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The crack of a gunshot and the blonde man flinches behind the lectern, clutching his ear.But instead of horrified gasps, the crowd erupts in laughter and applause.”It’s a bullet! It wants to put me in the grave,” Hong Kong actor Loong Koon-tin sings, in the high-pitched falsetto that is the hallmark of traditional Cantonese opera.The attempted assassination of Donald Trump, recreated as part of an absurdist play in Hong Kong, has given fresh inspiration to a centuries-old art form, drawing hundreds to witness the spectacle at a beloved theatre on the verge of shutdown.Older theatre-goers recall a time when operas were mostly about Chinese stories and legends.The Trump show — which debuted in 2019 and has been updated twice — is part of an effort to modernise the genre and connect with younger audiences, for years an uphill battle for the industry.”Audiences want to see how the assassination scene can be done using Cantonese opera,” said playwright and feng shui master Edward Li, citing four techniques — singing, acting, recitation and acrobatics.The sold-out show, which runs for nearly four hours, begins with Richard Nixon meeting Mao Zedong in 1972 then spirals into a tale about Trump searching for his lost Chinese twin.North Korean leader Kim Jong Un also makes an appearance.”It’s Cantonese opera with black humour,” Li said. “We are not making fun of the situation, but the audience finds it funny.”The novelty factor is key to the appeal of “Trump, the Twins President” and there are plans to take it on tour, he added.”Trump is someone the whole world wants to know.”- Legacy theatre  -Crowds last week flocked to the 52-year-old Sunbeam Theatre, an ornate venue with a huge neon sign and posters overlooking a busy intersection in Hong Kong’s North Point neighbourhood. Its lobby is adorned with calligraphy, a gong and drum for good luck — as well as 108 signature round lamps suspended from the ceiling. Cantonese opera originated in southern China and became a staple of post-war Hong Kong’s cultural life, with its popularity peaking around the 1960s.But with changing tastes, Sunbeam ran into financial trouble and nearly closed in 2012 before Li, the playwright, took it over.”We live in an era when Cantonese opera is at its lowest and closest to death. We need to give it an adrenaline shot to revive it,” he said.But the revival couldn’t last. Following a sale, the theatre will close its doors for good on March 3 and its new owners plan to convert it into an evangelical church.Hong Kong officials say they have spent HK$200 million ($26 million) in the span of two decades to promote Cantonese opera. A purpose-built theatre was opened in 2019.But Dennis Cheng, a supporting actor, said he was “not positive” about the future of the art, citing the lack of venues and dwindling audience.It will be hard to match how Sunbeam — with its history and communal spaces — felt like home to performers, he added.”(Sunbeam) carries the energy of veteran actors, as well as the emotions and dreams of many people,” said Man Chan, who plays Ivanka Trump.- Bowing out -Since its 2019 premiere, the Trump show has sparked both acclaim and ridicule, becoming the subject of memes.As it wrapped up a three-day run, questions remain as to whether newcomers who bought tickets out of curiosity can be persuaded to stay for more conventional fare.High school student Matthew Tsui told AFP that he was introduced to Cantonese opera by his grandmother and fell in love with the elaborate costumes.But he admitted it was “tough to sit in a theatre for hours to watch patiently” and that his classmates preferred K-pop.Fanny Cheng, a self-described Cantonese opera superfan, said she enjoyed both traditional and modern takes and hoped that Sunbeam Theatre ought to be preserved.”It’ll be a pity to lose Sunbeam,” said Cheng, 60. “But if the landlord wants to sell the property, there’s nothing we can do.”

Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba will cautiously try to convince Donald Trump to treat Tokyo better than other allies Friday when he becomes the second foreign leader to meet the US president since his return to power.The bookish 68-year-old will gently seek to protect Japan from the tariffs that Trump has threatened elsewhere, and to stress that his country is a key US partner against a rising China and a nuclear-armed North Korea. While the avowed “geek” and model warship fan is unlikely to replicate Trump’s close bond with former premier and golf buddy Shinzo Abe, he will at least try to build a connection with the mercurial US leader. “It would be wonderful if we could affirm that we will work together for the development of this region, and the world, and for peace,” Ishiba told reporters in Tokyo before leaving for the trip.The soft-spoken, cigarette-smoking Ishiba is expected to focus on the fact that Japan is the top foreign investor in the United States, hoping to appeal to Trump’s “America First” policies.Trump and Ishiba are expected to issue a joint statement vowing to build a “golden age” of bilateral relations, Japan’s Nikkei newspaper reported, echoing the main slogan from the US president’s inaugural speech.He is also set to tell Trump that Japan will increase defense purchases from the United States, the Nikkei report said.Japan is one of the closest allies of the United States in Asia, with around 54,000 US military personnel stationed in the country.But the main goal for Ishiba, who has only been in office since October and heads a minority government, is simple: stay on Trump’s good side.- ‘Personal trust’ -Under Abe, who was assassinated in 2022, Japan was shielded from some of Trump’s more punishing tendencies, such as sudden trade wars and pressure to increase financial contributions towards hosting US soldiers.Days after Trump’s election victory, Abe rushed to deliver to him a gold-plated golf club. In a sign of their close bond, Trump hosted Abe’s widow Akie for dinner at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida this past December.Ishiba, best known for his plastic model building and fascination with 1970s pop idols, will be hoping his more low-key approach can also work.The Republican has lashed out at a series of allies in the two weeks since he returned to the White House, ordering sanctions against neighbors Canada and Mexico before pausing them at the last minute.He has threatened to seize the Panama Canal and pressured NATO member Denmark to sell Greenland. Trump has also repeatedly in the past called on allies hosting US troops to pay more for their defense.A Japanese foreign ministry official said in Tokyo that “we hope the leaders will be able to build a relationship of personal trust.”They were expected to speak about security, defense and the economy, the official said — but it was not clear if the thorny issue of Nippon Steel’s blocked takeover bid of US Steel would be discussed.Trump’s predecessor Joe Biden angered Tokyo by stopping the deal. Trump has said he also opposed it. Trump has recently been more focused on his first visitor to the White House — Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.During Netanyahu’s visit on Tuesday Trump unveiled a shock plan for the US to “take over” the Gaza Strip.

Nick was enjoying his Saturday off work in Pennsylvania when he received an unexpected and alarming message: cryptocurrencies, buoyed since Donald Trump’s November 5 election win, were in freefall. The crash immediately wiped out tens of thousands of dollars from his savings. “I clicked on it and watched it for like a minute just drop straight down,” the 28-year-old American construction worker, who asked for anonymity because of sensitivities around investing in crypto assets, told AFP. “I was like, ‘Well, I guess I should stop looking at it now’,” he added with a laugh.Crypto investors like Nick are being buffeted by Trump’s vow to make the United States the “crypto capital of the planet” while at the same time upending trade and other policy areas with a raft of executive orders and announcements.Digital currencies are now seeing sudden fluctuations that are impacting legions of both small and large investors. Last weekend, cryptos suffered a meltdown after Trump announced impending trade tariffs on US imports from Canada, China and Mexico, prompting investors to turn to safer assets. The value of Bitcoin, by far the most important crypto which has broken record after record and gained around 50 percent since Trump’s election, dropped six percent at the height of the crash.Ether, another blockchain currency considered credible, fell around a quarter. The falls have been more dramatic for so-called “meme coins” — cheap and highly volatile cryptos with little or no economic use, themed around a celebrity or viral internet phenomenon. In the space of a few hours, Nick lost around $60,000 from the $150,000 he had accumulated over five years in his virtual wallets.Most of his holdings were in Dogecoin — a meme coin backed by billionaire Trump ally Elon Musk. But Nick remains undeterred and convinced that these highly volatile assets will rebound, just as they did in 2021 when their popularity surged. “I try to talk about it with my co-workers, but they don’t believe in it like I do,” he confided. – ‘Rollercoaster ride’ -Larisa Yarovaya of the Southampton Business School in southern England said Bitcoin’s record rises were “definitely driven by investment optimism surrounding political endorsements”.She warned that could be “characterised as a bubble”, at risk of bursting and spreading beyond crypto, given they are “increasingly interconnected with traditional assets in today’s financial landscape”.Yarovaya also called the growing influence of “political personalities” on the sector “significant and highly concerning”. “Powerful individuals can easily exploit the trust of their followers for personal gain, leading to serious conflicts of interest,” she warned.The day before his inauguration, Trump launched his own meme coin — the “Trump” — posing serious ethical questions given his administration will undoubtedly exert a big influence on crypto during his four-year term.”When Musk speaks or tweets, immediately the price of crypto can jump, because people are afraid of missing the opportunity,” explained Stan, a 28-year-old Paris-based public affairs consultant and crypto investor. He also asked for anonymity.For Stan, investing in meme coins is like “buying a lottery ticket”.Savva, a 26-year-old research assistant in London, has personal experience of crypto’s rollercoaster ride, recalling how his first foray into meme coin investing made him $700 within minutes.”That’s kind of what hooked me,” he told AFP, also declining to give his last name.The tech enthusiast, who developed his own short-lived meme coin-trading robot, found his experience with crypto highly stressful.”A lot of the times I couldn’t hold conversations because I was worried that my assets were doing poorly or that I was going to lose all my money,” he noted. Although Savva still believes in the philosophy of cryptos, which allow investing outside of traditional financial institutions’ controls, he has retreated after losing the $5,000 he invested. “It took a huge toll on me physically and mentally and I was just like ‘I need to stop’,” he said, adding: “It’s always too late when you realise.”

