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one has servers in russia, one fired for giving out propr info;

akash bobba nds

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Revolving Door Project | DOGE Agents Behind Attacks | Revolving Door Project

TOOL All The Positions | DOGE Track

Stratford Crier100 Days of DOGE: Who They Are and What They Do

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Experts on everything. DOGE whiz sought to dump water farmers will need this summer, and take a selfie doing it.

These are the same guys rifling thru your financial and medical data.

Independent:]

A group of Department of Government Efficiency agents repeatedly pressured a federal official to open a large water pump system in California — and then flew there to do it themselves, according to a new report.

DOGE staffers attempted to pressure the acting head of the Bureau of Reclamation to open a water pump system, CNN reports. The staffers wanted to send the water to Los Angeles amid the devastating wildfires in January — even though the system wouldn’t have allowed it to reach the scorched city, CNN reports.

Despite this, they still decided to take matters into their own hands.

In January, DOGE staffers called the Bureau of Reclamation claiming President Donald Trump wanted water pumps turned on at the Jones Pumping Plant, which sends water to the state’s Central Valley, CNN reports.

But when the official didn’t give in, staffers Tyler Hassen and Bryton Shang flew to California to open the pumps themselves and get a photo while doing so, CNN reports. But two issues stopped them.

First, the power was off due to planned maintenance. Second, Shang wasn’t an official federal employee yet, meaning he couldn’t access the pump. Hassen couldn’t do it either, CNN reports, because he had to fly back before the power would be restored.

“They didn’t get their photo op,” an unnamed source with knowledge of the incident told CNN, adding it represented “what DOGE has been this entire time — this slapstick operation of 20-somethings they’re seeing as whiz kids but have zero knowledge.”

Instead, the DOGE X account posted a photo of Shang and Hassen in front of a map, along with other pictures of the plant.

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Soon after the visit, Trump ordered the US Army Corps to open up two Southern California dams at the end of January. This release sent water rushing toward farmland in the San Joaquin Valley, the Los Angeles Timesreports, prompting concern from farmers.

“This is going to hurt farmers,” water consultant Dan Vink told the outlet. “This takes water out of their summer irrigation portfolio.”

ABC 30 Fresno:

But word of a water release out of both Terminus Dam at Lake Kaweah and Schafer Dam at Lake Success came as a shock to many.

South Valley farmers weren’t happy to see the outward flow. That stored water represents their spring and summer supply, and irrigating crops isn’t their priority right now.

“There’s enough snow above Lake Kaweah to, essentially if it all melted off, fill it halfway full. So the idea to release any was questionable,” Zack Stuller with the Tulare County Farm Bureau said.

Stuller says farmers usually get a 10-day to two-week heads up when water will become available.

“But the fact to release that much that quick where we can’t use it was bizarre,” Stuller said.

The Hill:

Jay Lund, an environmental engineer at the University of California, Davis, also noted the breadth and complexity of water management efforts in California, which involve diverse water demands; hydrology and infrastructure; substantial decentralization; and numerous laws, regulations and contracts. As such, he continued, state and federal projects that proceed without intergovernmental and local coordination can falter in terms of effectiveness and wastefulness.

“The recent federal orders to release additional water from some small Tulare basin reservoirs did not have substantial benefits for farmers, who it seems would have preferred to have these releases later and coordinated with them for summer irrigation or groundwater recharge,” said Lund, who is also vice director of the Center for Watershed Sciences at the University of California, Davis.

“The releases were disconnected from and had no effect on water availability in the Los Angeles region,” he added. “The releases seem to have been more symbolic of some rough longer-term federal intention.

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Bryton Shang | DOGE / NOAA | Citizen Analyst

Bryton Shang — NOAA Senior Advisor

PostedJune 24, 2026

UpdatedSeptember 16, 2026

ByCitizen Analyst

Role: Senior Advisor to the NOAA Administrator (focus on AI applications at NOAA), confirmed publicly April 2025; previously Founder/CEO/Executive Chairman of Aquabyte, an aquaculture AI startup.

Status: Active at NOAA as of mid-2025 reporting; cited in E&E News and Undercurrent News coverage of NOAA contract approval delays.

Basis for Inclusion

Subject classification: Public Official (senior advisor to a federal agency administrator).

Anchor met: Public Official acting in formal federal capacity.

Background

Shang graduated at the top of his engineering class at Princeton University (B.S.E.) and founded Aquabyte, an aquaculture technology company using computer vision and AI to monitor fish health, growth, and sustainability at fish farms. Aquabyte attracted institutional venture funding before Shang transitioned to government service.

DOGE Role

Bureau of Reclamation publicity stunt (January 2025): While his federal background check was still pending, Shang accompanied DOGE operator Tyler Hassen to the Department of the Interior’s Bureau of Reclamation in an effort to order release of Northern California reservoir water in response to the January 2025 Los Angeles-area wildfires — wildfires hundreds of miles from those reservoirs. The episode was widely characterized as a publicity stunt with no operational nexus between the reservoirs targeted and the fires.

NOAA transition (April 2025): Named Senior Advisor to the NOAA Administrator after the Reclamation episode. NOAA officials were instructed to pitch contract renewal requests to Shang and another DOGE-affiliated official; Shang was involved in decisions about which NOAA contracts were approved or rejected.

Documented Actions

Participated in the Reclamation reservoir-release stunt while still in pre-clearance status (Revolving Door Project; DOGE Track, 2025).

Held contract-approval gating authority over NOAA contract renewals during the 2025 NOAA contracting paralysis (E&E News, 2025).

Real-World Impacts

Federal Employees

NOAA workforce reductions and a documented backlog of unsigned contracts during the period of Shang’s contract-approval gating role (E&E News, 2025).

American Citizens (Public Services)

NOAA-administered weather, climate, hurricane forecasting, and fisheries-management services all depend on the contractor pipeline routed through Shang’s approval authority.

Decisions affecting Aquabyte’s sector of expertise (aquaculture / fisheries AI) raise the appearance of prior-industry alignment in regulatory and procurement decisions.

Vulnerable Populations

Coastal residents dependent on NOAA hurricane warnings; aviation and marine industries; commercial and tribal fisheries dependent on NOAA stock assessments.

Privacy and Data Security

NOAA-held research data and partner-agency data subject to DOGE-coordinated access during this period.

Channel	Starting points
Federal courts	CourtListener / PACER party and attorney searches (spelling variants)
Campaign finance	FEC + OpenSecrets for committees and donors tied to documented roles
Corporate / LLC	State secretary of state; OpenCorporates for cross-border shells from reporting
Sanctions / PEP	OpenSanctions when international business context is already sourced
Contracts / grants	USAspending.gov for named entities from investigations

Experience

U.S. Department of Commerce

Full-time · 1 yr 1 mo

Founder and Executive Director, National AI Center
2026 – 2026
Senior Advisor
2025 – 2026
Washington, District of Columbia, United States
Leading efforts to advance US and global AI adoption as the founding Executive Director of the National AI Center and Deputy Director of the American AI Export Program.

Term Member

Council on Foreign Relations

2026 – 2026

Executive in Residence

Princeton University

2026 – 2026

Senior Advisor

NOAA: National Oceanic & Atmospheric Administration

2025 – 2025

Washington, District of Columbia, United States

Directing technology and AI initiatives across fisheries, weather, and satellite programs, with particular emphasis on artificial intelligence and autonomous systems.

Founder, CEO, Executive Chairman

Aquabyte

2017 – 2025

San Francisco, CA | Norway | Chile

Founded and led Aquabyte from inception to a multi hundred million dollar exit with tens of millions in revenue. Raised $50M with a 100+ person team to build underwater AI systems for global fish farms.

Show all

Education

Princeton University

BSE, Operations Research and Financial Engineering

2009 – 2012

Grade: 3.97

Graduated #1 in my major class in 3 years (summa cum laude).

