures taken against the university by US President Donald Trump that threaten to overshadow festivities.Hundreds of robed students and academics squeezed onto the steps of the campus’s main library early Thursday as Trump piles unprecedented pressure onto the university, one of the most prestigious in the world.He is seeking to ban it from having foreign students, shredding its federal contracts, slashing its multibillion-dollar grants and challenging its tax-free status.Harvard is fighting all of the measures in court.The Ivy League institution has continually drawn Trump’s ire while publicly rejecting his administration’s repeated demands to give up control of recruitment, curricula and research choices. The government claims Harvard tolerates anti-Semitism and liberal bias.”Harvard is treating our country with great disrespect, and all they’re doing is getting in deeper and deeper,” Trump said Wednesday.Harvard president Alan Garber, who told National Public Radio on Tuesday that “sometimes they don’t like what we represent,” may address the ceremony, which will be attended by as many as 30,000 people.Garber has acknowledged that Harvard does have issues with anti-Semitism, and has struggled to ensure that a variety of views can be safely heard on campus.”The Covenant of Water” author Abraham Verghese will be the commencement speaker and will receive an honorary degree in front of crowds wearing academic garb.Ahead of the ceremony, members of the Harvard band sporting distinctive crimson blazers and brandishing their instruments filed through the narrow streets of Cambridge, Massachusetts — home to the elite school, America’s oldest university.A huge stage had been erected and hundreds of chairs laid out in a grassy precinct that was closed off to the public as the event got under way.Students wearing black academic gowns also toured through Cambridge with photo-taking family members, AFP correspondents saw.Madeleine Riskin-Kutz, a Franco-American classics and linguistics student at Harvard, said some students were planning individual acts of protest against the Trump policies.”The atmosphere (is) that just continuing on joyfully with the processions and the fanfare is in itself an act of resistance,” the 22-year-old said.- Legal fightback -Garber has led the fightback in US academia after Trump targeted several prestigious universities — including Columbia, which made sweeping concessions to the administration in an effort to restore $400 million of withdrawn federal grants.A federal judge in Boston will on Thursday hear arguments over Trump’s effort to exclude Harvard from the main system for sponsoring and hosting foreign students.Judge Allison Burroughs quickly paused the policy which would have ended Harvard’s ability to bring students from abroad who currently make up 27 percent of its student body. Harvard has since been flooded with inquiries from foreign students seeking to transfer to other institutions, Maureen Martin, director of immigration services, said Wednesday. “Many international students and scholars are reporting significant emotional distress that is affecting their mental health and making it difficult to focus on their studies,” Martin wrote in a court filing.Retired immigration judge Patricia Sheppard protested outside Harvard Yard on Wednesday, sporting a black judicial robe and brandishing a sign reading “for the rule of law.”Basketball star and human rights campaigner Kareem Abdul-Jabbar addressed the class of 2025 for Class Day on Wednesday.”When a tyrannical administration tried to bully and threaten Harvard to give up their academic freedom and destroy free speech, Dr. Alan Garber rejected the illegal and immoral pressures,” he said, comparing Garber to civil rights icon Rosa Parks.

