It was a warm night and the DOGE team was on the porch of the Victorian
(Image generated by AI)
Essence of the Sun
___________________________________
New Speculative Fiction
John Fraim
I was drafted rather quickly out of school in Cambridge and went to work for DOGE in DC under Elon. I had worked with the Musk team over the years on various projects and evidently got good recommendations because I was called for increasingly important projects. But the time commitment in DC away from college was too great so I took a leave of absence to accept the current invitation from Elon to go to work for the DOGE team full time in DC.
The night I arrived with a suitcase, backpack (and the rest of my stuff in storage) a member of the DOGE team met me at the airport and drove me to a large home Elon had leased for his team members. There were all type of expectations for our group as voters saw Elon putting his energy towards making the government more efficient.
Within the house, an old Victorian, were various DOGE teams going into different areas of the government. Finding out crazy things like the cave in Pennsylvania for processing federal employees leaving the government. The fraud of some big agencies in DC. Like USAID. My group was involved with looking at the actions of USAID (The U.S. for International Development) for corruption and inefficiency.
* * *
I shouldn’t have to repeat stuff that everyone has heard in the news over the past month or so. There was the big Musk-Trump fight we all know about when Musk seemed to go crazy for a period of time until he left DC to return to his businesses. In general, he is viewed in a much different state than he was viewed in the early months of DOGE in 2025. I’m not going to die on the “Musk Hill” so to speak. His behavior has been pretty outrageous. Yet his ideas about efficiency in DC very valid. In many ways, he feels betrayed by the administration.
Musk
Now, in mid-summer of 2025, DOGE still operates but with much less public attention to it than its early start-up months. Some have moved on. Or, gone back to their previous work. Or teaching, or schools. Or CEOs of corporations. When Elon calls many congregate. I was still in DC still working on a rather obscure department in DC.
He had left DC a few weeks ago after the big fight with Trump. He’s gone back to trying to save Tesla and his other businesses. But he did have the time to reach out to me the other evening and wonder if I was interested in a new project that would be kept apart from DOGE but still funded by him. It was a first he said. A program to find out who was making the most money from politics.
Only a few would be working on it.
I said I’d be interested in looking at his ideas for the project.
He said he would send them in a few days.
Work Late Into the Night
I was still living in the large home Musk had leased during the start-up days of DOGE, but now it was maybe a third full. The guy I hated who thought he owned the place had gone back to some PhD program. A few good guys are left. We work late into the night and take a beer break and work more.
Always, with the knowledge we’re in a type of enemy territory. We were not interested in changing its ideology. Rather, a much larger thing. Its efficiency. The name Musk had lost its brand luster in DC. But losing brand in DC is not a bad thing. On a national basis.
The idea and concept for the project came from Musk a few days later. I reviewed it one night over a few excellent bottles of Sonoma wines. A simple idea that might be summarized:
A system that looks at politicians’ assets upon being elected to politics and then being out of politics. A ranking of politicians who have made most from politics. An investigation of money made by politicians during office. Tied together using the same techniques that DOGE investigated USAID and other agencies of the government.
In other words, the top money-making politicians would most likely be looked at first. They really are looked at like branches of the federal government the DOGE examined for efficiency. A great relational database is tied to each politician. It is important citizens put more interest and technology into examining the comings and goings of politicians and the money they have made. Of course, today, all efforts are made to focus away from their personal biographies. Congress is a great deflection machine. A great mirror.
The program just sent by Musk and talked through in a few videos is another one of his brilliant out of the box ideas. A different way of looking at politicians. Stock insider voting gains? Many different variables of wealth. And all, can be tracked under Musk’s new program.
* * *
It was mid-summer when I started putting together the project for Musk. The first goal was to find an office for the group under me. It would be about five others. Money no object he said. I found a great place and leased it out.
I started work on the project by assembling what needed to be done in my own mind. The specific team I wanted to bring together for the project.
Musk called one night to check up on things.
