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Did Elon Musk kill DirectFile?

More slop from the loon:

What group has been "deleted"? First, some background. 18F (short for 18th and F) is a small group within the General Services Administration that helps other agencies roll out tech projects. They have a reputation for being pretty woke, and even once implemented a bot that would warn Slack users if they weren't using correct language.

That's trifling stuff, but they have a sister agency, TTS, that fucked up pretty badly on a project called Login.gov, which allows users to create a single login for a variety of federal services. Long story short, they claimed login.gov was "IAL2 compliant" even though it wasn't. They never implemented required facial recognition tech because, apparently, they weren't convinced the benefits outweighed the problems of facial recognition among Black people and other minority groups. Several people were reassigned or fired over this fiasco.

That was bad, but TTS isn't 18F, whose sins are the kind of "roll your eyes" stuff that don't really matter that much. And they certainly have nothing to do with the IRS DirectFile program.

Now, having wasted your time with this muck, you deserve an answer to the question: what group has been deleted? As near as I can tell, here's the answer:

The 18F Twitter account has been shut down. 18F itself still exists. DirectFile still exists. TTS still exists. Everything still exists, I think.

But 18F's Twitter account has been shut down.

76 thoughts on “Did Elon Musk kill DirectFile?

        1. Josef

          Trump. Musk is seated next and slightly behind him whispering things into his ear. Think King Théoden and Grima Wormtongue

            1. Josef

              Not familiar with that reference beyond the obvious. A comparison could be made to Grigori Rasputin and the the Romanov family also. The bottom line is Trump is a fool who is easily manipulated. He also doesn't care that much to pay attention when he's not personally benefiting financially from something. ie the USMCA deal he thought was so great and now apparently is not. Or atleast thats his new found understanding of the deal he made. Dog help us all and save us from this idiot and his minions.

              1. aldoushickman

                Not disimilar from Grima and Theoden, I suppose, but with a different outcome--predecessor kingdom to LoTR's Gondor and chief foe of Sauron got itself into a mess whereby Sauron actually became the king's chief advisor; Sauron (among other things) advised the king to send all his navies and all his soldiers in a madcap and doomed quest to conquer Middle-Earth's version of heaven. Which said king proceeded to do, thinking he'd thereby win immortality.

                Sauron cackled, thinking that he'd removed an opponent from the board. However, Middle-Earth's version of god intervened and destroyed both the king's armies and the kingdom, taking Sauron with it. Sauron recovered, but was thereafter just a shell of what he once was.

  1. Austin

    I don’t know but I filed my taxes Friday as soon as I had all my stuff together. Wasn’t gonna wait until March when the government shuts down over another debt ceiling fight and have the Orange Anus seize all refunds to blue counties or whatever. And then when I found out 19year olds are monkeying with the code that handles all the electronic payments the US sends out… FreeTaxUSA.com (free for apparently everyone, not just the poor enough) said refunds generally are granted within 3 weeks of filing. 2.5 more weeks to go… hope the government can survive until then.

    1. ScentOfViolets

      And you know, that's exactly what I did, for exactly the same reason. Though I suppose that if I hadn't I would have saved some money.

    1. Crissa

      He's not an authorized government employee because the President can not assign random citizens to do things at this level without Senate consent.

      1. Jimm

        Let's hope Congress stands up for themselves in the separation of powers.

        *

        https://www.businessinsider.com/elon-musk-special-government-employee-doge-2025-2

        "A White House spokesman confirmed to Business Insider on Monday that the Tesla and SpaceX founder was a 'special government employee' and would not receive a paycheck for his service.

        Special government employees aren't subject to the ethics and conflict-of-interest rules that government employees typically encounter. Musk's companies, particularly Tesla and SpaceX, have benefited significantly from government contracts.

        Federal law says special government employees cannot serve for more than 130 days in a 365-day period, but it's not clear what would happen if Musk worked longer than that."