A US federal court blocked most of President Donald Trump’s sweeping tariffs, boosting markets Thursday with a ruling that could derail his  trade strategy.The opinion marks a significant setback to Trump as he bids to redraw the US trading relationship with the world by forcing governments to the negotiating table through tough new tariffs.Trump’s global trade war has roiled financial markets with a stop-start rollout of import levies aimed at punishing economies that sell more to the United States than they buy.Trump argued that the resulting trade deficits and the threat posed by the influx of drugs constituted a “national emergency” that justified widespread tariffs.But the three-judge Court of International Trade ruled Wednesday that Trump had overstepped his authority, and barred most of the duties announced since he took office in January.Attorneys for the Trump administration promptly filed an appeal against the ruling, which gave the White House 10 days to complete the bureaucratic process of halting the tariffs.”It is not for unelected judges to decide how to properly address a national emergency,” White House spokesman Kush Desai said in a statement.”President Trump pledged to put America first, and the administration is committed to using every lever of executive power to address this crisis and restore American greatness,” Desai said.- China: ‘cancel wrongful tariffs’ -The ruling comes as Trump was using the tariffs as leverage in trade negotiations with friends and foes, including the European Union and China.Beijing — which was hit by 145 percent tariffs before they were sharply reduced to give space for negotiations — reacted to the court ruling by saying the United States should scrap the levies.”China urges the United States to heed the rational voices from the international community and domestic stakeholders and fully cancel the wrongful unilateral tariff measures,” said commerce ministry spokeswoman He Yongqian. Japan’s tariffs envoy Ryosei Akazawa said as he left for a fourth round of talks in Washington that Tokyo — reeling from tariffs on cars — would study the ruling.Trump unveiled sweeping import duties on nearly all trading partners on April 2, at a baseline 10 percent, plus steeper levies on dozens of economies, including China and the European Union.The US court’s ruling also quashes duties that Trump imposed on Canada, Mexico and China separately using emergency powers.But it leaves 25-percent duties on the auto, steel and aluminum industries intact.Some of the turmoil was calmed after Trump paused the larger tariffs for 90 days pending negotiations.Asian markets rallied on Thursday and US futures pointed to early gains, but Europe was mixed, with London in the red while Paris and Frankfurt rose.The ruling “throws into disarray several trade deals that have already been agreed, and those that are still in the negotiation phase,” said Kathleen Brooks, research director at XTB brokerage firm.- ‘Extraordinary threat’ -The federal trade court was ruling in two separate cases — brought by businesses and a coalition of state governments — arguing that the president had violated Congress’s power of the purse.The judges said the cases rested on whether the International Emergency Economic Powers Act of 1977 (IEEPA) delegate such powers to the president “in the form of authority to impose unlimited tariffs on goods from nearly every country in the world.””The court does not read IEEPA to confer such unbounded authority and sets aside the challenged tariffs imposed thereunder.” The judges stated that any interpretation of the IEEPA that “delegates unlimited tariff authority is unconstitutional.” Gregory Meeks, the top Democrat on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, said the ruling confirmed that “these tariffs are an illegal abuse of executive power.””Trump’s declaration of a bogus national emergency to justify his global trade war was an absurd and unlawful use of IEEPA,” he said.White House aide Stephen Miller called it a “judicial coup.”Analysts at London-based research group Capital Economics said the case may end up in the hands of the Supreme Court.”But it would be unlikely to mark the end of the tariff war given the various other routes through which the Trump administration could impose tariffs,” they said, noting that the US president could explore other sections of US law or seek congressional approval for tariffs.burs-stu-lth/rmb