Hollywood star Jesse Eisenberg, who played Mark Zuckerberg in 2010 hit “The Social Network”, told AFP the Facebook owner had evolved from having “a sense of righteousness” into “somebody obsessed with power”.Eisenberg took a broadly sympathetic view of the Silicon Valley billionaire when playing him in the David Fincher-directed movie, which helped shape Facebook’s public image.”As an actor, your job is to empathise with the character, not only empathise, but justify,” Eisenberg told AFP in an interview to promote his widely acclaimed new movie “A Real Pain”.”I was thinking of the (Zuckerberg) character as somebody who was able to understand certain things so much quicker than other people, and who had a kind of sense of righteousness that was born out of his own brilliance,” he explained.But 15 years later, with Zuckerberg shifting his political views to align with Donald Trump’s new administration and cutting fact-checking on the US platform, Eisenberg has revised his opinions.”You kind of wonder like ‘oh, so this person didn’t evolve into a profile in courage’. This person evolved into somebody obsessed with avarice and power and so that’s kind of interesting for me as an actor who at one point thought about this person a lot,” the 41-year-old New Yorker added.”The Social Network” brought Eisenberg worldwide fame and an Oscar nomination for best actor.He is set to return to the Academy Awards on March 2 with “A Real Pain”, which he wrote, directed and acted in alongside “Succession” star Kieran Culkin.The unlikely comedy about two Jewish cousins who go on a Holocaust tour in Poland picked up two Oscar nominations: Eisenberg for best original screenplay, and Culkin for best supporting actor.- ‘The depths’ -The film has won rave reviews since it was first shown at last year’s Sundance Film Festival and has been released widely in American and European cinemas over the last three months.Many critics have noted the deft dialogue between Eisenberg and Culkin’s characters — David and Benji — with their humour and mental health struggles bringing new twists to two classic Hollywood formats, Holocaust and road movies.For Eisenberg, the script and setting were intensely personal, returning to the land of his Polish grandparents who fled the Nazis and drawing on his experience of obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) and anxiety.”David’s life is very similar to my life… the pills that David takes are the pills that I take to the point where the prop department asked me if they can borrow my pills,” he explained.”But I’ve also been Benji. I’ve been to the depths that Benji has been to emotionally,” he added.The core of the film reflects Eisenberg’s contemplation of existential guilt.”How is it possible that I have self-pity, or that I spend an hour every morning trying to get out of bed when my grandparents’ generation were two inches away from being slaughtered?” said Eisenberg, who applied for and gained Polish nationality after filming.”How is it possible that all of us don’t wake up every morning and kiss the ground that we’re alive?”- ‘Great timing’ -Culkin was cast in the film despite not being Jewish, something Eisenberg said he was initially “hesitant” about.”Once we relieved ourselves of that very specific consideration, he seemed like far and away the only person that could do the part,” he explained.Culkin brought his “unusual energy” and “great sense of timing and intelligence” to filming, which also saw him repeatedly reject instructions from his co-lead and director, who was nominally in charge of the shoot.”I was directing the movie, sure, but Kieran was leading the day. I would set up a shot, and Kieran would make fun of me and say that the shot was stupid,” said Eisenberg.The married father-of-one says he sees himself carrying on in front of and behind the camera, with “A Real Pain” a follow up to 2022’s “When You Finish Saving the World”, which he also directed.But nothing in the movie business compares to the satisfaction he felt doing volunteer work during the Covid pandemic, however.”I was volunteering every day at this domestic violence shelter that was run by my mother-in-law. And I had never been happier in my life,” he said.