I told him about the office and the personnel I had hired, almost all from his own recommendations. Top computer people in the nation. The absolute best. I told him about the office I leased. He would have to come and visit some time he said. Right now, he was not the most popular person in DC he said.
There was a lingering question I had about the whole program I had to ask him.
“So we measure the corruption of exiting politicians for potential prosecution when they’re out of office?” I say to him as a summary of what I thought the program was.
I could hear Musk laugh on my cell phone.
“Of course not,” he said. “We measure their corruption real time within office via our AI tracking sources for all their financial transactions. There is corruption everywhere in politics. Our system will measure the amount of corruption by the politician in real time.”
“Real time?” I asked Musk.
“The present amount of corruption in their financial portfolio that your team can show,” he says. “In effect, the system tracks financial corruption of our major political figures in real time. Because its real time and creates evidence on each member of Congress that can be verified via a DOGE program, it also creates a particular form of blackmail for those who are corrupt in their finances.”
“Blackmail?” I ask.
“Levers of power,” Musk says. “It’s how modern politics work.”
“Blackmail,” I say. “And we communicate this information to politicians?”
“Of course,” Musk says. “The more they know they are monitored; the more crooks will leave the whole carnival of Congress. Attention must be focused on the financial dealings of members of Congress more than anything else.”
“No one ever mentions this,” I say.
“Of course, they don’t,” Elon says. “And the media is sure not to mention it.”
“The relationship between ‘pork’ projects and their individual wealth,” I say. “What we’re asking is treating Congress members like individual departments of the government under investigation by DOGE.”
Silence on the phone for a few seconds.
“You finally see the light,” he says.
And the phone is dead.
* * *
I went for a walk outside our big place in DC on a warm summer night. I had to think, reflect on things. Put some perspective, context to the world. As usual, there were all types of scandals floating around the news. Perhaps the biggest is the Trump involvement with Epstein in some way and the diary that Maxwell is keeping. To offset this, there is the Trump putting information on the Russia Gate Hoax with the AG. Thanks to Tulsi Gabbard.
A crazy interview today with Hunter Biden on TV. Many expletives as he attempts to imitate a tough guy. He sits in a chair across from his interviewer. Outside in a yard somewhere. He is bitter and lashes out at the camera a few times. Of course, the media give this minor event more attention space than it deserves. Magnifies the PR value of Hunter. Anyway, a slow news day.
There is a nearby park I stop at. It is by the river and the sun is dipping in the west. It’s maybe eight in the evening. People starting to become shapes and shadows. I think about this overall idea of Musk. Not some academic, tracking group. Rather, a group that can measure and prove corruption of politicians by amount of money made from areas like insider trading.
The fact it was a “live” file on a politician was another thing, it seemed to me. I had never heard of a real time system that could measure financial corruption and prove it with documents that any lawyer would settle immediately for their client. It was a source of blackmail. Yet a blackmail that could be proved quickly.
Of course, there are already these types of files that control many in DC. Somewhat like contracts of Hollywood stars to their old studios. Many are already being blackmailed because when you’re in power it’s valuable for voters to get a picture of who you really are. More than just the campaign promises. Financial records perhaps the greatest source to track giving each politician a number. Like a federal entity being tracked by DOGE.
But it made me and my team prime targets in DC. This was how brilliant Elon’s ideas were. This of course made them prime targets of others.
It was an interesting idea, I thought. Yet one that made me the prime target by holding such great power.
* * *
Twilight was turning into darkness when I walked back to the big home our DOGE team was in. I didn’t know what I was going to do. Becoming a target seemed to make one’s life more important in some ways. A target of the “other side.” Whomever this was? It could be any corrupt politician. This was a pretty large group.
It seemed that Elon’s project on tracking financial corruption in real time might create a huge change in Congress. For one thing, entering assets into politics show how beholden the politician is to financial corruption. In other words, the wealthier one comes into politics, and is willing to take a huge salary cut, the less likely they are to be influenced by corruption.
