The IRS is abandoning a customer service metric it’s been using for the past 20 years and replacing it with a new measurement that will more accurately reflect the public’s interactions with the tax agency, according to agency leadership.

The IRS is pursuing these changes as part of a broader shakeup of its senior ranks happening less than a week from the start of the tax filing season.

IRS Chief Executive Officer Frank Bisignano told employees in a memo obtained by Federal News Network that these changes will help the IRS achieve the “best filing season results in timeliness and accuracy.”

“At the heart of this vision is a digital-first taxpayer experience, complemented by a strong human touch wherever it is needed,” Bisignano wrote in the memo sent Tuesday.

In addition to overseeing day-to-day operations at the IRS, Bisignano also serves as the head of the Social Security Administration.

As part of these changes, Bisignano wrote that the IRS will place its current measurement of customer service over the phone with “enterprise metrics that reflect new technologies and service channels.”

“These updates will allow us to more accurately capture how the IRS serves taxpayers today,” he wrote.

The IRS and the Treasury Department did not respond to requests for comment. Bisignano told the Washington Post that the new metrics will track the agency’s average speed to answer incoming calls, call abandonment rates and the amount of time taxpayers spend on the line with the agency.

He told the Post that the agency’s old phone metrics didn’t help the IRS with its mission of solving taxpayers’ problems — and that the agency is investing in technology to better service its customers.

“We’re constantly investing in technology. We constantly must reap the rewards of it,” Bisignano told the Post.

The IRS is specifically sunsetting its Customer Service Representative Level of Service metric. The agency has used this metric for more than 20 years.

But the National Taxpayer Advocate, an independent watchdog within the IRS, told Congress last year that this metric is “misleading” and “does not accurately reflect the experience of most taxpayers who call” the agency.

National Taxpayer Advocate Erin Collins wrote in last year’s mid-year report to Congress that this Level of Service (LOS) metric only reflects calls coming into IRS accounts management phone lines, which make up only about 25% of the agency’s total call volume.

Using the LOS metric, the IRS achieved an 88% level of phone service in fiscal 2024. But IRS employees actually answered less than a third of calls received during the 2024 filing season — both in terms of total calls, and calls to accounts management phone lines.

The agency calculates its LOS metric by taking the percentage of phone calls answered by IRS employees and dividing it by the number of calls routed to IRS staff.

The IRS relies on this metric, as well as historical data on call volumes, to set targets for how many calls it has the capacity to answer, and to set hiring and training goals in preparation for each tax filing season.

Collins wrote that the LOS metric has become a proxy for the level of customer service taxpayers can expect from the IRS. But she told lawmakers that using this metric to drive taxpayer service decisions “is akin to letting the tail wag the dog.”

“The LOS is a check-the-box measure that fails to gauge the taxpayer’s telephone experience accurately and fails even to attempt to gauge the taxpayer experience in other important areas,” Collins wrote. “Yet because the IRS has adopted it as its primary measure of taxpayer service, sacrifices are made in other areas to boost the LOS as much as possible.”

Besides overhauling IRS call metrics, Bisignano announced a new leadership team at the agency.

As reported by the Associated Press, Gary Shapley, a whistleblower who testified about investigations into Hunter Biden’s taxes and who served as IRS commissioner for just two days last year, has been named deputy chief of the agency’s criminal investigation division.

According to Bisignano’s memo, Guy Ficco, the chief of the agency’s criminal investigation division, is retiring and will be replaced by Jarod Koopman, who will also continue to serve as the agency’s chief tax compliance officer.

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• The secretive National Reconnaissance Office has announced a new top official. William Adkins was appointed principal deputy director of the NRO on Monday. Adkins previously served as professional staff on the House Appropriations Committee. He’s also a veteran of the Central Intelligence Agency and had been detailed to the NRO to manage technology development projects in the late 1990’s.
  (NRO announces principal deputy director - Social media platform X)
• Congress breathes new life into the Technology Modernization Fund. House and Senate appropriators agreed to give funding to the Technology Modernization Fund for the first time in four years. Lawmakers on the Financial Services and General Government appropriations subcommittee allocated $5 million for 2026 in the bipartisan deal struck over the weekend. Congress had zeroed out any new funding for the TMF since 2023. Two other centralized IT funds also received support from Capitol Hill. The Federal Citizen Services Fund is slated to receive $70 million and the IT Oversight and Reform Fund is getting $8 million.
  (Congress to give TMF $5M FOR 2026 - House Appropriations Committee)
• The Pentagon has rolled out a new artificial intelligence strategy that seeks to transform the department into an “AI-First warfighting force.” Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said the department will invest heavily in AI compute infrastructure, from data centers to systems at the tactical edge. The strategy directs the chief digital and artificial intelligence office to enforce the Pentagon’s “Data Decrees” to make all DoD data interoperable, visible and trustworthy. Military departments and defense agencies will be required to establish and maintain federated data catalogs that expose data assets and system interfaces across all classification levels. Hegseth also directed the department to use special hiring authorities and talent programs to bring in AI talent.
  (New AI strategy aims to make DoD an ‘AI-first’ warfighting force - Department of Defense)
• A new bill will require the Pentagon to assess whether its current efforts to recruit, train and retain cyber talent are working. The Department of Defense Comprehensive Cyber Workforce Strategy Act of 2025 tasks the Pentagon with developing a new cyber workforce strategy. The lawmakers want the Pentagon to assess remaining gaps in implementing the DoD’s 2023–2027 Cyber Workforce Strategy, and identify which elements of the current strategy should be continued or dropped. Congress is also requesting detailed workforce data, including the size of the cyber workforce, vacancy rates, specific work roles and other data related to personnel system metrics. The Pentagon faces a shortage of approximately 25,000 cyber professionals.
  (Senate bill will require DoD to review cyber workforce gaps - Federal News Network)
• The state and local cloud security program known as GovRamp has new leadership. Tony Sauerhoff, the chief artificial intelligence and innovation officer for Texas, is the new president of the GovRAMP Board of Directors. He replaces JR Sloan, the Arizona CIO, who served in that role since 2021. Sauerhoff also served as Texas' chief information security officer and previously worked for the Marine Corps and Air Force. In addition to Sauerhoff’s appointment, GovRAMP announced its 2026 board and committee leadership.
  (GovRAMP names Texas chief AI officer as its new president - GovRAMP)
• Lawmakers look to put more money behind plans to offload unused federal office space. House and Senate appropriators want to give the General Services Administration more than $1 billion to carry out new construction and repair the federal buildings it already owns. Lawmakers said they’re concerned about a multi-billion-dollar maintenance backlog for these buildings. GSA will likely need much more funding to keep its buildings from falling into disrepair. The new GSA administrator said the agency is looking at a $24 billion maintenance backlog, and said that is likely an undercount.
  (Shrinking federal office space, more agencies spared from major cuts: What to expect from latest spending bills - Federal News Network)
• The latest spending package for fiscal 2026 directs the General Services Administration to improve public-facing service delivery. Lawmakers want GSA to make federal websites more accessible to people with disabilities. The spending package also calls on GSA to help agencies improve their public-facing benefits and services through AI tools. But the spending deal doesn’t put any new funding behind this goal.
  (Shrinking federal office space, more agencies spared from major cuts: What to expect from latest spending bills - Federal News Network)
• The Department of Homeland Security is flush with funding for new drone technologies. Now DHS is establishing an office to lead those purchases. DHS’ new Program Executive Office for Unmanned Aircraft Systems and Counter-Unmanned Aircraft Systems will oversee strategic investments expected to total in the billions of dollars in the coming years. This week, the office plans to finalize a $115 million counter-drone award to help secure America250 and FIFA World Cup events. And late last year, DHS began accepting proposals from the counter-drone industry for a $1.5 billion contract vehicle.
  (DHS launches new office to advance drone and counter-drone technologies - Department of Homeland Security)

