Credit…Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images

Dear Commons Community,

Maureen Dowd had column yesterday entitled, Tech Bro Had to Go, commenting on the split up of the Trump and Elon Musk “partnership” in shrinking the federal government. Here is her introduction.

“Elon Musk came to Washington with a chain saw and left with a black eye.

Shrinking government is hard, particularly when you do it callously and carelessly — and apparently on hallucinogens.

As with President Trump’s tariffs, DOGE has created more volatility than value.

A guy who went bankrupt six times doesn’t really care about spending. And Trump certainly didn’t want to see the headline, “Trump Cuts Social Security.”

He just wanted to get revenge on “the bureaucracy” by deputizing Musk to force out a lot of federal employees and give the impression they were cutting all the waste.”

Dowd concludes:

“Trump gave Musk a golden ceremonial White House key, the kind of thing small-town mayors give out, and proclaimed: “Elon’s really not leaving. He’s going to be back and forth, I think.” Trump said that the father of (at least) 14 would never desert DOGE completely because “It’s his baby.”

Musk brought the Silicon Valley mantra “Move fast and break things” to D.C. But the main thing he broke was his own reputation.”

The entire column is below.

Tony

—————————————————

The New York Times

Tech Bro Had to Go

May 31, 2025

By Maureen Dowd

Opinion Columnist, reporting from Washington

Elon Musk came to Washington with a chain saw and left with a black eye.

Shrinking government is hard, particularly when you do it callously and carelessly — and apparently on hallucinogens.

As with President Trump’s tariffs, DOGE has created more volatility than value.

A guy who went bankrupt six times doesn’t really care about spending. And Trump certainly didn’t want to see the headline, “Trump Cuts Social Security.”

He just wanted to get revenge on “the bureaucracy” by deputizing Musk to force out a lot of federal employees and give the impression they were cutting all the waste.

As always with Trump, the former reality star, the impression matters more than the reality, especially the reality of his own sins. This past week, Trump tried to recast the very nature of crime.

As The Times’s Glenn Thrush wrote: “President Trump is employing the vast power of his office to redefine criminality to suit his needs — using pardons to inoculate criminals he happens to like, downplaying corruption and fraud as crimes, and seeking to stigmatize political opponents by labeling them criminals.”

It is sickening that the Justice Department is considering settling a wrongful-death lawsuit by giving $5 million to the family of Ashli Babbitt — who was shot on Jan. 6, 2021, by a Capitol police officer when she ignored his warnings and tried to climb through a smashed window into the Speaker’s Lobby in the Capitol.

If Babbitt was trying to help Trump claw back a “stolen” election by breaking into the Capitol, then breaking into the Capitol must be a good thing to do, and any police officer who tried to stop her and protect lawmakers cowering under desks must be in the wrong.

To abet Trump’s fake reality, the craven House Republicans refused to put up a plaque honoring the police officers and others who defended the Capitol that awful day.

I take it personally because my dad spent 20 years as the D.C. police inspector in charge of Senate security. He would run to the House whenever there was trouble. So if on Jan. 6 Mike Dowd had been preventing insurrectionists from assaulting lawmakers, he would now be, in Trump’s eyes, not a hero deserving of a plaque, but a blackguard who was thwarting “patriots,” as Trump calls the rioters he pardoned.

It is a disturbing bizarro world.

Trump was rewriting reality again on Friday afternoon as one of the most flamboyant, destructive bromances in government history petered out in the Oval Office.

It had peaked last winter when Musk posted on X, “I love @realDonaldTrump as much as a straight man can love another man,” and again when Trump tried to reciprocate by hawking Teslas in the White House driveway.

But on Friday, even these grand master salesmen couldn’t sell the spin that Elon had “delivered a colossal change.”

Musk has acknowledged recently that his dream of cutting $1 trillion had been a fantasy. He said changing D.C. was “an uphill battle” and complained that Trump’s “big, beautiful” budget bill, which could add over $3 trillion in debt, undercut his DOGE attempts to save money.

As Trump said, Musk got a lot of “the slings and the arrows.” His approval rating cratered and violence has been directed toward Tesla, a brand once loved by liberals and in China, which is now tarnished.