Was very interested in finance and CS. Proud Rocky and Charter Club member.… more

82 receive prize for academic excellence

This year, 82 students from the freshman and sophomore classes received the Shapiro Prize for Academic Excellence. The students were honored at a banquet held in the Garden Room of Prospect House on Sept. 27.

Ithaca Senior High School

2005 – 2009

Grade: 9th - 12th

Valedictorian. I was also a National Merit Scholar and an Eagle Scout.

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EXMR

NO LNX CITE TO SPECIF

Posts by William Perry Pendley

Read the latest stories and analysis from William Perry Pendley.

An Elon Musk insider shares what he found in Washington — and it should terrify youOp-Eds

An Elon Musk insider shares what he found in Washington — and it should terrify you

William Perry Pendley

Tyler Hassen, who Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency embedded at the Department of the Interior, has written an extraordinary book: Inside DOGE: The Real Story from a Senior Insider — must reading if you care about America’s future.

Hassen’s findings made news in late March 2025 on Fox News’s Special Report with Bret Baier. Musk referenced a billion-dollar contract for a customer service survey that, writes Hassen, “I could have done … in high school.” (He would not have had misspellings.) Interior Secretary Doug Burgum, whom Hassen extols, killed it after Hassen’s briefing, but not before Interior spent $100 million!

A Princeton graduate who held executive management positions with postings in New York, London, and five countries over his 20-year career, Hassen is the founder and CEO of Stable Crest Holdings LLC in Houston. In Washington in 2025, dressed like a banker amid engineers in hoodies and staff in jeans and T-shirts, Hassen, armed with his laptop, confronted bureaucratic gobbledygook. Worse: “No briefing packet. No onboarding manual. No list of priorities. Just: Figure it out.” Fortunately, Hassen and his colleagues figured it out.

Hassen was there because the national debt gnawed at him. “It wasn’t politics — it was math. We’ve grown used to the illusion that the bill never comes due. But the number is now over $39 trillion and rising.” Musk was his leader, and President Donald Trump (whom Hassen lauds as the reason DOGE existed) and Burgum were his bosses, but his clients were taxpayers.

At Interior, he found “two worlds colliding — [career employees] preserving how things have always been done [and political appointees] trying to change them in real time.” That produced resilience but also resistance that made it “almost impossible to know who truly believed in what we were trying to do. [Hassen] didn’t have the luxury of discovering it slowly.” He pursued competence, clarity, and “people who answered directly, moved quickly, and didn’t hide behind jargon.” Fortuitously, he found them and applauds their value, vision, and vigor.

Immediately, he flew to California to referee a water crisis, a “baptism by fire into the media world,” where Hassen “went from an anonymous executive in Houston to a public figure in one of the most politicized water fights in America.” “[P]erception isn’t just reality; it’s a weapon.” If a “narrative sets, facts become secondary.”

In Washington, Hassen scrutinized government contracts for “waste,” which Musk described: “Money is most poorly spent when you’re spending someone else’s money on people you don’t know. That’s the federal government.” After Hassen cracked the code concealing the worst waste and issued precise “data calls” forcing answers from bureaucrats, he found billions in “waste hiding in plain sight.” Equally profligate were 25,719 previously unreviewed grants totaling a “staggering” $26.7 billion.

Hassen uncovered a department awash in waste: Federal Advisory Committee Act creations of which Interior had 79, squandering time and money; “nonprofits” whose sole funding source — Interior — supported fat-cat executives; and 160 leases for empty offices countrywide. DOGE’s focus on “external vendors exploiting government inefficiencies” yielded a blind spot, which Hassen exposed: “[A] sprawling ecosystem of hidden service shops and embedded consultants, moving billions of dollars in ways most people … never saw.”

Despite Hassen’s and DOGE colleagues’ efforts, contracts continued to be issued, grants kept getting made, and employees were still being hired. Initially horrified by the suggestion, he agreed to lead one of Interior’s most important posts: assistant secretary for policy, management, and budget. “PMB wasn’t a niche policy office,” Hassen found out. “It was the nerve center of Interior.” There, Hassen controlled contract issuance, grant making, and reductions in force, including freezing the onboarding of probationary employees.

Hassen ascertained the Interior had 50 human resources offices with 2,000 employees coast-to-coast, ensuring chaos: 300,000 separate job descriptions for 70,000 employees! IT was no better: 18 chief information officers supervised 2,000 staffers. Worse was procurement: over 1,000 officers managed five contracts apiece! An expensive consulting firm spent five years studying consolidation and proposed another five years to oversee it. Hassen’s team took five weeks.

Musk warned: “There aren’t even fifty of us in this room — but there are millions of government workers who want us to fail.” Unfortunately, millions of others declared war on DOGE. Hassen, many of whose DOGE colleagues vote for Democrats, wondered when believing the federal bureaucracy is bloated and inefficient became a partisan issue.

DOGE’s “incredibly gifted” people suffered “long hours, data discipline, and a willingness to absorb criticism without flinching” while declining opportunities with “tremendous salaries and equity,” to “work for the American people.” In return, they got death threats! Nevertheless, the “turmoil” over DOGE did not alter its mandate to “reduce waste, streamline bureaucracy, and increase accountability.” Hassen remains hopeful for DOGE 2.0.

TRUMP FOUGHT UNELECTED BUREAUCRATS. NOW THEY’RE BEING CODED INTO IMMORTALITY

Hassen characterizes Musk’s famous email to federal employees (“What did you do last week? Please write 5 accomplishments.”) as a mirror that, once held up “inside a bureaucracy, [reveals] who is willing to look — and who would prefer to turn it away.”

Hassen holds up a mirror to the people. Will they continue treating federal workers as untouchable, even sacred? If they do, public good becomes secondary, and reform becomes impossible. Having endured a similar experience at Interior during the first Trump administration, I hope Americans heed Hassen.

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WAPO

In his first major interview about his tell-all memoir, Tyler Hassen describes the culture clash surrounding DOGE’s mission and the backlash that followed.

September 21, 2026

By Elizabeth Dwoskin

Tyler Hassen’s initiation into Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, started as a series of tests.

The Houston oil executive says he was given vague instructions to show up at an unfamiliar D.C. address. He hastily packed three suitcases and flew east, taking an Uber to a building that he soon learned belonged to Elon Musk’s SpaceX. He was whisked to a private office, acutely aware that his tailored suit stood out among the hoodie-clad engineers “too locked in” to their laptops to look up. He was ordered to go through the website of the Department of Commerce and, within days, find two to five ideas to present to Musk.

He checked into a nearby J.W. Marriott and told his wife he didn’t know how long he would be gone.

Thus began an 11-month stint at the center of a national firestorm — an exhilarating, chaotic and sometimes scary experience, Hassen told The Washington Post, in his first major interview detailing his forthcoming memoir and plans. The memoir, “Inside DOGE: The Real Story From a Senior Insider,” which recounts his time working for the secretive cost-cutting group, is the first tell-all to emerge from one of the most controversial periods of President Donald Trump’s time in office — a moment Hassen said he would gladly live through again.

“There’s this misconception that we all just went in there and didn’t really think about what we were doing,” Hassen said, speaking virtually from a hotel room in San Diego. “I spent 24/7 thinking about it, waking up at 3 in the morning thinking, ‘Am I doing the right thing?’ … And I know I did.”

At the heart of the book is a split screen: For many Americans, Musk’s project was a callous showcase of bending government to a billionaire’s will, associated with tens of thousands of federal layoffs, reams of lawsuits, an AI-enabled effort to kill off wasteful contracts and the gutting of the U.S. Agency for International Development.

But Hassen’s memoir enters a different vision into the historical record: He portrays a period marked by a clash in worldviews, in which hardcore capitalists are granted unprecedented power to change a system that they argue operates under completely different incentives, logic and norms.