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Interview transcript

Terry Gerton Let’s start with talking about Hive. You’ve positioned yourself really as a disrupter in the federal contracting space. Are there specific technology or process innovations that have helped you most transform your organization?

Will Fortier Well, I think that that’s something that every organization is going through at this moment and time. I think some of the enablers that we’ve certainly benefited from would be the cloud service providers. That has completely revolutionized how we interact with our solutions. When I entered the GovCon space, we were still on print and file servers and version control was a huge issue and Just moving towards collaborative tools like Google suites and Microsoft Teams has allowed us to actually collaborate on the artifacts that we’re building for our clients and communicate. Could you imagine going through a pandemic without those cloud service providers? That has been a big game changer for us in how we affect our clients’ missions. But what we’ve been focusing on are things like improving decision support systems across our clients’ platforms, enabling them to just — getting the right information into the decision-makers hands and enabling that decision-making process much faster and much more efficient. Trying to take out errors, trying to increase automation and reliability of that data.

Terry Gerton Do you find that your innovations are driven more by your client demands or by Hive anticipating what they will want?

Will Fortier Yeah, I think it’s always a mixture of both. I think that just in our name itself, Hive Group, we’ve got a lot — our people are in the field, our labs are in field, we’re responding to client demand. But we also have this collection of subject matter expertise in house. All of our leadership are practitioners in the industry, meaning they’ve delivered solutions to clients themselves. And so when we’re brought into discussion, with our teams on the delivery side, what we end up doing is synthesizing what they’re doing and then using our experience to then pull that information in-house and try to build something on top of that that might be useful to the clients, might give some benefit. And not only that, but sharing from what we’re doing on one client engagement on other client engagements as well. So we’ve developed things like Hexacore, which is a delivery excellence framework that we employ in all our delivery teams. And then HiveIQ, as well, as something else that we’ve instituted, which is really information sharing and getting best practices from what one team is doing into another team’s skillset.

Terry Gerton You started to talk about some of your specific products there. It’s a crowded federal contracting space. How do you use those kinds of products and other techniques or strategies to differentiate Hive?

Will Fortier Yeah, that’s interesting. So there’s been a lot of innovation in this space, and certainly there’s been a lot a top-down pressure, which is really making it — a lot of people taking stabs at trying to innovate. Whether we’re building the tools themselves, or we’re developing partnerships with those that actually have really good tools as well, it’s a mixture between both of those sides of the coin. A lot of what we do is focused around the reinvestment of what were doing. I mean, we’ve had a quick and fast growth trajectory since the start of the company. And so what we’re doing is taking that money and it’s allowing us to reinvest into what we’re able to offer as far as our solutions to our clients. That allows us to also get deeper and specialize in some of those areas that we’re focusing on.

Terry Gerton You talked about that rapid scaling and growth. Are there any particular critical decisions that have enabled you to scale without losing your quality control?

Will Fortier Yes, scaling. That is something that, as a practitioner in the field, I think a lot of us don’t really get faced with those kinds of questions until you’re either in the C-suite or in the ownership seat, yourself. And so what we do, I think it’s kind of two-part. One is internal, it’s making sure that the right people are in the right seats on the bus. Because what got you to 50 people isn’t necessarily the same configuration that’s gonna work when you’re scaling up to 200. And so you gotta keep that in mind. And that’s something that you learn when you are actually sitting in that seat. And then the next is externally. I think that looking at your support providers is a real game changer and getting the right support providers can be a real force multiplier. And making those mistakes can also cost you a lot of effort and time down the road. And there’s certainly some examples of that, one would be getting good advice. Not surprising to anybody, but having good legal advice is a really obvious thing to have, but one that kind of caught me by surprise was banking relationships. And so, when you start out a company, whoever will give you a line of credit and some treasury is usually who you end up starting with. But as you start to scale up, your needs do change. And so I remember our CFO, Ryan Fuller, came to me and said, hey, I think it’s time that we kind of look at some other options, got into that, got into the why. We ended up going with JP Morgan Chase. Once we did that, I really started realizing how important banking relationships are. Bringing people, hearing from the SMEs on what direction the market is going, getting to meet with other business owners and sort of collaborating with them on what they’re going through — all those kinds of, those offerings that the right support provider can provide is just, it certainly has affected who we are as a business and how we operate.

Terry Gerton That is such important insight, and it sounds like a lesson learned maybe the hard way through experience.

Will Fortier Yeah, you can start your QuickBooks as a great tool, probably not going to get you to, it’s probably not something you want to scale on. But yeah, I mean the tools that you start out with are great and they certainly have a place, but the partnerships, they need to evolve along with how you scale.

Terry Gerton You also mentioned the importance of having the right people in the right seats on the bus, everybody’s favorite leadership analogy. But what are your tricks of the trade in terms of making sure that you have the right people in those right seats, especially in cleared positions, and how do you maintain culture as you’re growing your organization?

