> Should government contracts not be granted on the merits of the receivers?

They should, but businesses owned by government employees should be excluded because it's too easy to corrupt the process. In fact, they have explicit rules about not doing that.

But he’s no longer a “special government employee” anymore either. Or are you suggesting he’s blacklisted from all government contracts for life because he previously worked for the current administration?

Not OP, but "For life" is a far cry from a month or two after. But yes, i'd argue we have no choice but to attempt to aggressively put bounds between government and profiteering. Lest we have Congress openly insider trade..

Of course not for life, but generally to avoid ethics issues the government requires you to be out for at least a year or two before engaging in business with the government.

He’s not a government employee. You said it yourself lol

But he was very recently. Usually you have to wait a while after leaving the government to sell to it.

> Should government contracts not be granted on the merits of the receivers?

The merits? We just had, in the last _week_, a huge scaldal where Grok was spewing racist, pro hitler content, even calling itself MechaHitler.