Musk cut off a reporter who tried to ask about a New York Times article asserting that he was a habitual user of ketamine and a dabbler in Ecstasy and psychedelic mushrooms even after Trump had given him enormous control over the government.

That could explain the chain saw-wielding, the jumping up and down onstage, the manic baby-making and crusading for more spreading of sperm by smart people, and the ominous Nazi-style salutes.

When a reporter asked Musk why he had a black eye, he joked about the viral video of Brigitte Macron shoving her husband’s face. Then he explained that while “horsing around” with his 5-year-old, X, he suggested the child punch him in the face, “and he did.”

The president and the Tony Stark prototype tried to convey the idea that they would remain tight, even though Musk would no longer be getting into angry altercations with Scott Bessent outside the Oval, sleeping on the floor of the Eisenhower Executive Office Building and hanging around Mar-a-Lago. (Trump wants the $100 million Musk has pledged for his political operation.)

Musk, wearing a black “DOGE” cap and black “Dogefather” T-shirt, looked around the Oval, which Trump has tarted up to look like a Vegas gift shop, and gushed that it “finally has the majesty that it deserves, thanks to the president.”

Trump gave Musk a golden ceremonial White House key, the kind of thing small-town mayors give out, and proclaimed: “Elon’s really not leaving. He’s going to be back and forth, I think.” Trump said that the father of (at least) 14 would never desert DOGE completely because “It’s his baby.”

Musk brought the Silicon Valley mantra “Move fast and break things” to D.C. But the main thing he broke was his own reputation.

Getty Images—Anchiy

We’re five years past the start of the pandemic, which fundamentally changed how and where we work. While many companies still offer remote or hybrid work, there’s also been a major push from employers to get workers back in the office full time.

In the LinkedIn survey of more than 4,000 U.S.-based workers, nearly 40% of Gen Z and millennial workers said they would take a pay cut in exchange for more flexibility about where they work. Across all generations, the share was 32%.

Other reasons Gen Z and millennial workers would take a pay cut is for a job with better upward mobility, a more reasonable workload, and a better relationship with their boss, according to the survey.

Laura Roman, a senior talent acquisition manager with London-based marketing firm Up World, wrote in an April LinkedIn post one of her candidates took a £7,000 pay cut—about $9,300—for a fully remote job. ,,“The founder was hesitant at first. She couldn’t wrap her head around it. Why would anyone willingly take less money?” Roman wrote. “But then it clicked. They were offering something just as valuable as a bigger salary (for that candidate): flexibility.”

“Not everyone can afford to trade money for flexibility, but for those who can, it’s becoming a no-brainer,” she added.

Another early 2025 study by Robert Half showed when the gap between a candidate’s salary expectation and an offer is too great, many employers are negotiating remote and hybrid work to get candidates to sign on the dotted line.

Theresa L. Fesinstine, founder of human resources advisory peoplepower.ai, previously told Fortune she’s seen some candidates accept 5% to 15% less pay in exchange for remote work.

“There’s this unspoken exchange rate between flexibility and comp, and for some candidates, it’s worth a significant tradeoff,” Fesinstine said. This is especially true “for those who value work-life balance or are saving on commute costs.”

Gen Z and millennials still want some in-office experience

Although Gen Z and millennial workers report they’d prefer flexibility, that doesn’t mean they don’t want to come into the office at all. In fact, many Gen Z workers have led the charge back to in-office work. They see the value in forming in-real-life connections with coworkers and think being in the office gives them a better chance at getting promoted.

Still, Gen Z and millennial workers tend to prefer a hybrid schedule that allows them to work from home sometimes. In fact, a late March report by property group JLL shared with Fortune shows workers under 24 years old are more likely to be in office than other generations and come in an average of 3 days a week.

“While many actively seek roles offering face-to-face engagement, they reject rigid office mandates, prioritizing flexibility in when and how they work,” Lauren Winans, CEO and principal HR consultant at HR consulting firm Next Level Benefits, told Fortune. Gen Z “blends digital fluency with an appreciation for traditional office benefits.”