        1. Josef

          Designating them as special doesn't magically make their conflicts of interest any less conflicting. oi. This probably wasn't an issue in the past when we had president's that weren't complete fools and grifters. Another "president" set by our Orange overlord. We are in desperate need for a complete reset in 2028!!! 🤞🤞🤞

      2. CAbornandbred

        How quant. Do you actually think Trump cares? There is nothing he can or will do that Reps is Congress will oppose. We are so screwed.

        1. iamr4man

          “We are so screwed”

          From Josh Marshall at TPM:
          “Overnight, Wired reported that, contrary to published reports that DOGE operatives at the Treasury Department are limited to “read only” access to department payment systems, this is not true. A 25-year-old DOGE operative named Marko Elez in fact has admin privileges on these critical systems, which directly control and pay out roughly 95% of payments made by the U.S. government, including Social Security checks, tax refunds and virtually all contract payments.”
          “Phrases like “freaking out” are, not surprisingly, used to describe the reaction of the engineers who were responsible for maintaining the code base until a week ago. The changes that have been made all seem to relate to creating new paths to block payments and possibly leave less visibility into what has been blocked.”
          https://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/musk-cronies-dive-into-treasury-dept-payments-code-base

          1. Josef

            When MAGAts start not receiving their Medicaid, Medicare and ssi payments maybe they'll start to realize they've been played. Probably not. If you voted for Trump you're probably not the sharpest knife in the drawer. They have no idea what they voted for. None what so ever.

  2. bbleh

    ... you deserve an answer to the question: what group has been deleted?

    Dude. Musk is a ketamine junkie with a lifetime history of making wild and often utterly unsupportable claims. Why should one suppose anything has been "deleted," or even what "deleted" means?

    This is not to say he might not have had a goon squad physically evict some US Government workers from their offices and then torch the place, but it might also be merely metaphorical (any reaction to which would of course be treated as falling for a "joke").

    He's basically an irresponsible born-wealthy kid -- I would say "like his boss," except he's not actually a government employee or appointee, which calls into question the legality of ANY of his actions, but whatEVERRRR.

    Have I mentioned recently, NICE FKIN JOB, REPUBLICANS!!!!

    1. cmayo

      Elon, like Trump, never grew up. They're both manbabies.

      Elon is essentially the 15-year-old shitposting edgelord who shouts "NUH UH" and "NO I DON'T LIKE THAT, THAT'S ILLEGAL, I'M GONNA (have my parents) SUE YOU" while hiding that he actually pissed his pants and is desperate for anyone, just anyone, to like him despite the fact that he's completely unlikeable and will not do anything to make himself more likeable.

      And people who are just like that, just like him, worship his alleged genius. He's not a genius. He's just a fucking troll.

      1. CAbornandbred

        A fucking troll with the power who along with Trump can destroy this country. We minimize and laugh at Musk at our own risk.

        1. Josef

          He somehow made an SNL skit creepy. I mean really creepy. He's the kind of person that will make people cringe when he tells a joke, then laughs at it while everyone else has a look of disgust.

        2. cmayo

          I'm not denying that he hasn't accumulated terrifying power, and I've been having a days-long, low-key panic attack (and I don't get panic attacks, I'm an extremely even-keeled person to that point that people think it's weird) since Friday night. We're just fucked.

          I was just commenting on his intelligence and maturity.

        1. Crissa

          His father didn't have it when it was born, and there's no evidence Elon brought any money from it to the US when he attended school here and started his first business.

          It's a neat dig at him, but mostly he's more like a guy who won the lotto three times in a row and was convinced that means he was competent when in truth he was just lucky.

      1. stellabarbone

        He was born wealthy in a poor country. He is also not an engineer and not "brilliant", just right place, right time and right acquaintances with a motivation to make money.

      2. aldoushickman

        Whether or not he was born sufficiently well-off to be considered "wealthy" by you is the least relevant hair-splitting thing about this guy.

    2. emjayay

      Sure, but Musk has completely revolutionized long distance travel with his revolutionary HyperLoop concept.

      (Was that dripping with enough sarcasm?)