Tyler Hassen said he wanted to do something to bring down the national debt. (Courtesy of Tyler Hassen)

To Hassen, whose pre-government career involved turning around distressed companies, “DOGE was not radical,” he writes in the book. It was “not a wrecking ball, but a catalyst.”

In conversation, Hassen comes across as mild-mannered, a distant temperament from Musk, who famously brandished a red metallic chainsaw as a metaphor for cutting government waste. A 43-year-old dad with Boy Scout energy, he doesn’t cut the image of the nerd-engineer DOGE bro. He spent his entire adult life “hiring, firing, reorganizing and rescuing failing businesses” in industrial manufacturing and the energy sectors — a skill set that appealed to Musk, his longtime deputy, Steve Davis, and Baris Akis, a venture capitalist who served as a volunteer recruiter.

But for years, Hassen seethed with rage over the national debt, now at $40 trillion. He felt angry that the amount the U.S. spends annually just to service that debt is more than the government spends on national defense and many other public benefits.

So he raised his hand — making a cold outreach to Musk through a network of business world connections, he said in the interview, and pressed the point.

“I’m staring at my daughter, who is 5, and thinking about her at 25 with $100 trillion of debt. And I know if we don’t do something about it now, we’re going to be there,” he said. “We’ve got to fix it now.”

Hassen on DOGE's mission

In an exclusive interview with The Post, Hassen on Sept. 18 addressed what he considered a misconception behind DOGE's mission. (Video: The Washington Post)

By its own accounting, DOGE fell far short of the $2 trillion Musk claimed he would save, and an independent report from the Government Accountability Office has found DOGE’s own savings figures to be flawed. But Hassen told The Post he believes the effort was a success.

“Did we eliminate the deficit? No. Of course not,” he said. “But we made it on the top of everyone’s minds, albeit briefly, for a few months, that this deficit is something that we need to fix.”

In the book, he argues that “DOGE fit squarely” within a tradition practiced by some Democratic presidents, from Bill Clinton to Barack Obama, who also sought to shrink bloated government. DOGE was different, he goes on to concede, because of its speed, “faster than Washington was ready for and faster than its defenses could absorb.”

But Hassen insists that DOGE was not cruel, a word that appears six times in the memoir, often in relation to laying off federal workers. The refrain can read as a plea for reconsideration of an effort he argues was poorly understooD.

“In the private sector, there’s an understood bargain,” he writes. “You’re hired to create value. If the value disappears, so does the job. It isn’t personal. It isn’t cruel. It’s the operating system of capitalism.”

Government, he argues in the book, runs on a different logic. Value is “presumed,” “permanence is the default,” and “the moral burden of proofs falls on anyone who questions headcount — no matter how bloated the system becomes.”

After the screening process, Musk and Davis deployed Hassen to the U.S. Department of the Interior, a sprawling agency that manages roughly 500 million acres of federal land and property, national parks, and tribal territories. He took the assignment, he wrote, because he knew “very little” about the agency and the challenge was appealing.

Hassen was eventually promoted by Doug Burgum, the wealthy businessman who heads the agency, whom Hassen described as something of a kindred spirit. He became acting assistant secretary of policy, management and budget and stayed on until November — months after Musk himself had left Washington.

During his tenure at DOGE, Hassen says, he put in 14-hour days, working nights and weekends. During the chaotic period he saw his then-4-year-old daughter only a handful of times. He said he relished the minutiae of the job: poring over grants written in what appeared to him to be bureaucratese, disassembling bloated org charts and consolidating departments.

He says he encountered a bureaucracy more labyrinthine and redundant than he could have ever imagined. He caught spelling errors in a project description written by a vendor charging hundreds of millions of dollars, which he saw as proof of a systemic malaise. The contract, he writes, “stopped me cold.” (To drive home the point, a photo of the paperwork with the spelling error is published in the book.)

He told The Post he was exhilarated to get deep into the bowels of the bureaucracy and deploy his corporate-honed skill sets to attack a problem that had long troubled him.

During his first week at DOGE, the team met in a sparse conference room on the top floor of the SpaceX offices — empty except for a giant American flag on the wall, “because it reminded us why we are here,” he told The Post. “We had billionaires to 22-year-olds who had dropped out of Harvard, all sitting there on our laptops working with public information — trying to figure out how we can help solve this deficit, this crisis that we’re in.”

As the group grew, the meetings moved to the Eisenhower Executive Office Building. There, he told The Post that he would present to Musk on a weekly basis, receiving the world’s richest man’s undivided attention. “He has this ability to grasp so many things, from California water to certain contracts,” he said. “We would talk about certain departments for 45 minutes — and how can we fix this — and we’d stay until 2 in the morning.”

One time, after a particularly grueling session, Hassen said, he had to sneak out of the White House grounds to sleep. “I was so tired,” he said.

During his time at Interior, Hassen was almost like a Where’s Waldo character, popping up at key moments that caught the country’s attention. When wildfires struck California, Hassen made an unusual decision to fly to the state to grill local officials about why the state’s largest water plant wasn’t running at full capacity.

The image of him at the Jones Pumping Plant in California became one of the first posts from the DOGE X account identifying its members — prompting a flood of hateful messages and threats to Hassen and his family, he said.

When Trump renamed the Gulf of Mexico, it fell to Hassen to officially register the rechristened Gulf of America in the Interior Department’s Geographic Names Information System — a move that then triggered a broader recognition of the name change on Google Maps and other online directories.

Hassen says he felt the difference in mindset between the public and the private sector every day. “It showed up in the way career staff spoke about ‘the workforce’ as something apart — almost sacred,” he writes. “Until we can say out loud that government is a workforce like any other — noble in purpose, human in composition, and subject to reality like everything else — reform will look like cruelty before it looks like competence.”

Former DOGE staffer defends his work

Defending his work under DOGE, Tyler Hassen on Sept. 18 said he would do it all over again if given the chance. (Video: The Washington Post)

There is a clear cognitive dissonance between DOGE insiders like Hassen, who saw himself taking on a deeply patriotic project, and many Americans, who according to polls viewed DOGE disapprovingly.

Not surprisingly, Hassen believes the media is one culprit — treating “every reduction as a moral offense” and framing DOGE leaders’ demands for accountability as a “cruelty experiment,” he writes.

But in the book, Hassen also reflects on how DOGE’s failure to communicate hurt its reputation.

Though DOGE was announced with great fanfare — and its website broadcast tallied savings — in practice the project was highly secretive, with DOGE members often showing up in agencies wielding great power before ever appearing on an org chart.

In the six months before the ill-fated cost-cutting effort imploded, its staff gave just a handful of interviews. Two, including one with Hassen, were on Fox News, and he told The Post that he almost backed out. They were done, Hassen writes, only in response to prodding from then-White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt and Katie Miller, the political operative and podcaster who acted as a communications liaison for Musk’s effort.

DOGE members were private citizens, fearful of being personally targeted and unfamiliar with the media apparatus that is part of Washington culture, he says. But fundamentally, the DOGE crew wanted to stay completely focused on the mission itself, he writes. The team was well aware that they needed to move with speed, as they might soon be slowed down by lawsuits, Congress or other bureaucratic forces.

“We were there to work. We weren’t there to be public figures,” he said in the interview.

In the book, Hassen implies that this was, to some degree, a miscalculation. “Once we stepped back, others were happy to define the work for us.”

Ultimately, DOGE did lose control of the narrative, leading to a dramatic split between Trump and Musk five months after DOGE began and leaving the project in the lurch. The night of that split, Hassen said, he paced around the Interior Department like a ghost. The next morning, he went to the agency gift shop and bought his daughter a T-shirt that said “Future Secretary of the Interior.” He thought it might be his last night in D.C.

Hassen’s experience working with AI for the first time at DOGE led him to take a new job leading Zone Frontier, a former cleaning supply firm with a new mission to provide infrastructure and permitting to the data center industry. Musk’s longtime lawyer, Alex Spiro, has also joined the board of directors, something Hassen said was a pure coincidence.