A serial rapist and murderer was put to death by nitrogen gas in Alabama on Thursday, the fourth use of the controversial execution method in the southern US state.Demetrius Frazier, 52, was sentenced to death in 1996 for the 1991 murder of 40-year-old Pauline Brown, a mother of two, in the Alabama city of Birmingham.Frazier was found guilty of breaking into Brown’s apartment, raping her and shooting her in the head. The jury voted 10-2 to recommend the death penalty.According to court documents, Frazier, who is Black, accused the predominantly white jury during his trial of being racist.Frazier was previously convicted of rape and the 1992 murder of a 14-year-old girl, Crystal Kendrick, in the northern state of Michigan.Michigan does not have the death penalty and Frazier was serving a life sentence there for Kendrick’s murder and for two separate rape convictions.He was transferred to Alabama in 2011 and appeals seeking to have him sent back to Michigan to serve his life sentence were rejected.His appeals claiming that the nitrogen gas method of execution amounts to cruel and unusual punishment were also been denied.Frazier was put to death at a prison in Atmore, Alabama, on Thursday. The Alabama Department of Corrections said he was pronounced dead at 6:36 pm Central Time (0036 GMT).Alabama carried out three executions by nitrogen asphyxiation last year and is the only US state currently using the method. Other US states use lethal injection. The execution is performed by pumping nitrogen gas into a facemask, causing the prisoner to suffocate.United Nations experts appointed by the UN Human Rights Council have denounced the use of nitrogen gas, saying it “may amount to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment, or even torture.”There were 25 executions in the United States last year.The death penalty has been abolished in 23 of the country’s 50 states, while three others — California, Oregon and Pennsylvania — have moratoriums in place.Three states — Arizona, Ohio and Tennessee — that had paused executions have recently announced plans to resume them. President Donald Trump is a proponent of capital punishment and on his first day in the White House he called for an expansion of its use “for the vilest crimes.”

The US Senate on Thursday confirmed Russell Vought as director of the White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB), the entity at the center of a contentious effort to freeze federal funding for aid programs.He was approved by a vote of 53-47 over strong opposition from Democrats, including Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, who termed him “one of the most fringe and hard-right individuals the Senate has seen in a very long time.”Vought held the same position during President Donald Trump’s first administration, during which he issued a memo barring the use of taxpayer funds for anti-racism training — a move the US president has doubled down on during his second term.Vought will take office again amid a nationwide uproar over an OMB order issued last week that halted trillions of dollars in federal loans, grants and other assistance.OMB subsequently issued a terse notification saying the freezing of aid order had been “rescinded,” but White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt announced soon afterward that it remained in place — and only the memo from the budget office was taken back.A US district judge blocked the spending freeze last week, then extended that measure on Monday, saying plaintiffs who brought the case had shown they would suffer “irreparable harm” if it takes effect.Democrats have accused Trump of constitutional overreach by seeking to stop government spending already approved by Congress, which has authority over the US budget.

The Justice Department is scaling back policing of foreign interests operating in the United States, ending criminal enforcement of a law used to snare bad actors seeking to influence politics and elections on behalf of foreign governments.In a memo sent to staff Wednesday, US Attorney General Pam Bondi revealed she had disbanded the Foreign Influence Task Force, a unit dedicated to investigating violations of the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA), requiring such agents to register with US authorities.She said the decision had been made to “free resources to address more pressing priorities, and end risks of further weaponization and abuses of prosecutorial discretion.”Bondi did not elaborate, but figures on the Republican Party’s conspiratorial far right have accused the government of abusing FARA to unfairly target political operatives, such as Paul Manafort, Donald Trump’s 2016 campaign manager who was indicted in a probe into Russian influence in that year’s US election.Also on Wednesday, the day of her swearing-in, Bondi disbanded the Task Force KleptoCapture, an initiative started in 2022 to enforce sanctions on Russia.Moscow was widely accused of attempting to influence the 2016 vote in favor of Trump, who went on to win.Russia has denied involvement in the scandal, despite findings from US intelligence agencies.As for Manafort, he was charged with a litany of offenses, including acting as an unregistered agent of a foreign principal and lying in FARA documents. He was ultimately pardoned by Trump.FARA was also used to pursue Mike Flynn, Trump’s first national security advisor, who lied to the FBI about contacts with Russia, and former Democratic senator Bob Menendez, who was jailed in January for bribery and failing to register as a foreign agent for Egypt.Bondi — who previously registered herself under FARA for work she did with Qatar — said she was limiting criminal enforcement of the law to “alleged conduct similar to more traditional espionage by foreign government actors.”In a flurry of edicts sent out on her first day in the job, Bondi also launched a unit focused on the 2023 Hamas attacks on Israel, targeted diversity programs for elimination and restarted enforcement of the federal death penalty, which had been halted under then-president Joe Biden.