Will Fortier The culture question is, we could spend an hour on that alone and that has certainly faced some challenges with COVID and the separation of a lot of folks going remote. But when it comes to talent retention, I think it’s one of the most important things that we’ve focused on. It’s important not to just drop your team member off at a client’s site and say good luck. When our employees look around, what we focus on is putting an emphasis around lifting our people. This is actually one of our core pillars as an organization. And in doing that, we try to focus and work with our client sets on finding opportunities for people to have a growth path. And when we do that, it’s more than just a sales pitch. I mean, the employees that are coming in can take a quick look around and see some folks who might have joined our organization at an entry level and are now a part of the leadership team. Finding those kinds of candidates is certainly what we strive for, and that’s the kind of culture that we want to build and support. Then really a part the secret sauce is how you hire, which is very different depending on the organizations that you go to. I think that what we try to focus on is more the total picture. I mean, some bigger mistakes that we see both on the government side as well as the industry side is making a hiring decision just because the person has done the work, similar work before, instead of focusing on the culture fit: is this person professionally curious? Are they gonna emulate the qualities and the core values that you’re trying to establish throughout the organization? And look, nobody bats a thousand in doing that, but it is something that we consciously try to keep in mind when we’re building out our team.

Terry Gerton So we’ve talked a little bit about what makes Hive different, your scaling strategy or your workforce strategy, but there’s a lot that’s changing in the GovCon space right now. So if you’re looking forward five years, how do you think Hive will change to continue to be competitive in the market?

Will Fortier Yeah, so to say that things are changing right now doesn’t feel like a strong enough phrase. But one of the things that we want to focus on, and we could go on about all the different kinds of capabilities that we’re trying to implement for clients, but one that’s near and dear to my heart is certainly the acquisition process. You’re seeing a lot in that discussion nowadays, and certainly with the revolutionary FAR overhaul, you’re seeing lot of recommended change for how the government goes about procuring things. So I think that there’s a lot of discussion that needs to happen, and there’s certainly a lot of innovation that we can work towards. In that realm, one of the things that we’ve started at Hive Group is the Industry Partner Council, and that is a collection of really the big 20, and altogether there’s 200 businesses all throughout the GovCon space that are in varying degrees participating, and what we’re aimed to do is really just strengthening that conversation between contracting activities and industry, and trying to find ways to educate each other, you know, break down those barriers, get us talking more, and there’s certainly, with as much change that is going on right now, we’ve got to also keep those avenues to talk and discuss what’s working and what’s not working. So that’s one avenue that we’re hoping continues to stick and certainly getting more contracting activities on board with it.

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• The Presidential Rank Awards are back for 2026, and the Office of Personnel Management is now looking for nominations. The prestigious honors program is reserved for career members of the Senior Executive Service and other senior career employees. OPM’s new call for nominations marks a restart of the awards program, which the Trump administration canceled for 2025. Agencies have until Feb. 5 to submit nominations to OPM for any executives they want to be considered for a 2026 award.
  (Call for nominations for 2026 Presidential Rank Awards - Office of Personnel Management)
• Congress takes another step toward fully funding the government this year. House and Senate negotiators have found common ground on the fiscal 2026 Financial Services and General Government, National Security, Department of State and related programs bills. House and Senate Appropriations Subcommittee leadership agreed to the full year spending bill over the weekend. Lawmakers said these agencies would see a total of $9 billion less than what they received in 2025. But the Treasury Department, for instance, would see a $700 million increase over the president's request, but more than a $2 billion cut as compared to 2025. House lawmakers passed a mini-bus bill last week to fund several agencies including the departments of Commerce, Justice, Interior and Health and Human Services.
  (House, Senate appropriators agree on another spending bill - House Appropriations Committee)
• There’s been a steep decline in federal employees’ ability to join a union. New data from the Office of Personnel Management shows that currently, about 50% of feds are not eligible to be part of a bargaining unit. That’s a 20% increase in ineligibility from just a year earlier. It leaves about 38% of federal employees who are in a bargaining unit and another 12% who are eligible, but who haven’t officially joined up. The shift is largely due to President Trump’s orders last year for most agencies to terminate their union contracts.
  (Federal workforce bargaining unit status - Office of Personnel Management)
• The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency says some of its cyber directives are no longer needed. CISA is retiring 10 emergency directives issued to federal agencies between 2019 and 2024. Typically CISA issues an emergency directive when a cyber vulnerability poses an urgent and immediate risk to federal systems and data. The ones being retired include the 2021 emergency directive that told agencies to address the SolarWinds Orion software compromise. CISA said the directives are being retired because the objectives were achieved or changes in cyber practices have made them obsolete.
  (CISA retires 10 emergency directives - CISA )
• The National Security Agency is bringing a familiar face back to serve as its number two official. Timothy Kosiba has been named deputy director of the NSA. He’ll serve as the senior civilian official at the agency overseeing strategy execution, policy, operations and management of civilian leadership. Kosiba began his career at the NSA and served in leadership roles including chief of Computer Network Operations and then deputy commander of NSA Georgia. Kosiba spent the last three years in various roles in the private sector.
  (NSA announces Tim Kosiba as next NSA deputy director - National Security Agency)
• The wait for awards under the General Services Administration's Alliant 3 IT services governmentwide acquisition contract may soon be over. GSA said in a new notice on Sam.gov that it plans to make Alliant 3 awards by the end of March. GSA has been evaluating proposals since last April and released the initial solicitation in June 2024. Over those 18 months, GSA issued 12 amendments to the RFP and had to justify continuing the initiative under President Donald Trump's federal acquisition executive order from March 2025.
  (GSA plans to make awards under Alliant 3 GWAC before April - Sam.gov)
• President Donald Trump took aim at defense contractors Wednesday, announcing new restrictions on executive pay and stock buybacks as part of the administration’s push to speed procurement and revitalize the defense industrial base. The government already has a whole set of tools in its toolbox to incentivize, reward or penalize companies based on their performance. What is different here, however, are the remedies the administration is focused on. The main challenge in implementing this executive order will be defining the key parameters contractors are going to be held accountable for. In addition, while Trump promised to cap executive pay at $5 million, the figure did not make it into the executive order. Instead, the president directed the defense secretary to ensure future contracts require executive compensation to be tied to performance, such as on-time delivery and increased production.
  (Trump order targeting defense contractor pay, stock buybacks is ‘full of ambiguity’ - Federal News Network )
• The Defense Department has long tried to simplify and reform the reserve duty status system, which has expanded to more than 30 separate statutes scattered across about 20 different titles of federal law. This complex system has created pay and benefits inequities and frequent administrative delays when National Guard members and reservists shift between duty statuses. A new bipartisan bill would consolidate more than 30 different duty statuses under which National Guard members and reservists can be called to service to just four. If passed, the Duty Status Reform Act would ensure service members performing assignments in the same category receive the same pay and benefits. Rep. Gil Cisneros (D-Calif.), the bill’s sponsor, said the effort is his “number one priority, returning to Congress.”
  (New bipartisan bill seeks to overhaul complex reserve duty status system - Rep. Gil Cisneros (D-Calif.))

