the monkey king
4.5K posts
@wordrotator
sunset enjoyer, hacker, guitarist. prev @recursecenter working on https://t.co/2Pf22BFYrC
@victoriakimse images needed for pokemon research
Incredible reporting from the WSJ on how the DOJ’s antitrust division is being gutted by a pay-to-play system. Just more betrayal for anyone who thought this administration would look out for the little guy. At the heart of the scandal is Mike Davis. He’s a lobbyist who reportedly charges corporate giants like Walmart, HPE, and Live Nation $300,000 a month to bypass career experts and get mergers approved. He’s also a full-time aggressive shitposter on X. According to sworn testimony, Davis threatened to destroy the job of the DOJ’s antitrust head that he had previously vouched for and called a “good friend” (Gail Slater). This was because she wouldn’t sign off on a settlement for his client, HPE. It worked. Slater was ousted just last month, her deputies were fired, and Davis got his deal approved. When Slater posted her resignation with "great sadness," Davis’s public response on X was “Good riddance.” He’s even taken credit for her removal in other posts. This is how he treats "friends" who stand in the way of his $300k-a-month clients. The article details a pattern of corruption. In the Compass real estate merger, Davis went over the heads of investigators to kill a routine probe into a company that controls 20% of the housing market. The merger combined the #1 (Compass) and #2 (Anywhere Real Estate) largest brokerages in the country by sales volume. The previous administration brought a massive lawsuit to break up the Live Nation-Ticketmaster monopoly. Instead of a courtroom battle to lower ticket prices, the deal was backchanneled at the White House while the DOJ’s own trial lawyers were kept in the dark — they didn't even see the term sheet until the judge did. It was a total surrender, again orchestrated by Mike Davis. This is exactly what the swamp looks like. We’re told this is a populist movement, but the DOJ is currently operating as a private concierge service for the highest bidder. People like Mike Davis can threaten public officials into submission, and the American consumer is the one who pays the price through higher costs and less competition. If you’re wondering why your bills are going up and monopolies are getting stronger, look no further than swamp creatures like Mike Davis. Apparently the DOJ’s integrity is for sale.
Three general things from this AMA: 1. There is more open debate than I thought ther ewould be, at least in this part of Twitter, about whether we should prefer a democratically elected government or unelected private companies to have more power. I guess this is something people disagree on, but…I don’t. This seems like an important area for more discussion. 2. I think the is a question behind a lot of the questions but I haven’t seen quite articulated: What happens if the government tries to nationalize OpenAI or other AI efforts? I obviously don’t know; I have thought about it of course (it has seemed to me for a long time it might be be better if building AGI were a government project) but it doesn’t seem super likely on the current trajectory. That said, I do think a close partnership between governments and the companies building this technology is super important. 3. People take their safety (in the national security sense) more for granted than I realized, which I think is a good thing on balance but I don’t think shows enough respect to the tremendous work it takes for that to happen. Also, I am on the whole very grateful for the level of reasonable and good-faith engagement here. It was not what I expected.