Harvard is due to hold its annual graduation ceremony Thursday as a federal judge considers the legality of punitive measures taken against the university by President Donald Trump that threaten to overshadow festivities.Thursday’s commencement comes as Trump piles unprecedented pressure on Harvard, seeking to ban it from having foreign students, shredding its contracts with the federal government, slashing its multibillion-dollar grants and challenging its tax-free status.Harvard is challenging all of the measures in court.The Ivy League institution has continually drawn Trump’s ire while publicly rejecting his administration’s repeated demands to give up control of recruitment, curricula and research choices. The government claims Harvard tolerates antisemitism and liberal bias.”Harvard is treating our country with great disrespect, and all they’re doing is getting in deeper and deeper,” Trump said Wednesday.Harvard president Alan Garber, who told National Public Radio on Tuesday that “sometimes they don’t like what we represent,” may speak to address the ceremony.Garber has acknowledged that Harvard does have issues with antisemitism, and has struggled to ensure that a variety of viewpoints can be safely heard on campus.”What is perplexing is the measures that they have taken to address these (issues) don’t even hit the same people that they believe are causing the problems,” Garber told NPR.Basketball star and human rights campaigner Kareem Abdul-Jabbar addressed the class of 2025 for Class Day on Wednesday.”When a tyrannical administration tried to bully and threaten Harvard to give up their academic freedom and destroy free speech, Dr. Alan Garber rejected the illegal and immoral pressures,” he said, comparing Garber to civil rights icon Rosa Parks.Madeleine Riskin-Kutz, a Franco-American classics and linguistics student at Harvard, said some students were planning individual acts of protest against the Trump policies.”The atmosphere (is) that just continuing on joyfully with the processions and the fanfare is in itself an act of resistance,” the 22-year-old said.- Legal fightback -Garber has led the fight-back in US academia after Trump targeted several prestigious universities including Columbia which made sweeping concessions to the administration in an effort to restore $400 million of withdrawn federal grants.A federal judge in Boston will on Thursday hear arguments over Trump’s effort to exclude Harvard from the main system for sponsoring and hosting foreign students.Judge Allison Burroughs quickly paused the policy which would have ended Harvard’s ability to bring students from abroad who currently make up 27 percent of its student body. Harvard has since been flooded with inquiries from foreign students seeking to transfer to other institutions, Maureen Martin, director of immigration services, said Wednesday. “Many international students and scholars are reporting significant emotional distress that is affecting their mental health and making it difficult to focus on their studies,” Martin wrote in a court filing.Retired immigration judge Patricia Sheppard protested outside Harvard Yard on Wednesday, sporting a black judicial robe and brandishing a sign reading “for the rule of law.””We have to look at why some of these actions have been filed, and it does not seem to me seemly that a president would engage in certain actions as retribution,” she told AFP.Ahead of the graduation ceremony, members of the Harvard band sporting distinctive crimson blazers and brandishing their instruments filed through the narrow streets of Cambridge, Massachusetts — home to the elite school, America’s oldest university.A huge stage had been erected and hundreds of chairs laid out in a grassy precinct that was closed off to the public for the occasion.Students wearing black academic gowns also toured through Cambridge with photo-taking family members, AFP correspondents saw.

A US federal court blocked most of President Donald Trump’s sweeping tariffs from going into effect, boosting markets on Thursday even as the White House appealed against the decision by “unelected judges.”The opinion marks a significant setback to Trump as he bids to redraw the US trading relationship with the world by forcing governments to the negotiating table through tough new tariffs.Trump’s global trade war has roiled financial markets with a stop-start rollout of import levies aimed at punishing economies that sell more to the United States than they buy.Trump argued that the resulting trade deficits and the threat posed by the influx of drugs constituted a “national emergency” that justified widespread tariffs.But the three-judge Court of International Trade ruled Wednesday that Trump had overstepped his authority, barring most of the duties announced since he took office in January.The White House slammed the ruling, arguing that “unelected judges” have no right to weigh in on Trump’s handling of the issue.”President Trump pledged to put America first, and the administration is committed to using every lever of executive power to address this crisis and restore American greatness,” Trump’s spokesman Kush Desai said.Attorneys for the Trump administration promptly filed to appeal against the ruling Wednesday.