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Interview transcript:

 

Terry Gerton You have done some recent research that connects in very detailed ways the accuracy of census data to federal funding programs. Walk us through the high points and what’s at stake now as we look to 2030.

Sean Moulton Everyone knows that every 10 years we do a full census of the entire population here in the United States. And we’ve done it really since the founding of the country. But it’s not just an academic exercise just to figure out how many people are in each state or anything like that. We use that data in a very robust way. One of those ways is helping to guide our federal funding. What we’ve been looking into is, how much funding are we talking about that gets guided by the census? And what we found is 371 federal assistance programs that we can connect to census data in terms of guidance. And it gets guided in a number of ways. There’s some very simple ways where the census data can be, say, an on-off switch. The easiest example of this is funds maybe going to a rural area, or funds for an urban area. Urban-rural designation is entirely based on the number of people you have. You don’t have many people, population density is low, then you’re rural. That’s all there is to it. And so that census data getting that accurate can turn on or off money going to those types of areas. And there’s formulas where different pieces of census data go into an exact formula that figures out how much your area, your state, your county, your city or something like that might get. If you get the census data wrong, it could impact how much money’s coming to your area. A third area is a little bit more nebulous, but it’s definitely something we can track. Some programs accept applications and they can score and evaluate those applications on a variety of criteria, but they’re always transparent about it. And sometimes census data can come into play. Maybe the program is really geared and they want to help lower income areas or areas with historically disadvantaged communities. And so census data can be used to determine that, and your application might get extra points. And then the last way is for some of our loan programs, census data can even influence the interest rate that you might have to pay back. So it can affect how much money gets out and then how much you have to paid back. And these 371 programs, they accounted for $2.2 trillion in a single fiscal year, just one year.

Terry Gerton Was there anything about the 2020 Census or recent funding formulas that raised flags for you, that you want to make sure get addressed before we get to 2030?

Sean Moulton Every census, problems happen. It’s a huge endeavor, trying to count everyone in the country, at the same time, exactly where they are. We always have errors. But 2020 was one of the first years we did a lot more digital records. We were using what’s called administrative records to try and fill in some gaps from non-responses. And so we really need to address those. There are also a number of states that had statistically significant undercounts or overcounts, and those are particularly troubling. We need states and locations, especially in the areas that had previous undercounts, to make more of an effort in the run up to 2030 to make sure they get the count right.

Terry Gerton I’m speaking with Sean Moulton. He’s a senior policy analyst at the Project on Government Oversight. Let’s dig into those undercounts a little bit. Are there communities that are most vulnerable to being undercounted? And when they are undercounted, what is the impact?

Sean Moulton There are, and Census Bureau knows this and has made efforts over the years to do better outreach to what they call hard-to-count communities, or historically hard-to-count, communities. And these are lower income communities, because of the digital divide; these are rural communities; these are renters. Children are hard to count for some reason; even though the parents are filling out the forms, they might not include their children for some reason. Maybe they don’t understand it applies to everybody. Non-English speakers, not primary English speakers, sometimes they don’t understand the forms or understand the necessity to respond. So there’s a lot of different groups that are harder than the average citizen, we’ll say, to get those responses back from. This is where states and cities and counties can do a better job of reaching out and making sure their community members know the importance of the census, not just as a legal activity, but as something that helps the community and then responds.

Terry Gerton The census is supposed to count every single person, right? Citizens and non-citizens. We had the addition of a citizenship question in 2020. Certainly we’ve had a lot of focus under the Trump administration on citizenship. What impact do you think that’s going to have leading into the 2030 count?

Sean Moulton So in 2020, we had an attempt to add a citizenship question, and it went all the way to the Supreme Court and they tossed it out on a procedural issue. They said, it’s a question you can ask. It’s been in the census before, but they did it in the wrong way, their process was wrong, flawed. So we may be seeing another fight over that. The real problem with the citizenship question is there’s not much evidence that it’s going to give us anything of importance. More importantly, a lot of what we use the census for, it doesn’t matter if you’re a citizen. The funding for hospitals or healthcare or roads — the roads don’t care if you are a citizen and driving on them, or if you a non-citizen and driving them, and we need to repair the roads based on the wear and tear and how many people are there. The same for mass transit and other things. We’re funding for everyone. And so, if we try and narrow our ask to citizens, we’re going to get our allocations of funds wrong, and citizens will then be also penalized. They’ll have roads that aren’t being repaired fast enough and they’ll have problems getting into emergency rooms and what have you. Citizens will also be affected because they will encounter the problems that the low funding leads to: poor maintenance on the roads, longer wait times for their health care. And so even though they may think this is about citizens/non-citizens, everyone’s affected when the funding gets impacted.

Terry Gerton Do you have a sense that members of Congress understand this connection? I mean, at the core, one of their jobs is to bring home money to their districts. If the census count is accurate, the better their funding will be. And yet, do you think they really understand the importance of the accuracy here?

Sean Moulton I don’t. You know, it is pretty buried. We had to do a lot of research to figure out the extent of this. And I can tell you that just a few years ago, the Census Bureau used to do a report somewhat along these lines, and their number was much, much lower. It’s only been in recent years that we’ve kind of expanded our understanding to realize just how important the Census Bureau numbers are in terms of guiding federal funds.

Terry Gerton Are there steps that Congress or the Census Bureau should take now to improve accuracy coming into the 2030 census? I mean, five years seems like a long way off, but Census is already getting ready.

Sean Moulton  A lot of people don’t realize there’s a lot that happens in between those 10 years, but right now probably one of the biggest things would be to get ready to participate in what’s called LUCA, Local Update of Census Addresses. And this is a process that the Census Bureau runs in the run-up to every decennial census where they reach out and they try and get participation of local officials — county, city, state — to update the addresses they have. And an interesting fact is, if the Census Bureau doesn’t have your address, then it doesn’t matter if you fill out the form or not. You can’t be counted. The address comes before the household’s response. And so if somehow you’re living in a recently refurbished apartment over a garage and the post office doesn’t have that address officially on file as a new residence, then you’re not going to get counted. And so we really need to update those addresses and keep them as up-to-date as possible because it’s the first step to getting the responses back.