  3. Josef

    In four years I hope the Republicans are voted out of their slim majority. I also hope that Trump fucks up enough that he will be convicted after having been impeached a third time. Four years of this bullshit!

    1. bbleh

      Not sure whether Dems would bother to impeach him again, but he'd never be removed from office -- takes 2/3 in the Senate. I think it's more likely that the Lord will call him home first, and you know, after meaningful thought, I think that might just be best. 😇

      1. Josef

        One particularly just large enough piece of hamburder that will block his airway while Vance looks on hoping he doesn't look like he's avoiding doing the Heimlich maneuver*.

        *also applies to Melania.

      1. Josef

        That's the thing about Trump, he's completely unpredictable. Wtf knows what he's going to do and wtf knows what he will get away with doing. We are at the mercy of the whims of a narcasistic idiot who can't be controlled.

    2. Austin

      Assumes we’ll still have elections in 2-4 years.

      Hungary and Hong Kong still have elections too, but you’ll never see an anti Orban party or anti communist party take control in either again.

      1. KenSchulz

        I’m not optimistic about very much in government, but I hold out hope that our extremely decentralized system of conducting elections will be a formidable obstacle. TFM himself established the precedent that a convicted felon can be nominated and elected. So he could jail opponents, but he couldn’t keep them off the ballots, at least in states with Democrats or Independents as Secretaries of State or majorities on election commissions, or with honest state Supreme Courts. Stealing elections is likewise a challenge, given safeguards, laws and procedures developed over more than two centuries.

        1. Anandakos

          There has never been a ban on felons serving, just voting. However, until the last few months it has always been considered an effective bar.

          I doubt that most Democratic constituencies would elect a convicted felon, even if it were a fraudulent conviction. The bench of smart Democrats is extremely deep. We can always find a capable substitute.

  4. D_Ohrk_E1

    Yes, but, many Republicans had previously asked the convicted felon Trump to end the Direct File program. If that was the intended target by the unelected illegal immigrant Musk, indeed, Direct File may not exist for much longer, and the status of returns filed w/ the program may be in limbo.

        1. Josef

          We can't have people paying their taxes without paying for the act of paying their taxes. Someone has to be making money off of every aspect of our lives.

          1. Art Eclectic

            Just as soon as some tech bro figures out how to charge people for breathing, Andreessen Horowitz will provide capital, knowing Musk will overpay to buy it. Later it will be rolled into everyone's Amazon Prime subscription as a value add to justify a price increase.

            1. Josef

              It seems everything is being monetized! I'm old enough to remember options on a car were sold as a one time purchase instead of a subscription. Sd cards were an alternative to cloud storage. Who the hell knows what we will be paying for one hundred years from now.

    1. Austin

      Once the IRS accepts your filing, the software you used is done with it. All the software packages do is fill out the forms for you. The forms themselves are essentially the IRS’s property.

      It’s like worrying whether Bic pens or HP printers “own” your tax filing if you printed blank forms out from irs.gov and wrote it out with your hand. Of course they don’t. Neither does DirectFile. (This incidentally is also why, if your software fcks up and puts a number in the wrong spot, the IRS contacts you to fix it, not the software company.)

      1. D_Ohrk_E1

        Do you work for the IRS or this administration, such that you know for a fact that an already filled form cannot or will not be pulled out and voided?

        1. Altoid

          These, and upthread comments, are inclining me to think that if you're not counting on a refund to get by, filing on paper is looking like the most likely way to be relatively sure your return actually gets received, and that the numbers they process will be the same ones you entered (because who knows on either count, by late March or April when I'm usually able to file). Also, if there is a shutdown, the PO will still be running and postmarking envelopes, afaik, and I'll have a counter receipt in hand.

      2. D_Ohrk_E1

        I'd also like to point out, that to do a free direct file, you need to create an account, which also means that they can track who did and didn't use their system. Maybe they could insert code that auto-flags your return for an audit.