For Spencer McLean, a Gen Z public relations manager, hybrid work has been the best of both worlds. She’s enjoyed forming friendships in the office, asking coworkers questions, and learning on the job, she told Fortune. But she doesn’t love going into the office every day.

“Hybrid work gives you a brain break where you don’t have to have conversations constantly and can sit down and focus—and it gives your skin a break from makeup,” McLean said. “I love the flexibility I have now and I believe it’s made a huge difference in my mental health.”

Flexibility and quality of life are key factors.

Tony

Dear Commons Community,

The New York Times reported  on Friday that Elon Musk has been taking large quantities of drugs for quite some time. As per the Times, Musk takes ketamine, ecstasy, psychedelic mushrooms, Ambien, Adderall, and other drugs, and traveled with a daily medication box that held about 20 pills.  Furthermore, his drug use reportedly intensified as he donated $275m to Trump’s presidential campaign and later wielded significant power through his role spearheading the “department of government efficiency”, or Doge.  As reported.

The CEO of SpaceX and Tesla reportedly took so much Ketamine, a dissociative anesthetic known to induce schizophrenia-like symptoms, that it affected his bladder function.

The report is bolstered by a January 2024 Wall Street Journal investigation in which sources close to Musk said they’d witnessed or had direct knowledge of him using LSD, cocaine, ecstasy, mushrooms and ketamine.

Musk’s attorney Alex Spiro told the Journal at the time that his client is “regularly and randomly drug tested at SpaceX” and has “never failed a test.”

It’s unclear how, or whether, Musk’s consumption habits changed once he became a federal bureaucrat with an office in the White House complex. He didn’t address the claims directly at a Friday afternoon press conference in the Oval Office, instead attacking the credibility of The New York Times itself.

But he’s continued drawing attention for unusual antics, including a chainsaw–wielding appearance at the Conservative Political Action Conference and a Nazi-like hand gesture at Trump’s inaugural rally.

In April, Rep. Mikie Sherrill (D-N.J.) introduced a bill that would require Musk and his hires at the so-called Department of Government Efficiency to undergo regular drug testing, though the bill has gone nowhere in the Republican-majority house.

“Donald Trump has given billionaire Elon Musk the keys to our government, and with it, access to highly sensitive information — from Treasury and Social Security data to even our most guarded military plans,” Sherrill wrote in a press release. “Those with access to sensitive information must be thoroughly vetted, clear-eyed, and exercise good judgment.”

Asked Friday if he was concerned about drug use by Musk, White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller was dismissive ― but notably didn’t rule it out.

“The drugs that we’re concerned about are the drugs running across the southern border,” he told reporters.

The eccentric billionaire has openly discussed his ketamine use in the past. In a 2024 interview with Don Lemon, he said he took “a small amount” every other week ― but got miffed when Lemon pushed him on it.

“If you’ve used too much ketamine, you can’t really get work done, and I have a lot of work,” he told the journalist at the time.

An Atlantic article describing the drug’s effects on the body found people build tolerance to it very quickly, requiring ever larger doses to achieve the same high and leading to long-term impaired cognition, including “delusional thinking, superstitious beliefs, and a sense of specialness and importance.”

Those would seem to strike a chord with Sam Harris, a public intellectual and former friend of Musk, who publicly broke with the world’s richest man in a post earlier this year.

“Any dispassionate observer of Elon’s behavior on Twitter/X can see that there is something seriously wrong with his moral compass, if not his perception of reality,” he wrote.

Musk should get help!

Tony

Dear Commons Community,

The Chronicle of Higher Education reported on Thursday that The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill hasn’t tenured a single professor in fields outside the health sciences since January — an unusual period of inaction that has spurred confusion and alarm among faculty.

At its normal meeting last week, the university’s Board of Trustees deferred a vote on pending tenure cases outside of the health-affairs schools. At its March meeting, the board didn’t act on any tenure cases, and in January, it only approved two tenure bids outside the health sciences: one professor at the civic-life school and another at the School of Social Work.

No professors in the College of Arts and Sciences, the university’s primary academic unit, have received tenure this year.