Terry Gerton Just to wrap up sort of on a more systematic note, is having this much federal funding dependent on the census the best way to go forward? Are there other funding formulas that we should use? Maybe even, wrong, it is the best source of data that we have.

Sean Moulton It is. Obviously, there’s other funding formulas that get used; 371 is not the majority of federal programs out there. But when you’re talking about trying to assist individuals and households, then the census data really can help us find those households and say, inside a state or inside a city, how much should they get? And we’re going to use data to help drive and allocate those rather than simply dividing it up into one-fiftieth and every state gets that amount. It doesn’t make any sense. If one state needs more, it should get more, and the census data, while we’ve had our problems, is still a very accurate number based on getting a lot of the money allocated. We get some things wrong and we’re always trying to improve that, but it’s still an incredibly useful tool for the federal government and for private individuals. Corporations use a lot of census data to figure out where they’re going to put their next grocery store or what have you. That’s because it has proven to be such a reliable tool to help guide those kinds of decisions.

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Interview transcript:

Terry Gerton You’ve worked across several different executive branch agencies and done a lot of things. Tell us what first drew you into public service.

Kshemendra Paul I came into public service in 2005 into the Department of Justice, in large measure because I was presented with an opportunity to be part of the solution, to be a part of something bigger than myself post 9/11. So for many years, I was part of structural response in the government to the tragic events on 9/11: improving information sharing, more effective use of technology at a pretty interesting and challenging time for the nation.

Terry Gerton Sounds like that got you hooked. How did you find it moving across different federal agencies?

Kshemendra Paul It did get me hooked. I came from the private sector — took a little bit of a pay cut because of the attraction to the mission. Two years in, I was getting ready to start thinking about maybe what’s next for me. I thought that was going back to the private sector, but that was right around the time when I got outreach from Karen Evans and Dick Burke in White House, in the Office of Management and Budget. And they asked me to come up and be the federal chief architect. I had to do a gut call; it was a big job. I decided I love working and doing the public service mission. I said yes, and I went up there and just continued in OMB and then later as the presidentially designated governmentwide lead for information-sharing under President Obama. At that point, I decided to just stick with it. And I have no regrets. I’m just full of gratitude for the opportunities I had, for the people that held me up, and the exciting and interesting work I was able to do.

Terry Gerton You just mentioned some pretty massive and impressive projects. As you look back, is there any one accomplishment or success or program that you go, yes, that’s what it was really all about, that’s where I’m especially proud?

Kshemendra Paul  I have many of those, but my first success, maybe my first love in the public sector, was leading something called the National Information Exchange Model. I was asked soon after coming into the Department of Justice by the then-CIO Van Hitch to take a look and help out and lead the project. I was really pleased to be able to do that with state and local partners, with DHS, other federal partners, and deliver the first version of the exchange model — really providing a core technical aspect of the government’s response post-9/11. Semantic interoperability, right? With computer systems, you have data stovepipes and what terms mean doesn’t necessarily translate across system boundaries, much less boundaries of endeavor like law enforcement, homeland security, intelligence and levels of government. And that was a problem that we solved successfully with the NIEM. Now it’s 20 years old and actually successfully transitioned to OASIS as an international standards body and a standard itself. That effort was a great introduction to the possibility of transformation using data and technology in the public sector.

Terry Gerton Well, data and technology have changed a lot in the last 20 years. Is your sense that the government is able to keep pace?

Kshemendra Paul I think the government does a lot, and there’s a lot of folks across the federal workforce that are quite capable and committed. But the government has challenges, large bureaucracies. Some of that is related to the political process. When I first came into government, the government budget process seemed to work, more or less. That’s dropped off over the years and that’s cascaded; the budget process really is the keystone management process, and I’m a management guy. That dropping off really caused some consternation and made it more difficult. The prevalence of shutdowns, we just went through the longest shutdown, that didn’t help. So there’s challenges, and that was actually a key theme of the conference. We focused at the NAPA conference, the National Academy of Public Administration, on the challenges that the public sector faces, but also the fact that these are long-standing challenges, the drop of trust in government, in some ways the ossification of public administration, and the opportunity for reinvention in this moment — never let a crisis go to waste.

Terry Gerton I’m speaking with Kshemendra Paul. He’s a former senior federal data and tech leader and a newly elected fellow of the National Academy of Public Administration. Kshemendra, you’re joining the Academy at a time when public trust in government is under pressure. How do you hope to participate with the Academy and jointly help the government address some of these issues associated with public trust?

Kshemendra Paul My lane is data, information sharing and technology applied to government to perform and improve government performance. As a part of the Academy, I’m hoping that what I bring to the table can be melded and remixed with the other 1,000 fellows that have different perspectives. They can help make me better and I can help make them better, and together the Academy can put forward positive, constructive and respectful prescriptions for what’s next. I think that’s a major role and a theme at the conference. I also am keen to carry forward ideas about open government. Government needs to be transparent. Government needs to be participatory. Government needs to be collaborative. And I really think that using data in smart and innovative ways to help with setting incentives and organizational design and organizational incentives offers new opportunities for public administration.

Terry Gerton You’re joining this group of a thousand people who’ve had long careers in public service. If you were speaking to someone from the next generation maybe, how would you encourage them to consider a career in public service?

Kshemendra Paul It’s so important not to get caught up and react to the moment, but to be reflective and smart and strategic and respond in the moment. And that response is informed by your values, informed by what makes public administration and public service so important. I think public administration — vigorous public administration that’s transparent and responsive, that works across levels of government — really keeps with the constitutional design that’s reflected in the Federalist Papers and in our constitution as written. So that’s the eye on the prize. A vigorous, effective government is so important to restoring trust in government, to underpinning our democracy and our federated republic. I think the next generation can be part of that solution and respond to the sound of cannon, so to speak, maybe in some way like I did after 9/11 and generations have done so in the past.

The post From DOJ to VA, Kshemendra Paul’s journey exemplifies lasting public service first appeared on Federal News Network.

© Federal News Network

 

Interview transcript:

Terry Gerton You’ve done an interesting report recently. You revealed that senior officials at the FBI were granted waivers for polygraph exams. Let’s start at the beginning. Really, is this normal? And if it’s not, what is normal?

