AP Reporter Nailed Over Wild Lie About DOGE, Trots Out the ‘Elon’s a Nazi’ Narrative in Desperate Attempt to Distract

As the Federal Aviation Administration and the Department of Government Efficiency both come under media scrutiny for obvious reasons, it’s not really surprising to find the Associated Press reporting on FAA layoffs coming right after the collision of American Eagle Flight 5342 and a Black Hawk helicopter just outside of Reagan National Airport near Washington, D.C.

It’s quite a different thing, however, for the Anglophone world’s wire service of record to first claim that one of the fired FAA employees had begun receiving harassing messages from “the official DOGE page” on his social media account because of criticism of Tesla and X, both run by DOGE chair Elon Musk.

And it’s quite a different thing to note, a few days later, that the employee in question called Musk a Nazi because of the pretty much debunked theory that he intentionally gave a “heil Hitler” salute at a Donald Trump inauguration celebration and received a few harassing messages from a random account calling itself the “Department of Government Efficiency,” despite the fact that DOGE doesn’t have a page.

Oh, and it’s quite another thing still to change story No. 1 to story No. 2 via a stealth edit that wasn’t acknowledged in the AP’s corrected story.

So, as you can probably guess, this is a story blown way out of proportion because of the Washington,D.C., plane crash; On Friday, probationary workers were informed via that they had been terminated by the government. The employees, which numbered fewer than 400, included those who were involved in maintaining systems for “radar, landing and navigational aid maintenance,” a source told the AP.

Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy didn’t specify what roles they had cut but said in a Monday statement, “Zero air traffic controllers and critical safety personnel were let go.” Another DOT official said Monday that it “retained employees who perform critical safety functions.”

This is rather tame stuff, so the AP’s Tara Copp relayed — absent too much fact-checking, I can only assume — a LinkedIn post by  Charles Spitzer-Stadtlander, telling of the horrid treatment he’d received at the hands of DOGE.

The reason, one assumes, is because it allegedly showed the firings went beyond those on their probationary period deemed to be redundant.

“One FAA employee who was fired over the weekend suggested he was targeted for his views on Tesla and X, formerly Twitter, not as part of a general probationary-level sweep. Both are owned by Elon Musk, who is leading Trump’s effort to cut the federal government,” Copp’s original take on the tale told by Spitzer-Stadtlander, now archived, read.

“The official DOGE page started harassing me on my personal account after I criticized Tesla and Twitter,” he wrote.

“Less than a week later, I was fired, despite my position allegedly being exempted due to national security.”

“Spitzer-Stadtlander said he was supposed to be exempted from the probationary firings because the FAA office he worked in focused on national security threats such as attacks on the national airspace by drones,” Copp noted in an archived version of the story published Monday.

“When DOGE fired me, they turned off my computer and wiped all of my files without warning,” he said.

A true tale of DOGE gone wild and drunk with power, right? Omit the word “true,” and yes, that does pass muster. However, the AP is not in the business of writing Elon Musk fanfiction, and it turns out virtually all of that LinkedIn post, reported uncritically as fact, is not reliant on reality.

An updated version of the story appeared later on Monday evening, along with some quotes from Spitzer-Stadtlander. Most of them were anodyne. He claimed that part of the reduction of force included employees at an early warning radar system for missiles in Hawaii, stating that the project and those involved in it are “about protecting national security” and he didn’t “think [the Trump administration] even knew what [the National Airspace System Defense Program] does, they just thought, ‘Oh no big deal, he just works for the FAA.’”

However, the big change was about the whole DOGE story, which was buried after Spitzer-Stadtlander’s quotes about what he thought about the national security implications of the terminations. Again, no evidence provided, which is slightly important when you read the next few paragraphs of the amended AP story:

Spitzer-Stadtlander is Jewish and was angered by Musk’s straight-arm gesture at Trump’s inauguration. On his personal page he urged friends to get rid of their Teslas and X accounts in response.

Spitzer-Stadtlander said that post drew the attention of a account labeled “Department of Government Efficiency,” which reacted with a laughing emoji. Soon after, he saw the same account reacting to much older posts through his personal feed.

There are at least a half-dozen accounts labeled “Department of Government Efficiency,” and it’s unclear who operates any of them. White House spokesperson Karoline Leavitt wrote Monday on X, “DOGE doesn’t even have a page.”

Well, gee, that’s slightly different, isn’t it?

What’s worse, again, is that this is a ghost edit. We now know that this guy was repeating the “Elon is a Nazi” trope on social media and some trolls who took out DOGE accounts did their trollish thing. He didn’t even bother checking whether these accounts were legitimate, he just posted the whole story on his LinkedIn as the reason why he was terminated.

Much more importantly, the Associated Press took this at face value and reprinted it without even finding out whether DOGE has a page or was involved in the terminations, which were done through the FAA.

Then, when it turns out those quite salient facts were incorrect, they too fell back on “Elon is a Nazi,” insinuating heavily that Spitzer-Stadtlander’s opinion is what led to his firing.

Beyond the outrage of simply reporting one disgruntled ex-employee’s story on LinkedIn as gospel truth (the infamous interview with Messrs. Ligma and Johnson is brought to mind) and then refusing to issue a correction, why on earth would they believe anything this man had to say, period, when his LinkedIn post turned out to be verifiably erroneous with a few simple searches?

Oh, and by the way, this is the wire service currently whining about an assault on freedom of speech because it doesn’t get a press pass to the White House briefing room since it’s quarreling with the Trump administration over what official government nomenclature for geographical features are.

Ah yes. Because this is clearly an organization that’ll be missed, based on what appears to be their editorial policy: Get caught. Begin stealth edit. Invoke race. Accuse smear victim of being a Nazi in so many words. Add more information that contravenes your first reporting. Don’t acknowledge that the first reporting was wrong. Finally reveal the truth, but use someone else’s quote to do that because you can’t afford to personally speak truth that your friends won’t like. Close out stealth edit. Leave no editorial note about edit … which is why it’s stealth. Count on absolutely no one else in your sphere to call you out. Go to next D.C. cocktail party. Wash, rinse, repeat.

It used to be that Congress was the least trusted institution in American life, without fail. And you can’t say that reputation was unearned. However, in October, we had a new champion: According to Gallup, Americans now trust the media less than our glad-handing spendthrift philanderers on Capitol Hill.

Again, you can’t say the merit wasn’t warranted — and, if Monday’s AP reporting is any indication, they keep racing to the bottom as if we’ll suddenly start loving Congress and take away their booby prize for excellence in chicanery.

Advertise with The Western Journal and reach millions of highly engaged readers, while supporting our work. Advertise Today.