He says he hopes the legacy of DOGE will be that the country’s most gifted citizens will seek to serve their government. Instead of draining the swamp, he says, he wants to flood it with talent and energy.

“These are some of the best and brightest we have in America,” he said of the DOGE team. “I’m honored to be even a part of them.”

Faiz Siddiqui contributed to this report.

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WAPO? CITY DESK NTBCW JRNL BS

https://citydesk.org/2025/04/21/interior-secretary-gives-doge-aide-sweeping-powers-to-remake-department/

Interior Secretary Doug Burgum has given a former oil executive and aide to Elon Musk broad latitude to cut costs and consolidate work within his vast department, which oversees more than 500 million acres of land across the United States.

In an order issued Thursday, Burgum put Tyler Hassen, who came to the Interior Department as a representative of the U.S. DOGE Service, in charge of a sweeping effort to “create significant efficiencies” and eliminate “redundant efforts” across the department. Hassen’s broad portfolio includes IT, human resources, training, financial management, international affairs, contracting, communications and other tasks.

With this unusual move, Burgum appears to be going further than most other Cabinet members in granting power to a DOGE representative who has not gone through a Senate confirmation process. Hassen’s decisions could have major implications for how Interior – which is responsible for maintaining national parks, protecting endangered species, and overseeing drilling in public lands and waters – operates going forward.

Conservationists accused Burgum of improperly ceding oversight to an unaccountable leader from DOGE, which stands for Department of Government Efficiency, though it is not a Cabinet-level agency.

“If Doug Burgum doesn’t want this job, he should quit now,” Jennifer Rokala, executive director of the Center for Western Priorities, said in a statement. “Instead, it looks like Burgum plans to sit by the fire eating warm cookies while Elon Musk’s lackeys dismantle our national parks and public lands.”

Before joining the Trump administration, Hassen worked for Basin Energy, an oil field equipment manufacturer and services company. After the inauguration, he was embedded in Interior as a representative of DOGE, and since March he has been delegated the authority of assistant secretary of policy, management and budget.

Sitting for a Fox News interview alongside Musk and other DOGE members in March, Hassen said his team was reviewing “every single contract, every single grant” at Interior.

“When things come to my attention that don’t make sense, I’m bringing them to Secretary Burgum,” Hassen added. “He’s a businessman. He’s very supportive of DOGE.”

Hassen has been scrutinizing all grants and contracts worth $50,000 or more, according to an Interior employee briefed on the matter, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because she was not authorized to comment publicly.

A second DOGE aide named Matt Luby has been deciding whether to approve new spending and has requested access to GrantSolutions, the internal system used to control all grant awards, the employee said. Luby is the chief of staff and childhood friend of Vivek Ramaswamy, who helped launch DOGE with Musk before departing to run for governor of Ohio.

The DOGE team at Interior has asked each office to provide a list of its grants that could be terminated, according to the employee familiar with the matter and emails reviewed by The Washington Post.

“In light of this very large existing grant program and our efforts to maximize taxpayer savings, we would appreciate it if you could please provide us with a list of $30-50M in discretionary grants that could potentially be terminated in the near future,” Hassen wrote in a January email to officials in the Office of Surface Mining Reclamation and Enforcement.

Hassen and Luby have also requested a list of all Interior grants going to Maine, the emails show. Trump has threatened to withhold federal funding from Maine unless the Democratic-led state complies with his executive order barring transgender girls from playing on girls’ sports teams.

In addition, Hassen has sought for his team to have access to a major personnel payroll system housed at Interior that serves more than 50 agencies and 276,000 employees across the federal bureaucracy.

Officials including Anthony Irish, one of Interior’s top career attorneys with about two decades of experience at the department, spelled out in a memo concerns over the unusual nature of such a request and the legal risks of allowing broad access to sensitive personnel files.

“Such elevated access to critical high-value asset systems is rare with respect to individual systems and no single DOI official presently has such access,” they wrote.

In response, Hassen sought to remove Irish from his job, accusing him of “subverting, obstructing and delaying” the granting of access. Irish remains on leave as of Monday, according to Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility, which is representing Irish in challenging his proposed removal.

“Tony Irish is being punished for doing his job,” PEER executive director Tim Whitehouse said. “Elevating important concerns up the chain of command is how government is supposed to work.”

When reached for comment, the Interior Department declined to say when the reorganization will be complete and how many employees will be impacted. In a statement, Interior spokeswoman J. Elizabeth Peace said the department is “implementing necessary reforms to ensure fiscal responsibility, operational efficiency and government accountability.”

One of Hassen’s first tasks after President Donald Trump’s inauguration was visiting a Northern California water pumping station to push one of Trump’s long-standing priorities: rerouting water from the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta to other parts of the state.

During his first campaign for president, Trump argued that too much water is allocated toward protecting an imperiled river fish called the delta smelt instead of going to farmers.

More recently, Trump accused California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) of protecting an “essentially worthless fish” instead of sending water to Southern California during the historic fires. But many experts dismissed Trump’s claim that the blazes could have been averted by transferring water from the north.

DOGE employees have also sought to control spending and staff at other environmental agencies. Reuters reported that the DOGE team at the Environmental Protection Agency is using artificial intelligence to monitor employees’ emails for hostility toward Trump and his agenda.

During a Monday briefing with reporters, EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin declined to confirm the report on the use of AI. But he emphasized that he is overseeing the DOGE team at the agency, which has an office on the third floor of the EPA headquarters near his own executive suite.

“Anyone inside of the agency who’s working on a mission related to DOGE works for EPA,” Zeldin said. “We don’t have any non-EPA employees here inside of this building.”

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Controversial Interior Department Aide From DOGE to Leave Agency

Tyler Hassen, a former oil executive who had spent time on Elon Musk’s cost-cutting team, faced criticism because he had been given broad authority to make changes at the department.

Tyler Hassen, a former Texas oil executive from Elon Musk’s government efficiency team who was given sweeping powers to overhaul the Department of the Interior, is leaving the agency, he confirmed on Friday.

“It has been the honor of a lifetime to serve our great country under President Trump’s historic administration,” Mr. Hassen said in a statement to The New York Times. He said his six-month commitment to the agency had “come to a close.”

A former member of Mr. Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency, Mr. Hassen initially came to the Interior Department as an assistant secretary for policy, management and budget. The Associated Press reported that was changed in April to “principal deputy assistant secretary,” a position that, unlike assistant secretary, does not require Senate confirmation.

The Musk-led office, DOGE, was controversial in part because it wasn’t an official government agency, yet it had taken on broad authority to cut government staff and spending. Mr. Musk stepped away from DOGE in recent months as his relationship with President Trump soured and as sales of his Tesla electric vehicles faltered.

Several people on Friday said that Mr. Hassen had informed them during a staff meeting that his last day would be August 1. Aubrie Spady, a spokeswoman for the Interior Department, confirmed Mr. Hassen’s departure and in a statement called him a “true American patriot” dedicated to making the agency more efficient.

Doug Burgum, the secretary of the Interior, granted Mr. Hassen in April broad powers to oversee and reorganize the agency, which is responsible for more than 500 million acres of public lands and employs about 70,000 people across the country in numerous agencies including the Bureau of Land Management, the National Park Service and the Fish and Wildlife Service.

According to a secretarial order that Mr. Burgum wrote, Mr. Hassen was given authority to take “all necessary actions” to carry out “consolidation, unification and optimization” at the department and its bureaus. That move drew criticism from many Democrats and environmental activists, who said Mr. Burgum had turned over too much authority to Mr. Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency.

The decision demonstrated a “willingness to freely hand over the keys to the Department to a DOGE representative,” Senator Martin Heinrich, Democrat of New Mexico, wrote in a letter to Mr. Burgum. “Delegating sweeping authorities and responsibilities to a non-Senate-confirmed person in violation of the Vacancies Reform Act is baffling and extremely troubling,” he wrote.