William Turton It’s not normal. You know, the people we spoke to who’ve worked at the highest levels of the FBI have told us that to grant waivers for people like the deputy director, Dan Bongino, the congressional liaison, Marshall Yates and the executive assistant to the director Kash Patel — a woman named Nicole Rucker — granting them polygraph waivers is unprecedented. We spoke to one person who said that they can only recall one waiver being granted, to an outside expert, and that was the only one they knew of in about a seven-year period.

Terry Gerton Are senior leaders at the FBI normally required to pass a polygraph exam?

William Turton All FBI employees are required to pass a polygraph exam. And that’s been the case since 1994. So just to become an FBI employee, you must pass a polygraph. And then as you gain more clearances or access to more sensitive information, some employees have to pass multiple polygraphs.

Terry Gerton And what does a waiver, then, of the polygraph signify?

William Turton We would love to know more about why they were granted waivers. When you take a polygraph at the bureau, based on the people that we spoke to, you get asked all sorts of questions ranging from illegal drug use to foreign contacts. Anything in the spectrum there can potentially cause issues with your employment. We didn’t report any details as to why these people were granted waivers, but we’d love to know more.

Terry Gerton So who has the authority then to grant the waiver?

William Turton We reported that Kath Patel, the director of the FBI, granted the waivers to all three of the employees that I mentioned earlier.

Terry Gerton Is there any requirement to give a justification for that, or was there any transparency around why those waivers were provided?

William Turton The Bureau didn’t disclose that the waivers were granted. The only reason we know that is because we spoke to sources with knowledge and we ended up reporting it. But there was no sort of disclosure or justification from the Bureau as to why the waivers were granted. When we went to the Bureau for comment, one of the things that they told us was that, well, these employees are Schedule C political appointees, so therefore they don’t have to take a polygraph. We spoke to four experts who specialize in security clearances and polygraphs who told us that’s not true. Being a Schedule C or political appointee doesn’t preclude you from having to take a polygraph. And for the record, I went and checked the Plum Book; only one of the three employees that I previously mentioned, Nicole Rucker, is listed as a political appointee.

Terry Gerton One of the reasons that you might expect an FBI official to take a polygraph is to make sure there isn’t any compromising information in their background. But one of the other reasons is to secure that top secret clearance. What kind of information might these folks be exposed to and what is the impact of not having a clear polygraph test and clearance?

William Turton As we reported in this story, the deputy director of the FBI receives some of the most closely guarded secrets that the American government has to offer. People have told us that the deputy director would routinely receive the president’s daily brief, which is a summary from all across the intelligence community of some of the most pressing threats to the country. They also get access to SCI, or special compartmented information, where people are read in and read out of various programs, where a very small amount of people have knowledge of that program. There’s also secure spaces within FBI headquarters. For example, on the seventh floor where the director of the FBI works, the entire director’s suite is what’s known as a SCIF, or secure compartmented information facility, meaning it’s designed to protect against electronic eavesdropping, you can’t bring personal devices inside and you need clearance that is granted, in part, by passing your polygraph to access those spaces.

Terry Gerton I’m speaking with William Turton. He’s an investigative reporter with ProPublica. So what does all of this mean in terms of national security and public trust, if these folks don’t have the proper clearances or haven’t been properly vetted and have access to these important secret information?

William Turton I think one of the most immediate impacts that this has could be on the morale of other FBI employees. It’s important to note that Mr. Patel, the director of the FBI, has used the polygraph on his own workforce in order to see if negative comments have been made about him personally or if there have been leaks to the media. And so I think it presents a sort of immediate double standard that hasn’t really been explained by the Bureau, where top officials close to Patel don’t have to take a polygraph; at the same time Patel will use the polygraph to try and ferret out leaks or negative comments about his leadership.

Terry Gerton What’s happening in terms of oversight here? Has the Department of Justice said anything or the congressional oversight committees?

William Turton  Sen. Durbin, who is the ranking member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, which is the main congressional oversight body of the FBI, raised this issue before Kash Patel when he testified before Congress. This actually happened before our story published, but Durbin mentioned senior members of Patel’s staff, and didn’t at that time explicitly name the deputy director. So this is on Congress’s radar, and when Kash Patel was asked about this, he didn’t engage in the question directly and deflected.

Terry Gerton So this feels a little bit like a tree falling in the forest. If no one is there to hear it, does it make a sound? Is this really a big deal? And if it is, what is going to happen in terms of broader implications, policy changes or even maybe a shakeup?

William Turton The former senior FBI officials and other government officials we spoke to thought it was a big deal. They thought it was a reflection of the fact that the FBI is being run by people who wouldn’t be able to, in their view, pass the minimum requirements to become an agent, much less the deputy director. So I think there’s a question of security, absolutely, people are concerned about. There’s a question about keeping information confidential and secure. And then there’s open questions about the motivations of the people running the Bureau. Officials that we spoke to wondered whether this was an example of prioritizing personal loyalty to the Trump administration and the director, rather than the kind of policies and procedures that are typically in place for FBI employees.

Terry Gerton Have you heard anything from Sen. Durbin or his staff or the committees about moving forward with additional hearings or additional oversight or possibly even future reforms of this process?

William Turton We haven’t, really. I think the story got lost in the news a little bit. There’s been a lot of news about the Bureau of late. I’m keeping my ears open; I think there’s a lot more to this story. And I have a feeling that it’s just scratching the surface.

Terry Gerton If it is eventually to generate some kind of reform, what do you think would be most likely? Would it be tightening clearance rules or codifying the polygraph requirements, as an example?

William Turton I’m not sure what avenues for reform there are, because as I understand it, the director and the president basically have unilateral authority to grant waivers for polygraphs or to grant, in some cases, clearances. So I think I don’t think anyone is eager to change that level of authority that rests with the president or the director of the FBI.

Terry Gerton Do you see any parallels between how the FBI has approached the polygraph and maybe what’s happening in the Department of Defense?

William Turton I think the most obvious parallel to me in writing the story —  I’m a little bit biased because I did some reporting on this earlier this year —  but what was happening at DHS, where employees were regularly being polygraphed for questions about media leaks or if employees had criticized leadership. It was kind of the exact same thing that we’ve been hearing at the FBI happening to rank-and-file staff.

The post At the FBI, a national security safeguard was quietly dropped for top leadership first appeared on Federal News Network.