- China: ‘cancel wrongful tariffs’ -The ruling comes as Trump has used the tariffs as leverage in trade negotiations with friends and foes, including the European Union and China.Beijing — which was hit by 145 percent tariffs before they were sharply reduced to give space for negotiations — reacted to the court ruling by saying the United States should scrap the levies.”China urges the United States to heed the rational voices from the international community and domestic stakeholders and fully cancel the wrongful unilateral tariff measures,” said commerce ministry spokeswoman He Yongqian. Japan’s tariffs envoy Ryosei Akazawa said as he left for a fourth round of talks in Washington that Tokyo — reeling from tariffs on cars — would study the ruling.Trump unveiled sweeping import duties on nearly all trading partners on April 2, at a baseline 10 percent, plus steeper levies on dozens of economies, including China and the European Union.The ruling also quashes duties that Trump imposed on Canada, Mexico and China separately using emergency powers.Some of the turmoil was calmed after he paused the larger tariffs for 90 days and suspended other duties, pending negotiations with individual countries and blocs.Asian markets rallied on Thursday and US futures pointed to early gains, but Europe was mixed, with London in the red while Paris and Frankfurt rose.The ruling “throws into disarray several trade deals that have already been agreed, and those that are still in the negotiation phase,” said Kathleen Brooks, research director at XTB brokerage firm.- ‘Extraordinary threat’ -The federal trade court was ruling in two separate cases — brought by businesses and a coalition of state governments — arguing that the president had violated Congress’s power of the purse.”The question in the two cases before the court is whether the International Emergency Economic Powers Act of 1977 (“IEEPA”) delegates these powers to the president in the form of authority to impose unlimited tariffs on goods from nearly every country in the world,” the three-judge panel wrote in an unsigned opinion.”The court does not read IEEPA to confer such unbounded authority and sets aside the challenged tariffs imposed thereunder.” The judges stated that any interpretation of the IEEPA that “delegates unlimited tariff authority is unconstitutional.” The IEEPA authorizes the president to impose necessary economic sanctions during an emergency “to combat an unusual and extraordinary threat,” the bench said.The ruling gave the White House 10 days to complete the bureaucratic process of halting the tariffs.Gregory Meeks, the top Democrat on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, said the ruling confirmed that “these tariffs are an illegal abuse of executive power.””Trump’s declaration of a bogus national emergency to justify his global trade war was an absurd and unlawful use of IEEPA,” he said.White House aide Stephen Miller took to social media to decry a “judicial coup” that he said was “out of control.”burs-stu-lth/ach 

Harvard University has been flooded with requests from foreign students to transfer to other institutions as US President Donald Trump’s administration seeks to ban it from hosting international scholars, a staff member said Wednesday.”Too many international students to count have inquired about the possibility of transferring to another institution,” Maureen Martin, director of immigration services, wrote in a court filing.Trump has upended the United States’ reputation among foreign students, who number around one million, as he presses a campaign against US universities he sees as obstructing his “Make America Great Again” populist agenda.He has blocked Harvard from hosting international scholars in a maneuver being challenged legally, targeted non-citizen campus activists for deportation, and most recently suspended student visa processing across the board.The president’s crackdown has prompted “profound fear, concern, and confusion” among students and staff at the elite university, which has been “inundated with questions from current international students and scholars about their status and options”, Martin wrote.More than 27 percent of Harvard’s enrollment was made up of foreign students in the 2024-25 academic year, according to university data.”Many international students and scholars are reporting significant emotional distress that is affecting their mental health and making it difficult to focus on their studies,” Martin wrote in the filing.Some were afraid to attend their graduation ceremonies this week or had canceled travel plans for fear of being refused re-entry into the United States, she added.She said that a handful of domestic students at Harvard had also “expressed serious interest” in transferring elsewhere because they did not want to attend a university with no international students.A judge last week suspended the government’s move to block Harvard from enrolling and hosting foreign students after the Ivy League school sued, calling the action unconstitutional.A hearing into the case was scheduled for Thursday.At least 10 foreign students or scholars at Harvard had their visa applications refused immediately after the block on foreign students was announced, including students whose visa applications had already been approved, Martin wrote.”My current understanding is that the visa applications that were refused or revoked following the Revocation Notice have not yet been approved or reinstated,” despite a judge suspending the move, she said.