Before joining DOGE, Mr. Hassen spent nearly two decades as an executive at Basin Holdings, which describes itself as “a green energy metals exploration and development company.” He was previously chief finance officer for Basin Holdings, “a global diversified oil field/industrial supply and services company,” according to his LinkedIn page.

Lisa Friedman is a Times reporter who writes about how governments are addressing climate change and the effects of those policies on communities.

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Musk’s DOGE ‘whiz kids’ flew to California to try and release water themselves during LA fires

Katie Hawkinson

Fri, March 7, 2025

Musk’s DOGE ‘whiz kids’ flew to California to try and release water themselves during LA fires

DOGE staffers attempted to pressure the acting head of the Bureau of Reclamation to open a water pump system, CNN reports. The staffers wanted to send the water to Los Angeles amid the devastating wildfires in January — even though the system wouldn't have allowed it to reach the scorched city, CNN reports.

Despite this, they still decided to take matters into their own hands.

But when the official didn't give in, staffers Tyler Hassen and Bryton Shang flew to California to open the pumps themselves and get a photo while doing so, CNN reports. But two issues stopped them.

DOGE staffers Bryton Shang (left) and Tyler Hassen flew to California to turn on a major water pump system themselves in the wake of the Los Angeles wildfires, according to a new report (Department of Government Efficiency)

First, the power was off due to planned maintenance. Second, Shang wasn't an official federal employee yet, meaning he couldn't access the pump. Hassen couldn't do it either, CNN reports, because he had to fly back before the power would be restored.

"They didn't get their photo op," an unnamed source with knowledge of the incident told CNN, adding it represented "what DOGE has been this entire time — this slapstick operation of 20-somethings they're seeing as whiz kids but have zero knowledge."

Instead, the DOGE X account posted a photo of Shang and Hassen in front of a map, along with other pictures of the plant.

White House spokesperson Anna Kelly told The Independent that the administration wanted to turn on the water to "prevent another tragedy like the recent California wildfires." However, experts say there is no evidence that a water shortage caused the California wildfires, CNN reports.

"He will continue to protect America's abundant natural resources while streamlining federal agencies to better serve the American people," Kelly said.

A White House official also told The Independent Hassen and Shang are Department of Interior employees. Hassen has been previously identified as a DOGE staffer by The New York Times.

Soon after the visit, Trump ordered the US Army Corps to open up two Southern California dams at the end of January. This release sent water rushing toward farmland in the San Joaquin Valley, the Los Angeles Times reports, prompting concern from farmers.

"This is going to hurt farmers," water consultant Dan Vink told the outlet. "This takes water out of their summer irrigation portfolio."

Trump ordered the release after claiming that water access issues caused the wildfires that killed nearly 30 people. Trump falsely claimed the LA fires were a result of the state's water policies.

"Photo of beautiful water flow that I just opened in California," Trump said in January 31 post on X. "Today, 1.6 billion gallons and, in 3 days, it will be 5.2 billion gallons. Everybody should be happy about this long fought Victory! I only wish they listened to me six years ago – There would have been no fire!"

The Independent has contacted Hassen and Shang for comment.

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QUESTIONS CHANGED TO GET RID OF STATS

RWW

9 26

Vittoria Elliott and David Gilbert @ Wired: A US Census Report on Noncitizen Voting Used Bad Data to Reach Faulty Conclusions

Trump has touted a recent Census report. WIRED found grave flaws in its analysis and the process behind it, and confirmed the identity of several of its authors—among them a one-time DOGE affiliate.

RWW -->

A reportpublished by the US Census Bureau last month purported to uncover evidence backing up President Donald Trump’s baseless claims that noncitizens voting cost him the 2020 election. It was the latest salvo in Trump’s broader assault on the safety of US elections. “I WON THE ELECTION,” Trump quickly declared on Truth Social after the publication of the report.

However, though Trump and other government officials quickly shared and praised the report, a WIRED investigation has uncovered significant flaws in the data used to compile the report, as well as in the approval process used prior to publication. WIRED has also learned that a number of the report’s authors have links to the Trump administration and the Republican party. They include one former affiliate of Elon Musk’s so-called Department of Government Efficiency and two researchers from the America First Policy Institute (AFPI), a highly influential think tank founded by veterans of Trump’s first administration.

The report, titled “Noncitizen Voting in the 2020 Election: A Beginning Analysis,” claims that an analysis of over 128 million voter records from the 2020 election identified 24,000 people tied to administrative records indicating noncitizen status. The numbers range from 4,300 in California to fewer than 15 in Wyoming—not nearly enough to have affected the outcome of the presidential race. But even these figures seem extremely questionable, and experts and Census Bureau employees who spoke to WIRED allege it is much likelier that they represent basic analytical errors than actual instances of noncitizen voting.

The Census Bureau did not respond to a request for comment. The White House directed WIRED to President Donald Trump’s post on Truth Social and Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick’s post on X, where both officials praised the report.

The number of noncitizens voting in US elections has been repeatedly shown to be vanishingly small. In Utah, for example, the state’s top election official, Lieutenant Governor Deidre Henderson, reviewed the state’s approximately 2.1 million registered voters. The result was the discovery of 27 “confirmed noncitizens,” none of whom was ever confirmed to have voted. Studies in Pennsylvania and Idaho have returned similar outcomes. Still, the idea that a flood of noncitizens have been voting in US elections for over a decade, skewing the outcomes, has remained one of the central conspiracy theories promoted by Trump and his allies.

John Abowd, former associate director for research and methodology and chief scientist at the Census Bureau, called the Census report “statistical nonsense” and wrote on LinkedIn that “it is extremely uncommon for the US Census Bureau to publish a research report, even one of blog length, without the authors explicitly listed.”

Census Bureau sources who spoke to WIRED on the condition of anonymity could not say what prompted the report. Records reviewed by WIRED, though, show it originated at the Center for Economic Studies, a division within the Census Bureau that uses confidential data to conduct research.

According to those records, one of the authors was Dan Sweeney, currently a deputy general counsel at the Department of Commerce overseeing the Census Bureau. He previously worked as the “DOGE legal liaison and deregulatory attorney” at the Environmental Protection Agency, according to his LinkedIn profile. Michael Lachanski was also an author, according to two sources with knowledge of the report’s origins, and he was appointed to his current role as the deputy director for data, policy, and science at the Census Bureau just two months ago. Previously, he was a fellow at the Trump-aligned Claremont Institute.

The two America First staffers involved in authoring the report, according to records reviewed by WIRED, were Matthew Jensen and Jeff McCrea. McCrea previously served as campaign manager for former congresswoman Cathy McMorris Rodgers of Washington, who has expressed a belief in creationism and signed an amicus brief contesting the 2020 election results. Jensen previously worked for the American Enterprise Institute, where, according to his bio on the America First Policy Institute website, “contributed to the design of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act,” the tax law passed during the first Trump administration.

Sweeney, Lachanski, Jensen, and McCrea did not respond to requests for comment.

Sources who spoke to WIRED on the condition of anonymity confirmed that Jensen and McCrea are working in government on loan from America First through what is known as the Intergovernment Personnel Act. The IPA is meant to allow people with specialized skill sets from certain institutions, like nonprofits and universities, to work for the government for up to two years on a temporary appointment.

Danah Boyd, a professor at Cornell University who studies the census, says that the Bureau has long used IPAs for scientific work. “But they do what the civil servants require them to do, not what the political [appointees] require them to do.”

Boyd says that the group of people who records indicate authored the noncitizen voting report appear to be of a different stripe. “These ultimately appear to be people coming from a Republican operation that’s pretending to be a 501c3,” she says. “Rather than doing the work for the agency, it appears they’re doing work in political interest.” The AFPI did not respond to a request for comment.