Most threates of blackmail of politicians involved private affairs. But Elon envisioned a general filter (An AI relational database like used in the DOGE actions of DC but updated to the latest system). The filter is not politically biased but simpy tracks the numbers and ranks the members on these numbers. The filter might go back and rank former memers of Congress in the 21st Century.
* * *
The goal seem to be to measure in real time the financial corruption of each member of Congress from the time they enter elected politics to the time they leave elected politics. The claim of corruption is backed up by access to all relevant documents to prove corruption. Like so many other agencies and organizations and people who currently blackmail people to keep things hidden, what Musk envisions is a systematic system that tracks financial activity by politician or most like his/her agents.
Another blackmail threat held over politician. The more you observe today, the more Congress is upset with you. Move along. Nothing to see here.
There are not supposed to be any investigations into members of Congress. And certainly not the investigations of Elon Musk. We were trying to do something almost opposite of what key government employees (members of Congress) were trying to do. The project would measure in real time (with documented evidence) corrupt financial transactions of Congress members in a database. Rank them.
And hold out a blackmail package to them.
Talk about being a target today.
* * *
I thought about all of this as I walked back to the large house. It was a long park and their were joggers and dog walkers and couples out for a stroll. It was a warm night in DC, the middle of the summer. World changing news coming out almost each day from the new White House.
Musk’s idea: The smallest percentage of the population becomes the greatest targets today.
This is so true with Congress. Musk is suggesting a “real time” monitor of politicians via financial transactions analyzed through his relational AI. In other words, applying the techniques to the members of Congress that DOGE applied to federal offices and agenciens such as USAID. Following the financial tentacles of politicians. There are so many illegal ways to enrich oneself. Insider trading is just one of the ways.
It seemed to me that Musk is suggesting increase in wealth ratios when in Congress is indicator of suspicious activity. Most likely fraud. He was suggesting that we track corruption in real time and use it as “levers” of power today.
I looked around me. I was getting more and more paranoid.
I walked faster until the large house was in sight.
It was a Victorian with a wide porch in the front. A lot of the DOGE team were standing on the porch drinking beers. I got chided for being on a date which I adamantly denied.
There was a chair next to a few of my team members on the porch. I sat down. Someone handed me a beer.
“What do you think of the new project?” Bob my team members asks.
I take half the bottle of beer down and set the bottle on the table and am silent for a few moments.
“Important,” I say. “I think I know what he wants to do. A new approach to looking at politicians. To holding them accountable.”
Silence for a few seconds.
“Important and dangerous,” I say. “Very dangerous.”
“What are you saying?” Tom on my team asks.
“I’m not sure,” I say.
“Everying important is dangerous in DC,” Tom says. “I believe I first heard that from you.”
“Yeah, you did,” I admitted.
We sat around the porch for the next few hours and got pretty philosophical. And pretty drunk. A few members of my team came up to our table and I had the makings of a corporate meeting. The little cell of Musk technology working in DC. I was not feeling all that welcome after the initial positive PR of DOGE wore off. None of us were. Elon really messed up his relationship with Trump and has retreated to save his other businesses. Everyone was trying to figure out what what going on. Whether they should return to their real jobs? They were all making a sacrifice to work in my group.
But it was obvious that the importance and brilliance of the idea was accepted by all around the table, the leading computer people in the nation now, volunteering time away from their regular employment. It was an unusual structure of a group, thie DOGE group.
At the same time, there is also voiced in the group a feeling that it is a dangerous job. Something right in the middle of enemy territory. A group that holds all financial transactions of Congress members. All stock trades. Created all the tentacles of a politician’s income.
* * *
Somewhere around two hours into our drinking, the whole table seemed to look at me at one time. As if to ask, what to do. Were they like troops ready to follow their commander? Were they testing their commander?
I got up, took a long draw on my beer to empty it and set it on the table.
“Something to think about,” I say.
(Cont.)