© Getty Images/iStockphoto/allanswart

But wait, there’s more! Don’t miss a few great video greetings:

The Expedition 74 crew aboard the International Space Station sends warm wishes for happy holidays and a stellar New Year from orbit, where they’re celebrating a year of science, teamwork, and discoveries that connect us all. (Video courtesy NASA)

 

The 39th Commandant of the Marine Corps, Gen. Eric M. Smith, and the 20th Sergeant Major of the Marine Corps, Sgt. Maj. Carlos A. Ruiz, provide a message to the force on holidays at the Pentagon, Arlington, Virginia. (U.S. Marine Corps video by Communication Directorate/Headquarters Marine Corps)

 

Space Force Chief of Space Operations Gen. B. Chance Saltzman and Chief Master Sgt. of the Space Force John F. Bentivegna send holiday wishes across the Guardian force and beyond: “Thank you to every Guardian and family member for your commitment to our mission, especially those standing watch over the holidays. We hope you each find time to relax, recharge, and enjoy this special time with loved ones. Semper Supra.”

 

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A post shared by Mammoth Cave National Park (@mammothcavenps)

Mammoth Cave National Park delivered a truly unique, musical seasons greeting:

“From Ranger Jake and all of us here at Mammoth Cave National Park, happy holidays to you and yours!” the park posted on Instagram.

 

The post A look at 2025 holiday celebrations across federal agencies first appeared on Federal News Network.

© Marine Corps Base Camp Blaz/Lance Cpl. Afton Smiley

Interview transcript

Terry Gerton You have had an amazing career, really, multi-sector, across all kinds of dimensions and a focus on cyber security. What drew you into public administration and the public space?

Diana Burley I really wanted to make sure that technology and technology changes worked for all people. And so, you know, I often tell a story about my grandmother and me being excited and telling her about some new innovation that was going to happen on the World Wide Web back in the ’90s. And she just looked at me like, that’s not… exciting, and what about the people that I’m going to speak with, you know, that I won’t get to speak with anymore and the stories that I won’t hear in the community. And that’s really what struck me is that as we think about all the wonderful things that technology can do to make our lives more efficient, and in many ways, better. We cannot forget about the people and making sure that as we implement these new technologies, we are doing it in a responsible way.

Terry Gerton It’s kind of hard to even imagine, if you look back, the massive change in our lives as a result of technology. How have you kept yourself on the cutting edge of policy and talent?

Diana Burley I read a lot. I read lot, I listen a lot to podcasts and radio stations and interviews and I engage with the community. I think that in cybersecurity, especially when I would talk to my students, I made sure that they understood that this is not a career space where you can learn it and then go do it and forget about learning. It is truly an example of a space where you have to be continuously learning and engaging. And be excited about that. And so that’s what I do.

Terry Gerton As you think about your career, it’s full of recognitions and accomplishments and impact. Is there one thing maybe that stands out that you’re most proud of or a place where you think you really had an impact?

Diana Burley You know, every now and then, I will hear from a former student or even a former student that I didn’t actually teach but that saw me speak somewhere, or that heard me give advice to someone, and they’ll reach out just out of the blue and thank me or tell me something about their careers and really that is the greatest feeling — to know that you have positively impacted someone and help them to continue to grow.

Terry Gerton And in the technology space, there’s a lot of talk these days that technology has a real responsibility in terms of our lack of trust or our loss of trust in institutions. As you’re a new fellow of the National Academy of Public Administration, how do you see the role right now for public administration and public institutions in rebuilding that trust?

Diana Burley Well, public institutions have a significant responsibility. It is incumbent upon all of us to ensure that the work that we are doing is done in a transparent way and in a way that the communities and the citizens that we’re working to serve are able to not just hear the end, not just understand the decision or see or deal with the decision, but actually understand the process. And have an opportunity to engage in that process.

Terry Gerton Well, you’re certainly in a position where you have an impact on that leading research at the Brookings Institution. Are there particular policies or approaches that you would recommend, especially in the cybersecurity space, to help build that trust back?

Diana Burley It’s really all about transparency. I mean, that really is not just the practice that I think is important, but it’s also what I believe should be the core of the policy solutions, is making sure that people understand the rules of the road, how data was incorporated into the systems, how their data is being used, really making sure that individuals have some sense of agency and ownership over their own personal selves. We used to just think about agency over our physical selves, but now we have to believe that it is also important for us to have agency over digital selves. And that to me is the most important thing, regardless of who the people are.

Terry Gerton I’m speaking with Dr. Diana Burley. She’s the senior vice president of research at the Brookings Institution and a newly elected fellow of the National Academy of Public Administration. Diana, becoming a NAPA fellow is a big milestone. It’s sort of a culminating credit to your career. What does it mean to you personally to be inducted into that organization? It feels good to know.

Diana Burley That my work is being recognized for the impact. Napa Fellows and there are so many just extraordinary members of the Napa Academy, their work has made a difference and their work continues to make a difference. And that has always been my goal is to make sure that the work that I was doing had an impact, positive impact on someone’s life. And so this recognition helps me to just know that that is true even in some.

Terry Gerton The Academy’s got its fingers in lots of different pies and it’s a cross-sector community. How are you hoping to be engaged with the work that NAPA has ongoing?

Diana Burley I’m going to continue doing what I do onto digital transformation and thinking about how technology can help us serve the public better and help us be more efficient in the ways that we conduct our work. And so I am going to engage with the Academy in those spaces and just make sure that I’m bringing the best of.

Terry Gerton Of what I know to the work. One of Napa’s big focuses is on building the next generation of public servants. If you were chatting with a young person today who was still considering a future in public service, what advice would you have for them? Come join us.

Diana Burley You know, public service is so important. It really is the backbone of our democracy. The individuals who work in these public spaces, they don’t do it for accolades. They don’t it for lots of money. They do it because they believe in making our society work and in helping each other. And so I do believe that it’s not just a mission, it’s a calling. And I would encourage every young person to take advantage of the opportunity.

Terry Gerton They have it. Any particular guidance for folks who might think about a career in cybersecurity? Be willing to keep learning.

Diana Burley You have to read constantly, learn constantly, engage with people. And if you do that, you will be able to continue to move forward in cybersecurity.

The post A new honor for a leader who’s shaped cybersecurity policy and talent across sectors first appeared on Federal News Network.

© Getty Images/Natthaphon Wanason

Feel like taking your creativity level… a bit higher? Available for booking beginning this week, Seth Rogen partnered with Airbnb to unveil “A High-ly Creative Retreat,” providing a unique getaway in Los Angeles with ceramic activities.

The retreat features a ceramic studio with Rogen’s own handmade pottery, a display of his cannabis and lifestyle company Houseplant’s unique Housegoods, as well as mid-century furnishings, and “sprawling views of the city.”