E-commerce giant Amazon reported strong earnings Thursday but, like its big tech peers Microsoft and Google, saw its stock price fall on concerns over high AI investment costs.The mounting expenses of data-intensive artificial intelligence and its infrastructure have cast a shadow over this earnings season, with only Facebook owner Meta winning Wall Street’s approval. Meta’s stock surged 18 percent in January as investors endorsed its AI strategy.Amazon’s AWS cloud division, along with rivals Microsoft and Google, are investing heavily in AI data centers while meaningful returns remain uncertain. Amazon CEO Andy Jassy defended the spending, saying the company was on track to spend $100 billion on capital expenditure in 2025, with the “vast majority” on AI. On a call with analysts, he dubbed AI a “once in a lifetime” business opportunity that couldn’t be missed.The emergence of China’s lower-cost DeepSeek model has raised questions about such massive spending. Despite US government efforts to maintain AI dominance through export controls on advanced chips, DeepSeek has achieved comparable results using authorized, less sophisticated Nvidia semiconductors.Microsoft, leading the generative AI revolution through its OpenAI partnership, plans to invest about $80 billion in AI this fiscal year. And while it has rapidly deployed AI features under its Gemini brand, Google’s Cloud revenue missed expectations, despite growing 30 percent to $12 billion. Google also announced plans for $75 billion in capital expenditures for 2025, surprising analysts.Amazon on Thursday reported its fourth-quarter net income doubled to $20 billion, with net sales rising 10 percent to $187.8 billion. AWS remained profitable with sales growing 19 percent to $28.8 billion, though slightly below market expectations. Jassy celebrated “the most successful holiday shopping season yet.”However, Amazon’s shares dropped more than 5 percent in after-hours trading, mirroring reactions to Microsoft and Google’s results – strong profits overshadowed by concerns about AI spending. “Amazon delivered a knockout quarter, but a touch of softness in first quarter guidance has sent shares into a bit of a post-earnings wobble,” said Matt Britzman, a senior equity researcher at Hargreaves Lansdown.Amazon’s forecast of 5-9 percent growth for first-quarter 2025, with sales between $151.0 billion and $155.5 billion, also fell short of analyst expectations and weighed on the stock price.Independent tech analyst Rob Enderle suggested the conservative guidance might reflect uncertainty over US-China trade tensions. “With the tariff uncertainty, Amazon is being much more conservative right now than they otherwise would be,” he said.China could also be a problem for Apple, which posted a record profit of $36.3 billion last week.But Apple lost its status as the best selling smartphone brand in the crucial Chinese market last year and could be negatively affected by the trade battles pitting the Trump administration against Beijing.

US President Donald Trump’s trade envoy nominee Jamieson Greer told his confirmation hearing Thursday that universal tariffs were worth studying, adding that he would work to restructure global trade ties.On the campaign trail, Trump floated the idea of across-the-board tariffs on all US imports, and Greer would be a crucial figure in implementing the president’s trade and tariffs agenda if confirmed as US trade representative.A universal tariff “is something that should be studied and considered” to see if it can reverse the direction of the US trade deficit and offshoring, said Greer, a trade lawyer and official in Trump’s first administration.He was responding to concerns over sweeping duties, which some lawmakers warned could drive up prices.He raised the possibility of the global tariff in the context of a trade policy memo released on Trump’s inauguration day, which called for a report from government agencies by April 1.Addressing the Senate Finance Committee, Greer added that “we have a relatively short window of time to restructure the international trading system to better serve US interests.”Greer, a partner at law firm King & Spalding, served as chief of staff to Trump’s former trade representative Robert Lighthizer during his first presidential term.During that time, he helped to see through a trade deal between the United States, Mexico and Canada — although Trump has since announced, and then paused, fresh tariffs on both partners as talks continue.Asked about potential trade wars with neighboring countries, Greer said “the action that the president is talking about is about fentanyl, where we don’t want another single fentanyl death.””We need to come to an agreement on that,” he said, adding that Mexico and Canada appear willing to do so.Trump has cited illegal immigration and the flow of fentanyl across US borders as a reason for seeking 25 percent tariffs on Canada and Mexico — though a lower rate on Canadian energy.Canada for its part has countered that below one percent of undocumented migrants and fentanyl entering the United States comes through its border.Greer also stressed the need for the country to have a “robust manufacturing base” and innovation economy, warning it would have “little in the way of hard power to deter conflict and protect Americans” otherwise.- Fairness with China -On US trade ties with the world’s second biggest economy, China, Greer said Washington and Beijing need to have a “balanced relationship” overall.He said it was important that if China wanted to trade with the United States and have healthy economic ties, much of this will need to be premised on fair market access.If confirmed, Greer said he would swiftly assess and enforce China’s compliance with a Phase One trade deal Washington and Beijing inked in 2020, marking a truce in the escalating trade war between both sides.During Trump’s first term from 2017 to 2021, the United States introduced tariffs on billions of dollars worth of imports — notably on China but also America’s allies.In particular, the first Trump administration imposed levies on some $300 billion in Chinese goods as Washington and Beijing engaged in a tit-for-tat tariffs war.Trump’s trade representative at the time, Lighthizer, emerged as a strongman in talks as he sought to force changes in Beijing’s economic policies.Greer added Thursday that the United States should be a “country of producers.””We need to create incentives to produce in America, and we need to create incentives to get market access overseas,” he said.On gaining market access, he called for the use of “all the tools at our disposal” to do so.Greer additionally said he was committed to looking at other unfair trade practices if confirmed as USTR.