        Just saying, when they are inside the system, how can you know what they're up to unless you're watching them?

  5. SeanT

    "They have a reputation for being pretty woke,"
    reputation from whom?
    the only places I see howling about "woke" and these folks is in redstate and dailywire and the australian-born Emirati resident Mario Nawfal.
    is that the basis for this claim? redstate? or Nawfal?

  6. Crissa

    You should add, when they say woke, they mean 'treats people with respect' and when they say they're 'against the woke mind virus' they're actually pro-discrimination.

  7. cmayo

    Can you please stop asking stupid questions with your post titles?

    I'll grant that the "Did Elon Musk?" part of this particular title is maybe an actual question, but it's common fucking knowledge (among anyone with half a brain, anyway) that the party of tax code opacity/complexity and tax cheats has been dead set against the IRS having anything like Direct File for decades. They were never going to let this baby be born.

    1. emjayay

      And obviously many online and real world private businesses depend on being paid to do your taxes. Probably because of some Democrat sponsored law some online services have had to do simple returns for free for some years, and then usually charge for the state one. And try to upsell you to a paid-for service over and over along the way.

    2. Josef

      Probably because the majority of people using a free service would be getting a refund. And we simply can't have people getting a refund without paying first! It's downright un-American.

  8. FrankM

    For gawds sake. The IRS already prepares your tax return. They just don't send it to you. If yours doesn't match theirs you get a letter.

    1. Austin

      This is almost definitely not true. My mom passed away in 2020, and when I had to do her last 2020 return for her in 2021, I discovered a LOT of easy-to-catch errors in the previous 2 returns. Basic things like "subtract standard deduction from income" and the tenths digit would be wrong, or "enter rental income here" and the info would be on the next line where you were supposed to "enter investment interest here," with different impacts to final tax owed. And she simply ignored the part about calculating taxes owed on "excess" Social Security payments when she was working. Nothing was hugely off - she might've accidentally cheated the IRS out of $10 more in tax or something - but her returns were littered with basic errors and AFAIK nobody from the IRS tried to correct any of them.

      1. FrankM

        Back when we still filed paper returns I had one with a minor error and they caught it and corrected it. I also had one more recently in which the tax software had an error. They caught that, too. They're not going to send someone to your door, but you'll get a letter advising you of the correction. If you have a refund, they'll just correct it and send you the correct refund. If you underpaid they'll send you a bill for the difference. Are you certain that didn't happen?

        1. emjayay

          Auditing simple tax returns like mine probably costs about 1¢ apiece once the system is set up so they do it.

          A lot of what the IRS needed more money for (besides having enough employees to answer the phone and also have actual accurate information to communicate) is auditing higher income more complex and business returns which cost hundreds if not thousands of dollars each to audit so has just largely been not done.

          This is why Republicans have already removed millions of dollars from IRS appropriations when they could pull it off. It's like most of what they do - MAGAs don't think they should pay anything so they are angry about taxation in general, and Republicans exploit their ignorance and anger for the benefit of the wealthy and corporations.

          I expect the IRS to be mostly trashed back to less than it was before just like the rest of federal government.

  9. golack

    The IRS website and their DirtectFile website are still both up.
    Works in 25 states!!!
    Didn't try filing there though...

    Not sure what would happen if you call their help line.
    "I'm sorry, no one can take your call right now because we've all been locked out of our offices"

  10. cld

    Musk’s DOGE Minions Refuse to Reveal Their Names When Grilling Civil Servants,

    https://www.thedailybeast.com/musks-doge-minions-refuse-to-reveal-their-names-when-grilling-civil-servants/

    . . . .
    The team includes several youngsters—including a teenager—none of whom have experience in government work. Some have previously worked or interned at Musk’s companies X or SpaceX.

    Musk has previously lashed out at people online who identify members of the team, accusing people posting on X of undefined “crimes” for mentioning their names.
    . . . .

  11. pjcamp1905

    Facial recognition isn't just an issue for minorities. I stopped using Windows Hello the day it recognized my pants.

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