The university’s interim provost, James W. Dean Jr., acknowledged last week’s deferral in a message to deans. “I understand the stress this ongoing uncertainty places on affected faculty members and the schools and departments that support them,” he wrote, adding that he was “confident that these votes will be taken at the next Board of Trustees’ meeting.”

A university spokesperson did not offer a specific reason for the board’s inaction. “The exact timing of tenure awards is subject to a number of variables that our Board of Trustees and administration may consider with any recommended appointments,” the university said in a statement to The Chronicle. The university has not changed its tenure policies and tenure-track faculty across the university, including those in the College of Arts and Sciences, are eligible for tenure, the spokesperson wrote.

Jennifer Lloyd, a trustee and former professor of the practice in UNC’s economics department, told The Chronicle in an email that she was the only trustee to vote against a motion to defer consideration on tenure decisions at the March meeting. “I … always seek to be a fair and honest advocate on issues impacting faculty,” she wrote. A spokesperson said the university could not comment on this vote since it was taken during a closed session. John P. Preyer, the board’s chair, did not respond to a message seeking comment.

Beth Moracco, chair of the university’s Faculty Council, said she’s never seen this happen since she joined the faculty in 2008. “Typically, the personnel actions are reviewed and acted upon during the meeting that they are submitted,” she said. “The only personnel actions that were acted on were from schools within health affairs. It was a selective inaction, which was also extraordinary.”

Moracco said faculty are frustrated and confused, especially by a lack of communication from the university and uncertainty over when their cases might be considered. Many of them found out about the deferred vote through rumors from colleagues, she added. Moracco discovered that the board had not voted on some tenure cases by checking the board’s website.

The board’s delay hinders a faculty member’s career planning and hampers recruitment, Moracco said. “To go through that amount of work for a career milestone, and then to have it be deferred with a question mark of what’s going to happen next is extremely deflating,” she said. It’s especially demoralizing when higher education is facing funding cuts and attacks on academic freedom, she added.

The board’s inaction also comes at a time when state legislatures nationwide have aimed to weaken tenure or add stipulations to it. A wave of bills propose post-tenure reviews or productivity requirements, and lawmakers in Texas and Nebraska have even introduced legislation to outright ban tenure.

Delaying tenure bids has unique resonance in Chapel Hill. In 2021, the university was embroiled in controversy after it removed tenure from a job offer to Nikole Hannah-Jones, the investigative journalist behind The New York Times’ 1619 Project. That decision came after a trustee raised questions about her qualifications. Following a nationwide uproar, the board voted to offer Hannah-Jones tenure, but she declined to accept the UNC professorship.

While the Hannah-Jones case was specific to one faculty member, Moracco said that the controversy and the board’s recent lack of action on tenure cases are both examples of overreach: “The principle that’s being violated here is the allowing of the rigorous processes that are in place to go forward.”

The board’s next full meeting is scheduled for July 31.

This meeting will be watched closely by the higher education community.

Tony

Dear Commons Community,

Jimmy Kimmel mocked  Trump for changing  his tariff policy so often that the process has been given a new nickname: TACO. 

That’s short for “Trump Always Chickens Out.”

“You’re not gonna believe this,” Kimmel said. “He doesn’t like the nickname at all.” 

TACO refers to how Trump frequently announces a new tariff, causing markets to crash, then backs off, causing them to rise again. Some investors have used it to make cash in a time of economic uncertainty.  

Kimmel said Trump flipped out at a reporter who asked him about the name, calling it “a nasty question.” 

“But it seems to be catching on,” Kimmel said, then showed off some of his favorite TACO Trump chicken memes. 

“How does it feel to be on the other end of the nickname game?” Kimmel asked. “Not great, does it?” 

Kimmel said there’s only one way to make this even worse for Trump: “If somebody changed the lyrics to a song by his beloved Village People to drive it home.” 

Kimmel played a parody (see below) of “Macho Man” ― a song Trump has frequently used at campaign events ― called “Taco Man,” complete with a video to match.

In the meantime, Trump is taking it out on his staff for not alerting him and heading off all the memes going around the Internet.

Tony

TACO Man Starts at about the 1:40 mark.