The Airbnb is probably a lot cheaper than you think: Rogen will host three, one-night stays on February 15, 16, and 17 for two guests each for just $42—one decimal point away from 420—with some restrictions. U.S. residents can book an overnight stay at Rogen’s Airbnb beginning Feb. 7, but book now, because it’s doubtful that open slots will last.

“I don’t know what’s more of a Houseplant vibe than a creative retreat at a mid-century Airbnb filled with our Housegoods, a pottery wheel, and incredible views of LA,” Rogen said. “Add me, and you’ll have the ultimate experience.”

According to the listing, and his Twitter account, Rogen will be there to greet people and even do ceramics together.

“I’m teaming up with Airbnb so you (or someone else) can hang out with me and spend the night in a house inspired by my company,” Rogen tweeted recently.

I'm teaming up with @airbnb so you (or someone else) can hang out with me and spend the night in a house inspired by my company Houseplant. https://t.co/7XFoY5vgm9 pic.twitter.com/ukW1UxnEm5

— Seth Rogen (@Sethrogen) January 31, 2023

Guests will be provided with the following activities:

• Get glazed in the pottery studio and receive pointers from Rogen himself!
• Peruse a selection of Rogen’s own ceramic masterpieces, proudly displayed within the mid-century modern home.
• Relax and revel in the sunshine of the space’s budding yard.
• Tune in and vibe out to a collection of Houseplant record sets with specially curated tracklists by Seth Rogen & Evan Goldberg and inspired by different cannabis strains. Guests will get an exclusive first listen to their new Vinyl Box Set Vol. 2.
• Satisfy cravings with a fully-stocked fridge for after-hours snacks.

Airbnb plans to join in on Rogen’s charity efforts, including his non-profit Hilarity for Charity, focusing on helping people living with Alzheimer’s disease.

“In celebration of this joint effort, Airbnb will make a one-time donation to Hilarity for Charity, a national non-profit on a mission to care for families impacted by Alzheimer’s disease, activate the next generation of Alzheimer’s advocates, and be a leader in brain health research and education,” Airbnb wrote.

In 2021, Rogen launched Houseplant, his cannabis and lifestyle company, in the U.S. But the cannabis brand’s web traffic was so high that the site crashed. Houseplant was founded by Rogen and his childhood friend Evan Goldberg, along with Michael Mohr, James Weaver, and Alex McAtee.

Yahoo! News reports, however, that Airbnb does not (cough, cough) allow cannabis on the premises of listings. The listing, however, will be filled with goods from Houseplant. Houseplant also sells luxury paraphernalia with a “mid-century modern spin.”

Seth Rogen recently invited Architectural Digest to present a tour of the Houseplant headquarters’ interior decor and operations. Houseplant’s headquarters is located in a 1918 bungalow in Los Angeles. Architectural Digest describes it as “Mid-century-modern-inspired furniture creates a cozy but streamlined aesthetic.”

People living in the U.S. can request to book stays at airbnb.com/houseplant. Guests are responsible for their own travel to and from Los Angeles, California and comply with applicable COVID-19 rules and guidelines. 

See Rogen’s listing on the Airbnb site.

If you can’t find your way in, Airbnb provides over 1,600 other creative spaces available around the globe.

The post Seth Rogen’s ‘High-ly Creative Retreat’ Airbnb Begins Booking appeared first on High Times.

During a California court appearance Monday, when questioned about a 420 tweet, Elon Musk suddenly forgot the significance of the number in pot culture. The tech billionaire responded after being cornered by a prosecutor representing Tesla employees for a class action lawsuit alleging he tweeted and misled shareholders about the price of Tesla shares.

The fiasco began several years ago. In 2018, Musk rounded up Tesla shares from $419 to $420, announcing his plan to go private in a tweet. “Am considering taking Tesla private at $420,” Musk tweeted on Aug. 7, 2018. “Funding secured.”—sending officials from The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) into a tailspin.

Am considering taking Tesla private at $420. Funding secured.

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) August 7, 2018

Musk said he tweeted the share price based on what he said was a “firm commitment” from Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund (PIF) to take Tesla private. But about 10 days later, Musk admitted that the Tesla buyout he had envisioned wasn’t going to materialize.

After an investigation, the SEC fined Musk $40 million, forcing the billionaire to step down as chair of Tesla’s board. The SEC said that Musk misled investors. In the SEC’s complaint, Musk was accused of rounding up the share price to $420 from $419 “because he had recently learned about the number’s significance in marijuana culture.” 

Musk caused instantaneous uproar about a month later, sparking a blunt with Joe Rogan on his show “The Joe Rogan Experience” on Sept. 3, 2018, shocking Tesla investors and officials across the board. His troubles didn’t end there. High Times asked if it was “the most expensive blunt of all time” due to the fallout, with NASA- and SpaceX-associated officials reviewing his security clearance.

The Verge reports that Nicholas Porritt is an attorney for a class of Tesla investors suing Musk for millions of dollars that they say resulted from his failure to take Tesla private. 

The courtroom got tense: “You rounded up to 420 because you thought that would be a joke that your girlfriend will enjoy, isn’t that correct?” Porritt asked. “No,” Musk said, adding, “there is some, I think, karma around 420. I should question whether that is good or bad karma at this point.”

Musk said that 420 wasn’t a weed joke, but a roughly 20% premium on the $419 stock price at the time. “420 was not chosen because of a joke,” Musk testified. “It was chosen because there was a 20 percent premium over the stock price.” Musk also claimed that it was a “coincidence.”

The jury will decide if Musk should have to pay out up to billions of dollars in damages to Tesla shareholders for the money they lost due to his tweets.

Judge Edward Chen ruled that the jury should be aware that Musk’s 2018 tweets are false. Jurors will now need to decide whether Musk deceived Tesla shareholders because of his tweets.

Musk said that he was not relying on a commitment for the Saudi PIF when he tweeted “funding secured,” adding that his shares in SpaceX would also help fund the deal to take Tesla private. “Just as I sold stock in Tesla to buy Twitter… I didn’t want to sell Tesla stock, but I did sell Tesla stock,” Musk said. “My SpaceX shares alone would have meant that funding was secured.”

Musk has also been sued by a group of former Twitter employees after a mass firing. Musk recently became the CEO of Twitter after buying the platform for $44 billion in October 2022. Saudi Prince Alwaleed bin Talal bin Abdulaziz is Twitter’s second-largest shareholder after Musk. 

The post Elon Musk Denies 420 Tweet Was About Weed appeared first on High Times.