Billionaire Elon Musk has said he is leaving his role in the US government, in which he was tasked with reducing federal spending, shortly after his first major break with Donald Trump over the president’s signature spending bill.While classified as a “special government employee” and “senior advisor to the president,” the South African-born tycoon has left indelible marks on American politics as Trump’s most visible backer.- The ‘Nazi’ salute -Being Trump’s right-hand man took on a new meaning when the world’s richest person made headlines by dramatically throwing out his arm — twice — at a rally celebrating Trump’s January 20 inauguration.Standing at a podium bearing the presidential seal, Musk’s right arm was straight, his hand open, his palm facing down. Historians agreed with Democratic politicians that the sharp gesture looked exactly like a Nazi salute.The Tesla boss — whose electric vehicles were soon dubbed “swasticars” by critics — dismissed the claims, posting on his X social media platform: “The ‘everyone is Hitler’ attack is sooo tired.”Whatever the display meant, Nazi-related jokes and memes dominated public reactions to the day meant to mark Trump’s triumphant return to office.- Endorsing Germany’s extreme-right -Hot off his salute shock, Musk participated virtually at a January rally for Germany’s anti-immigration, ultra-nationalist AfD party.Musktold the crowd “you really are the best hope” for Germany and urged them to be “proud of German culture and German values.”His endorsement of the AfD shook mainstream German parties, which said they viewed it as foreign interference by Trump’s advisor. Vandals burned four Teslas in the streets of Berlin afterward.Despite record gains at the polls, AfD ultimately took second place in the election behind Germany’s conservatives. – Brings kid to work -Dressed down in MAGA hats andt-shirts, Musk became a near-constant presence in the White House. For a while, so did his four-year-old son named X.During Musk’s first appearance before reporters since his arrival in Washington to run DOGE, the child was trotted out and Trump said: “This is X and he’s a great guy.”The boy was filmed picking his nose while his father boasted about his cost-cutting exploits while standing next to the Oval Office’s Resolute Desk.- Brings chainsaw to budget -Unelected and unconfirmed by the Senate, Musk has repeatedly bashed the “unelected, fourth unconstitutional branch of government, which is the bureaucracy” and immediately made brutal cuts to the federal workforce and budget.To illustrate his management style, Musk donned sunglasses and brandished a chainsaw on stage at a conservative get-together in Washington.It was handed to him — not turned on — by right-wing Argentine President Javier Milei, who made the machine a symbol of slashing bureaucracy and state spending in his own country.- Overshadowing Trump’s cabinet -At Trump’s first cabinet meeting on February 26, Musk had a starring role even though he is not part of the cabinet. He stood looming near a doorway, wearing a t-shirt with the words “Tech Support” across the chest as the cabinet met.Even without a literal seat at the table Musk, who helped bankroll Trump’s 2024 presidential campaign, overshadowed the country’s most powerful officials.Trump downplayed this tension shortly before the meeting, posting on his social media platform: “ALL CABINET MEMBERS ARE EXTREMELY HAPPY WITH ELON.”- Trump the Tesla salesman -With Musk’s Tesla car company taking a battering on the stock market and sales dropping sharply, and with vandals targeting his brand, the White House hosted a highly publicized test drive to boost Tesla’s reputation. With a Tesla Cybertruck and a Model S parked on the South Portico, Trump and Musk mounted a sales pitch.Trump even said he had purchased one.The stunt didn’t ultimately turn around Tesla’s plummeting sales, with the electric vehicle maker reporting a 71 percent drop in first-quarter profits.- Fails to sway court election -Money can’t buy you everything, Musk discovered, after pouring $25 million into the most expensive court race in US history to try to get a pro-Trump Republican judge elected to Wisconsin’s Supreme Court.Musk paid voters $100 to sign a petition opposing “activist judges” and even handed out $1 million checks to voters, beseeching the public to select the conservative judge. The court’s docket was packed with precedent-setting cases over abortion and reproductive rights, the strength of public sector unions, voting rules and congressional district boundaries.The US state instead chose a liberal judge by a wide margin in April, dismaying the billionaire — who had spent roughly $277 million in 2024 in the national race to help get Trump elected.- Tariff dissenter -After Trump announced his sweeping US tariffs, deeply affecting major trading partners China and the European Union, Musk made the case for a free-trade zone between the United States and Europe.This clashes with Trump’s trade policy.Shortly after, he called Trump’s economic advisor Peter Navarro, a longtime advocate for trade barriers, “dumber than a sack of bricks.”Navarro had taken aim at Tesla, saying the carmaker mostly sourced assembled major components from factories in Asia.Musk retorted with studies he said showed “Tesla has the most American-made cars.”White House spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt tried to play down the public feud, saying that “boys will be boys.”- Big, Beautiful Bill -Musk said he was “disappointed” by Trump’s divisive mega-bill, which offers sprawling tax relief and spending cuts, in a rare split with the Republican president.The tech tycoon said the “One Big, Beautiful Bill Act” — which passed the US House last week and now moves to the Senate — would increase the deficit and undermine the work of DOGE, which has fired tens of thousands of people.Critics warn the legislation will gut health care and balloon the national deficit by as much as $4 trillion over a decade.”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 told CBS News.Musk announced he was quitting his US government role shortly after.