Dear Commons Community,

President Trump, it would seem, is not one for a “TACO.” The taco in question is not a dish made with tortillas, but rather a reference to how markets are responding to his tariff policies.

The TACO name, short for “Trump Always Chickens Out”, is a tongue-in-cheek term coined by the Financial Times columnist Robert Armstrong. It has been adopted by some analysts and commentators to describe the potentially lucrative pattern in which markets tumble after Mr. Trump makes tariff threats, only to rebound sharply when he relents and allows countries more time to negotiate deals.

The president has spent years cultivating a reputation for political muscle. So when he was asked by a reporter in the Oval Office on Wednesday whether the term might be a valid description of his approach to tariffs, Mr. Trump reacted with ire.

“I chicken out? I’ve never heard that,” he said. “Don’t ever say what you said,” he told the reporter. “That’s a nasty question. To me, that’s the nastiest question.”

But gyrations driven by the president’s on-again, off-again tariffs are by now taken for granted on Wall Street. Stock markets jumped on Tuesday, for example, after Mr. Trump delayed a proposed 50 percent tariff on the European Union that he had threatened only a few days earlier.

TACO, TACO, TACO!

Tony

Dear Commons Community,

EDUCAUSE has just published its Horizon Report for 2025. Based on a survey of global leaders, merging trends and key technologies and practices are identified.  This report surfaces not only what is changing but how and why these shifts are happening. Here is an excerpt from the Executive Summary.

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

Higher education is moving through a period defined not by a single disruption but by a complex layering of global trends.

From climate instability to shifting global economic dynamics, institutions are facing pressures that stretch far beyond the campus gates. At the same time, institutions, educators, and students alike are navigating challenges including shifting learner expectations, demographic changes, workforce realignments, and persistent questions about the value of higher education.

Technological advancement, particularly in AI and virtual reality, is reshaping how students engage with content, how cognition is understood, and how learning itself is documented and valued. Political and regulatory landscapes are evolving in ways that both challenge and redefine the role of higher education. Taken together, these forces form a backdrop of a field that no longer enjoys the luxury of being able to evolve slowly.

This year’s teaching and learning Horizon Report captures the spirit of transformation through the lens of emerging trends, key technologies and practices, and scenario-based foresight. This report surfaces not only what is changing but how and why these shifts are happening. The insights and provocations offered here reflect the perspectives of a global panel of experts who brought deep knowledge and diverse experiences to bear. Their contributions, grounded in modified Delphi methodology supported by tools from the Institute for the Future, illuminate multiple possible futures and the choices institutions face now to shape the learning landscape of tomorrow.

Key Technologies and Practices

After trends were established, panelists were asked to describe the key technologies and practices they believed would have a significant impact on the future of teaching and

learning, especially focusing on those that would accelerate or impede the trends. The results of the panel vote brought six technologies/practices to the top of a long list:

• AI Tools for Teaching and Learning
• Faculty Development for Generative AI
• AI Governance
• Shoring Up Cybersecurity
• Evolving Teaching Practices
• Critical Digital Literacy

Panelists were then asked to identify the ways in which stakeholders might leverage the technology or practice to support teaching and learning; potential risks higher education stakeholders might face when implementing that particular technology or practice; and, finally, the potential impact on creating a welcoming environment.

The entire report is 55 pages long and is worth a read.

Tony

The Lenghu observatory in China’s Qinghai province may soon be getting a big addition.  PHOTO: CHEN JIE/XINHUA NEWS AGENCY VIA REDUX

Dear Commons Communiyt,

High on a Tibetan Plateau, China appears to be laying the groundwork for what will be the largest optical telescope in the Northern Hemisphere.  But to the puzzlement of some astronomers, China has been keeping a tight lid on plans for its 14.5-meter Large Optical Telescope (LOT), with only glancing references in a handful of abstracts and Chinese media reports.  As reported this morning in Science.

“As far as I can tell, it’s real. And it will certainly put China in the big leagues,” says Robert Kirshner, a cosmologist at Harvard University and executive director of the Thirty Meter Telescope, one of two massive U.S.-led optical telescopes undergoing design review and at least a decade away from first light.