The report was approved by the Census Bureau’s disclosure review board on August 7 through an email vote, which is typically used for publications with tight deadlines or in response to demands from Congress or the White House. The members of the review board who approved the report were shown the three tables contained in the final publication, but not the analysis that accompanied them, according to one source within the bureau who had access to the materials submitted to the review board.

The report concludes that the author’s analysis “readily determined with high confidence that over 128 million of these voter records represented citizens, and that over 24,000 of these voter records represented noncitizens at the time of the election. Over 32 million voter records remain to be analyzed.”

According to documents viewed by WIRED, the authors used data from the DataClear 2020 voting file—a commercial dataset—as well as USCIS immigration records (both the 2025 extract and the February 2026 A-number and case files); USCIS DACA approvals from 2025; State Department immigrant and nonimmigrant visas for 2017 through 2023; ICE student, removal, and national-docket records; IRS form 1040 for 2020; Social Security Numident (2019 and 2020); and State Department passport issuances across 50 vintages from 1978 through 2025.

Former Census officials say the breadth of data used, as well as the lack of clear explanation of the methodology employed to analyze it, raises significant red flags.

“We don't know whether or how the sources are updating their citizenship info,” Amy O’Hara, a former official who used to run the administrative data linkage unit at Census, tells WIRED. “It is really hard to join and deduplicate these files, especially across a range of years.”

In order to match people between surveys and records without revealing their identities, the Census Bureau uses what are known as Protected Identification Keys (PIKs), which replace identifying information with a unique code. Sources who spoke to WIRED say that they are unsure which data points were used to match PIK data across the many datasets, though something like an address could be used for cross-referencing.

Though PIKs have been used for years to allow academics and government employees to conduct studies without compromising the privacy of the people whose data it is, they are not foolproof. A January 2026 study published by the Census earlier this year found that “while PIK assignment is generally accurate, some person records are not successfully assigned a PIK, which can lead to sample selection bias in analyses of linked data.”

“The brief says ‘high confidence,’ which indicates some probability,” one bureau source who spoke on the condition of anonymity over fears of retribution by the administration, tells WIRED. “However, no confidence intervals in the tables of the brief are shown. The supposed count of non-voters is small relative to the total state population.” The source alleges that there are probably PIK errors and not actual noncitizens who voted.

Abowd says that false match rates—in this case, when a voting record is assigned the wrong PIK, and then when it is “matched” with citizenship data–are likely to be higher when using commercial data like those used in the report. This means that the analysis is more likely to return a “false positive” showing that a noncitizen had voted. “You can’t estimate the false positive rate without more technical details” that were not included in the report, Abowd tells WIRED. “Because the false match rate is much greater than the estimated noncitizen voting rate, the alleged noncitizen voters are more likely to be data errors.”

All of this, Boyd worries, could undermine more than just trust in voting and elections—it could make academics and researchers doubt the quality and reliability of the products and data that the Census Bureau produces. “They're putting it out with the imprimatur of the Census Bureau so it looks legitimate,” she says. “But there’s no authors, no methods, no discussions of the limitations of the data, or the Bureau's approach.”

Republicans have already attacked the accuracy of the 2020 census, alleging that an algorithmic process used by the Bureau to protect data privacy had disproportionately favored Democrats in terms of the drawing of congressional districts. In August, WIRED reported that an internal memo circulated by the Department of Commerce, which oversees the Census Bureau, proposed excluding immigrants from the count, a move that could radically reshape how congressional districts are apportioned.

The report is also just one part of a broad attack on the integrity of American elections by the Trump administration, which includes weaponizing the Department of Justice, dismantling voter protections, attempting to wrest control of election administration from states, and pushing an endless barrage of baseless conspiracy theories about voting in America.

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jan 2026 report

67 pp https://therevolvingdoorproject.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/DOGE_-From-Meme-to-Government-Erosion-Machine.pdf

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RAW

REF 2 DOGE team uses AI to track hostility to Trump and Musk among government workers: report APR 2025 TRAVIS GETTY

Elon Musk's DOGE team has been using artificial intelligence to conduct surveillance on at least one federal agency's communications for signs of disloyalty to President Donald Trump and his agenda, according to two sources with knowledge of the situation.

Trump administration officials have told some U.S. government employees about the surveillance, the sources told Reuters.

Employees with the Department of Government Efficiency could also be in violation of federal record-keeping rules by communicating through the non-secure the Signal app, which can be set to automatically delete messages.

ALSO READ: 'I'm shocked': Chris Christie's telling Trump moment among revelations in new Russia files

“If they’re using Signal and not backing up every message to federal files, then they are acting unlawfully,” said Kathleen Clark, a government ethics expert at Washington University in St. Louis.

Nearly 20 people with knowledge of DOGE operations spoke to Reuters, and two sources said some managers at the Environmental Protection Agency were told by Trump appointees that Musk's team was using AI to monitor workers for criticism of Trump or his billionaire adviser.

“We have been told they are looking for anti-Trump or anti-Musk language,” said a third source familiar with the EPA.

Trump officials told EPA managers that Musk's team was looking for individuals whose work did not align with the administration's mission, the sources said.

“Be careful what you say, what you type and what you do,” a manager told employees, according to one of the sources.

The EPA confirmed, after publication of the Reuters report, that it was using AI "to better optimize agency functions and administrative efficiencies” but disputed that the tool was being used to make personnel decisions in concert with DOGE,” although agency officials did not directly address the AI surveillance issue.

"[It] sounds like an abuse of government power to suppress or deter speech that the president of the United States doesn’t like,” said Clark, the ethics expert.

DOGE staffers are also sidestepping standard vetting processes and chains of custody for official government documents by working simultaneously out of Google Docs, a source told Reuters, instead of circulating single copies of drafts, which the source said allowed the team to work quickly.

“There's multiple people in one Google Doc editing things simultaneously,” the source said.

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gil

Read this book! everythinng forever

The Washington Post finally got around to discovering Curtis Yarvin, the anti-democracy San Francisco blogger who Vice President JD Vance — his #1 fan — calls a “neoreactionary fascist.”

“Before gutting the federal workforce became Elon Musk’s job, it was Curtis Yarvin’s dream,” wrote Peter Jamison and Elizabeth Dwoskin in a May 8 story headlined “Curtis Yarvin helped inspire DOGE. Now he scorns it.”

“Yarvin is the brain,” one unnamed source told the Post, explaining Yarvin's influence.

From the story:

Yarvin — a Silicon Valley blogger and software developer who argues for replacing American democracy with a dictatorship — spent years outlining an assault on what he calls “the cathedral” of elite power and consensus. Long before the U.S. DOGE Service launched in January, Yarvin coined his own four-letter acronym for bureaucracy-slashing: RAGE, or “Retire All Government Employees.”

Although he says he has never met Musk, Yarvin is a powerful influence among those carrying out DOGE’s radical cost-cutting agenda, two advisers to the effort said. One, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to describe the group’s work, said Yarvin had offered “the most crisp articulation” of what DOGE, which stands for Department of Government Efficiency, is trying to achieve.

Earlier this year, I wrote about how Elon Musk's DOGE project was straight out of the Yarvin playbook. The Post gets confirmation from Trump administration officials that Yarvin is, indeed, the inspiration for DOGE:

Musk installed himself in the Eisenhower Executive Office Building adjacent to the White House, his 4-year-old son and his video-gaming computer in tow, exhibiting a vision of executive power that looked to be straight out of Yarvin’s playbook.

The resemblance was no accident, according to the two people who have advised DOGE and are familiar with its leaders’ thinking.

“It’s an open secret that everyone in policymaking roles has read Yarvin,” one of them said. “They were able to take the Curtis theory and use it to empower people on the ground to actually do stuff — even if they can’t admit it publicly.”

There it is — a very obvious fact that the nation's most powerful news organizations somehow managed to miss until May 2025. Now that the Washington Post has figured it out, can the New York Times political desk be far behind?