A judge on Thursday paused a scheme masterminded by billionaire Elon Musk to slash the size of the US government by encouraging federal workers to quit through a mass buyout.The federal judge in Massachusetts ordered a temporary injunction on the plan’s deadline — midnight Thursday — given by Musk for the country’s more than two million government employees. The offer was to quit with eight months’ pay or risk being fired in future culls.The deadline is now extended to Monday, when US District Judge George O’Toole will hold a hearing on the merits of the case brought by labor unions, US media reported.Musk, the world’s richest person and President Donald Trump’s biggest donor, is in charge of a free-ranging entity called the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) that aims to radically downsize federal agencies.According to White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt, more than 40,000 staff have so far accepted the buyout deal — a relatively small number.Unions representing some 800,000 civil servants and Democratic members of Congress are resisting the scheme and have challenged the legality of threats to fire civil servants.But the broader budget cutting campaign — fanned by anti-government-worker invective from Trump and his aides — has already severely disrupted the huge departments and agencies that for decades have run everything from education to national intelligence.USAID, the government’s agency for distributing aid around the world, has been crippled, with foreign-based staff ordered home and the organization’s programs lambasted daily — and often inaccurately — as wasteful by the White House and right-wing media.Trump has also repeatedly said he wants to shut down the Department of Education. The inducements to resign have even been extended to the CIA.In another sign of the scale of the intended cuts, an official with the agency that manages government property said the real estate portfolio, barring Department of Defense buildings, should be cut by “at least 50 percent.”Leavitt defended the onslaught, telling reporters that federal workers should “accept the very generous offer.”She said “competent” replacements would be found for those who “want to rip the American people off.”Among the controversies swirling around the Musk plan is how much access the South African-born tycoon is getting to secret government data, including the Treasury’s entire payment system.Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent told Bloomberg TV on Thursday that there was “a lot of misinformation” and that access to such data was only given to two Treasury employees who are working with Musk.Bessent said those employees had “read-only” access, meaning they couldn’t change the data.One of those two resigned, The Wall Street Journal reported Thursday, after it emerged that he had advocated racism and eugenics on social media.- ‘Chill’ or big ‘con’? -Workers considering the buyout offer face considerable uncertainty, including over whether Trump has the legal right to make the offer and whether the conditions will be honored.The plan was first announced in an email sent across most of the vast federal government and titled “Fork in the road” — the same phrasing as the note Musk sent to employees at Twitter when he bought the social media platform in 2022 and renamed it X.Musk says the paid departures are a chance to “take the vacation you always wanted, or just watch movies and chill, while receiving your full government pay and benefits.”Unions warn that without Congress signing off on the use of federally budgeted money, the agreements may be worthless. “Federal employees shouldn’t be misled by slick talk from unelected billionaires and their lackeys,” said Everett Kelley, president of the large American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE).”We won’t stand by and let our members become the victims of this con.”The Massachusetts lawsuit also casts doubt on assertions that workers would be free to look for other jobs during their deferment periods, citing ethics regulations. An employee in the US Office of Personnel Management, where Musk has put his own staff in key positions, said the plan was to encourage resignations through “panic.””We’re trying to instill a panic so that people just walk out the door and leave government in a crippled state, which is partly their objective,” the employee told AFP, speaking on condition of anonymity.