The National Astronomical Observatories of China (NAOC) is racing to have the LOT up and running as early as 2030, according to a Chinese astronomer who requested anonymity because he is not authorized to speak about the project. It will be the crown jewel of NAOC’s newest astronomical aerie: Saishiteng Mountain, a 4500-meter peak east of the town of Lenghu in Qinghai province that hosts other cutting-edge telescopes.

In November 2024, NAOC announced a $22 million contract to build the LOT’s dome. But NAOC and the lead institute on the LOT, the Chinese Academy of Sciences’s Nanjing Institute of Astronomical Optics and Technology, have not released details, for example, on the design of the mirror, other than that it will observe at both optical and infrared wavelengths.

Purchase orders on NAOC’s website suggest the LOT will have a variety of instruments that would allow it to tackle a range of targets, much like the twin 10-meter W. M. Keck Observatory telescopes in Hawaii. With its larger aperture, LOT’s discovery potential—its light-gathering power and spatial resolution—would be about four times that of the Keck telescopes, the largest in the United States.

The 39-meter Extremely Large Telescope (ELT) being built by the European Southern Observatory in Chile’s Atacama desert will eclipse the LOT in size. Originally slated for completion in 2018, the $1.5 billion ELT is now expected to see first light in March 2029, with scientific observations—which could include studies of Earth-like worlds around other stars—to commence at the end of 2030.

Still, Kirshner calls the LOT “a wake-up call for American science.” With plans for giant telescopes moving slowly, he fears U.S. leadership in ground-based optical astronomy is slipping away. “I don’t mean to scare people, but we really need to get moving,” he says.

Tony

Harry Haysom for The Chronicle.

Dear Commons Community,

L. Maren Wood, the director and chief executive of the Center for Graduate Career Success, has an article in today’s Chronicle of Higher Education, warning college graduates of the “worst job market” in a generation. Here is an excerpt.

“As a long-time observer of hiring trends, I’m (L. Maren Wood) increasingly concerned about the career prospects of graduate students and postdocs in the next few years. This will very likely be the worst job market in a generation, and many of them lack strategies and support to manage the tumult.

I work with nearly 80 universities as director and chief executive of the Center for Graduate Career Success, and I can tell you, the hiring outlook has rarely looked this grim:

• Faculty hiring will almost certainly be at a near standstill in the next academic year. Universities were already facing an enrollment cliff driven by the decline in the number of 18- to 24-year-olds in the United States, and the fact that fewer high-school graduates are planning on attending college. Fewer students mean fewer faculty members. Now that outlook is being exacerbated by political factors. The hostility toward immigrants and international students may deter many from studying in the United States. Federal funding cuts have already led to hiring freezes at many institutions.
• In other economic downturns — such as the Great Recession of 2008 or the Covid pandemic — graduate students could extend time in their programs or move into postdoc positions. But this time, federal cuts have eliminated many postdoc positions and constricted funding for existing grad students.
• A shrinking federal work force means fewer job opportunities in that sector for Ph.D.s. The highly skilled federal workers being laid off have years of experience and are now moving into state and local governments, further diminishing opportunities for new graduates.
• Meanwhile, hiring in the private sector has slowed to rates not seen since 2009. When people expect a recession, they act accordingly. Uncertainty caused by tariffs and the trade war threatens to slow hiring further.

So this time is different. In 2008, President Barack Obama and a Democratic majority in Congress quickly passed a stimulus bill to revive the economy. During Covid, the federal government passed stimulus bills to mitigate the worst economic effects of the pandemic. But today’s looming economic downturn is a direct result of federal government policies: The Trump administration’s attack on higher education is intentional. Deterring international students is the plan. Tariffs and cuts in the federal work force are the fulfillment of campaign promises.”

The entire column offers advice for graduates but the future is indeed gloomy.

Tony

Dear Commons Community,

A video of two nuns on a Catholic TV show in Brazil beatboxing has gone viral. It is being likened to the hit movie, Sister Act that starred Whoopie Goldberg.  The nuns were using their performance to recruit new members to their order.

Take a look below.

Tony