Read the entire piece at this gift link. 404

It is good to see major newspapers wake up to these realities. The main goal of my work has been to raise the awareness of other journalists. At the same time, I find it absurd that these papers, with their massive budgets and world-class teams of editors and reporters, are so late to the game.

Better late than never, I suppose. After all, it's not like American democracy is in jeopardy or anything. Moving on...

The Post story depicts Yarvin as disillusioned with DOGE:

In fact, in several recent interviews with The Washington Post, he offered a surprisingly harsh assessment of DOGE, comparing it to an orchestra of chimpanzees trying to perform Wagner. He also said the group’s attitude toward federal workers resembles that of a brash but insecure man who repels potential sexual partners.

“In the worst aspects of DOGE, there’s this aspect of the incel who gets mad at the girl who won’t sleep with him,” Yarvin said, using the term for so-called involuntary celibates. “That’s not a powerful attitude.”

Yarvin is clearly trying to distance himself from his own half-baked idea. But, in his typically incoherent fashion, he also wants to get credit for it.

The Post story does not mention the March 6 essay, “Barbarians and Mandarins,” in which Yarvin — repeatedly invoking the language of genocide — complains that the tech-MAGA fascist project will fail because it is not extreme enough. I analyzed that essay in an April 7 piece headlined “Curtis Yarvin Fears His Authoritarian Fantasy is Flopping.”

Newspapers tend to sanitize horror by using bland and supposedly neutral language to paint what Masha Gessen, in Surviving Autocracy, describes as a “blurry” picture of reality:

The pedantic insistence on only ever reporting empirically proven facts, and staying away from facts for which only logical, intellectual evidence can be summoned, creates the blurry style of American journalism. By using noncommittal statements, the blurry style in effect aids the Trumpian project of neutralizing the most important of media rights—the public’s right to know.

The Post piece is an important step forward because it shows that major U.S. media outlets can no longer ignore this story. But the piece also somehow manages to whitewash Yarvin and so, in true Beltway journalism fashion, continues to fall short.

This is a guy who once suggested the need for a “humane alternative to genocide” for “unproductive people.” And his ideas are now being tested in the White House.

Here's a five-minute video explainer of how Elon Musk's DOGE reflects Yarvin's playbook.

https://www.youtube.com/embed/OC629l-wZBQ?feature=oembed

A Must-Read Book

The good news: U.S. media outlets are finally waking up.

The bad news: Yarvin is only the tip of the iceberg. The ideas coming out of Silicon Valley these days are a lot weirder and scarier than most people imagine.

If you want to understand those nightmarish ideas in great and entertaining detail, I highly recommend reading More Everything Forever: AI Overlords, Space Empires, and Silicon Valley's Crusade to Control the Fate of Humanity by Adam Becker. I started reading it on a recent plane ride and couldn't put it down.

I'll have more to say on this, but this book deserves the widest possible audience because the dangerous ideas Becker exposes are exerting tremendous influence on our lives in 2025.

Here's the official description of the book:

Tech billionaires have decided that they should determine our futures for us. According to Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, Sam Altman, and more, the only good future for humanity is one powered by technology: trillions of humans living in space, functionally immortal, served by superintelligent AIs.

In More Everything Forever, science journalist Adam Becker investigates these wildly implausible and often profoundly immoral visions of tomorrow--and shows why, in reality, there is no good evidence that they will, or should, come to pass. Nevertheless, these obsessions fuel fears that overwhelm reason--for example, that a rogue AI will exterminate humanity--at the expense of essential work on solving crucial problems like climate change. What's more, these futuristic visions cloak a hunger for power under dreams of space colonies and digital immortality. The giants of Silicon Valley claim that their ideas are based on science, but the reality is darker: they come from a jumbled mix of shallow futurism and racist pseudoscience.

More Everything Forever exposes the powerful and sinister ideas that dominate Silicon Valley, challenging us to see how foolish, and dangerous, these visions of the future are.

Don't be the last one to read it!

Tech Fascism in San Francisco

On July 14, I'll speak about tech fascism at the Commonwealth Club World Affairs in San Francisco.

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wapo

Curtis Yarvin helped inspire DOGE. Now he scorns it.

Silicon Valley’s neo-monarchist muse compares the Trump administration’s bureaucracy slashers to an orchestra of chimpanzees.

Curtis Yarvin, a neo-monarchist blogger with an influential following among Trump's Silicon Valley supporters, pictured in Berkeley, California. (Ian Bates for The Washington Post)

By Peter Jamison

and

Elizabeth Dwoskin

Before gutting the federal workforce became Elon Musk’s job, it was Curtis Yarvin’s dream.

“There’s this alliance of the media, of universities, of government,” the DOGE adviser said. “These people are capturing the government and using it for their own ends and for their own power. And that’s very scary to us. You want to lessen the power of the cathedral.”

It’s not every day a neo-monarchist’s Substack helps shape disruptive federal policies. But Yarvin, 51, isn’t celebrating. In fact, in several recent interviews with The Washington Post, he offered a surprisingly harsh assessment of DOGE, comparing it to an orchestra of chimpanzees trying to perform Wagner. He also said the group’s attitude toward federal workers resembles that of a brash but insecure man who repels potential sexual partners.

The mixing of high and low analogies is characteristic of Yarvin, whose wildly discursive blog posts — which on a given day might analyze American politics with reference to Shakespeare, Stalin and “The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension” — have become required reading for the extremely online right. Among the better-known members of his audience are Vice President JD Vance and pro-Trump Silicon Valley investors Marc Andreessen and Peter Thiel.

Peter Thiel, the prominent Silicon Valley conservative who co-founded PayPal and Palantir, has embraced Yarvin's thinking. Yarvin considers Thiel to be “fully enlightened.” (Rebecca Blackwell/AP)

Even in a political culture habituated to extremes, Yarvin plants his flag on the fringe. He has written that the late South African anti-apartheid leader Nelson Mandela was a terrorist comparable to the Norwegian mass murderer Anders Breivik, admiringly described President Franklin D. Roosevelt as a more effective autocrat than Hitler and argued for replacing the existing global order with thousands of “sovereign and independent mini-countries, each governed by its own joint-stock corporation without regard to the residents’ opinions.”

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That such a provocative figure should deem the early activity of the second Trump administration too, well, provocative is among the many unpredictable developments since the president assumed office less than four months ago. Despite his informal role as secular prophet to DOGE and some Trump administration policymakers, Yarvin now asserts that Musk and President Donald Trump are needlessly harming and antagonizing government experts whose support they should be seeking.

“It’s very shortsighted behavior from the standpoint of building capital, or building power,” Yarvin said. “They’re really acting on a seat-of-the-pants basis.”

Yarvin’s DOGE disillusionment is somewhat surreal, almost as if Marx had lived long enough to troll the Bolsheviks for misreading “Das Kapital.” It is also, perhaps, an object lesson in the dangers of translating the often outlandish digital discourse that has shaped the American far right into real-world policies that have scaled back scientific research, jeopardized some lifesaving foreign aid programs and risked hobbling government services with mass firings.

The White House declined to comment. Musk didn’t respond to a request for comment.

Joshua Tait, a historian of conservatism who has written about Yarvin, said it was surprising but not necessarily out of character that Silicon Valley’s neo-monarchist muse has mixed feelings about the implementation of his ideas. Despite his jarringly bleak view of democracy, Yarvin has always had an unexpectedly optimistic vision of what government could achieve, Tait said.

“I wonder if he has that utopian mindset that makes him clash with the ‘just own the libs’ ethos of some of DOGE — which is not to say that he didn’t spend a lot of time owning the libs,” Tait said.

Still, Yarvin’s ambivalence “doesn’t always feel intellectually coherent,” Tait said. And as DOGE winds down its work — leaving behind a mangled but still defiant federal workforce and savings far short of the $2 trillion promised — Yarvin bears at least some responsibility, Tait argued.

“I think he does own DOGE, regardless of what he says,” Tait said. “It would have been created, probably, regardless. But he spent a good chunk of time creating a justifying framework for it.”

Inside the cathedral

As Yarvin tells it, his childhood almost eerily reflected the left-leaning, elite circles he now condemns.

His father, who he says was raised by communists, retired as a senior official in the U.S. Foreign Service. The young Yarvin spent years living abroad, eventually transferring from a British-run academy in Cyprus to a high school in Maryland. A math prodigy, he skipped three grades and graduated from Brown University at age 18 in 1992.

Yarvin briefly enrolled in a doctoral program in computer science at the University of California at Berkeley, before dropping out to join a tech company. He created a computing platform, Urbit, in 2002 but did not find the vocation that would earn him a devoted following until 2007, when he launched the blog Unqualified Reservations.

Writing under the pseudonym Mencius Moldbug, a play on “goldbug” and a Confucian philosopher of the Zhou dynasty, Yarvin gradually constructed a radical critique of liberal democracy. Drawing on the scientist Richard Dawkins’s concept of “memes” — ideas that compete and replicate themselves through natural selection, just as genes do, without regard to their underlying truth — Yarvin argued that the egalitarian rhetoric of the left masked self-serving ideals whose true function was to expand elites’ power.

Yarvin, 51, came to the Bay Area to study computer science but began devoting much of his time to an anti-democracy blog. (Ian Bates/For The Washington Post)

The network that nurtures these concepts — the news media, universities and similar sources of supposed expertise — make up Yarvin’s “cathedral.” American leaders had become dangerously reliant on such institutions, he argued, diluting responsibility for the government’s diminishing performance. The antidote, in his view, was a system that would not “leak” power but concentrate it as much as possible — ideally in a single person.

“The problem of choosing the ‘benevolent dictator,’ making sure he or she stays ‘benevolent,’ and replacing her or him with an equally benevolent successor, is not an impossible and unimaginable paradox,” Yarvin wrote. “It is an engineering problem.”

Interspersed with these musings were inflammatory attacks on “cathedral” orthodoxy, notably on the subject of race. Yarvin wrote recurrently about crime committed by racial minorities, and he objected to government and business programs intended to elevate the status of African Americans. When “applied to populations with recent hunter-gatherer ancestry and no great reputation for sturdy moral fiber,” he wrote in 2009, such initiatives were “a recipe for the production of absolute human garbage.”

Yarvin told The Post that he still believes “tremendous inborn differences [exist] between people” and “between groups of people” and that progressive policies have not helped most Black Americans thrive. However, he said he would choose his words on racial dynamics more carefully today, and that his 2009 remark about minorities’ moral fiber was intended to have an intentionally archaic and “self-parodic” tone.

“I would definitely phrase it differently, because there’s a kind of tongue-in-cheek there that gets lost,” said Yarvin, who today writes under his own name on a blog called “Gray Mirror of the Nihilist Prince.”

Outcry over Yarvin’s writings on race and politics got him booted from a tech conference where he was slated to appear in 2015 and led some speakers and sponsors to pull out of another conference the following year. Scholars have also criticized his arguments, saying he misrepresents the historical record to celebrate forms of government that were considered deeply oppressive by those who lived under them.

But his ideas have simultaneously found favor with powerful people.

In emails to the right-wing provocateur Milo Yiannopoulos that were published by BuzzFeed News, Yarvin said he watched the 2016 election at the home of Thiel, one of the few figures in the tech world to back Trump’s first presidential campaign. Yarvin wrote that he had been “coaching Thiel,” whom he described as “fully enlightened.”

Thiel’s venture capital firm invested $250,000 in Tlon, a start-up Yarvin created to build out his computing platform, Yarvin said. A representative for the firm, Founders Fund, declined to comment. Thiel did not respond to requests for comment.

Other early investors included the founding engineer of Skype, Jaan Tallinn, and the venture capital firm controlled by Andreessen, who has described Yarvin as a friend and has cited his ideas, according to the investment database PitchBook. Long a political moderate, Andreessen has become a Trump donor and informal adviser over the past year, and he helped recruit staff for DOGE, according to two people familiar with the group’s formation, who spoke on the condition of anonymity in order to describe it.

Two of Thiel’s politically ambitious protégés also embraced Yarvin’s thinking. Yarvin said he met Vance and Blake Masters — who ran unsuccessfully for the U.S. Senate in Arizona at the same time Vance ran and won in Ohio — before they entered politics, at social gatherings when they were Thiel’s employees. Both men cited Yarvin during their campaigns, specifically referring to RAGE, his proposal for dismantling the federal bureaucracy.

“There’s this guy, Curtis Yarvin, who’s written about some of these things,” Vance said on a right-wing podcast in 2021. He went on to offer his advice to a then-hypothetical President Trump in his second term: “Fire every single mid-level bureaucrat, every civil servant in the administrative state, and replace them with our people. And when the courts — ’cause you will get taken to court — and when the courts stop you, stand before the country, like Andrew Jackson did, and say, ‘The chief justice has made his ruling. Now let him enforce it.’”

‘Yarvin is the brain’

Yarvin has often seemed ambivalent about the spread of his ideas, expressing skepticism that a remaking of American government was feasible under Washington’s political constraints.

The first Trump administration, he has written, took only “small, performative steps” to restore a sufficiently powerful chief executive. Even after Trump won a second term, Yarvin initially sounded dour notes, saying shortly before Trump was sworn in that he would probably not attend the inauguration.

By Jan. 20, he had apparently changed his mind. Over inauguration weekend, Yarvin swapped out his hallmark leather jacket and cowboy boots for a tux, attending several exclusive parties in Washington and holding court at Butterworth’s, a Capitol Hill bar that has become the favorite haunt of young MAGA climbers. One night he was spotted in the bar’s basement with Grimes, the pop musician who is the mother of three of Musk’s children.

Vice President JD Vance cited Yarvin during his 2022 Senate campaign, specifically referring to Yarvin's proposals for dismantling the federal bureaucracy. (Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post)

Yarvin said he briefly spoke to Vance at another party at Thiel’s mansion in Northwest Washington. He told Politico that he also had lunch with Michael Anton, a senior State Department official.

Shortly after returning to California, he wrote approvingly of the administration’s first days — characterized by pardons for the Jan. 6 rioters and a flurry of provocative executive orders — in a Substack post titled “The Pleasure of Error.”

“After a week, I think it’s clear that Donald Trump was not engaging in hyperbole when he told the libs: ‘we will do things to you that have never been done before,’” Yarvin wrote.

Musk had at this point embarked on his own mission, sending loyalists to tear through government agencies, hoover up citizens’ data, slash programs and force thousands from their jobs. The billionaire has taken such a forceful approach, according to people who know him, because he believes the government is deeply broken.

The resemblance was no accident, according to the two people who have advised DOGE and are familiar with its leaders’ thinking.

Yarvin is not directly advising DOGE, but he is an intellectual beacon for the effort, and his writings have encouraged some of Musk’s lieutenants to view their efforts to slash billions from the federal budget as part of a grander ideological project, the people said.

“It’s not like Marc Andreessen and [tech mogul and Trump cryptocurrency czar] David Sacks and Elon and JD and Trump are all sitting at the dinner table at Mar-a-Lago planning DOGE and in a lightbulb moment, they were like, ‘Let’s just instantiate the ideas of Curtis Yarvin,’” one person added. “It’s more like, Yarvin is the brain.”

Emerson T. Brooking, an expert in online extremism at the Digital Forensic Research Lab of the Atlantic Council, said Yarvin’s popularity among DOGE lieutenants shows the extent to which far-right Silicon Valley ideology has escaped the digital spaces in which it was incubated.

“Yarvin escaped the fringe blogosphere because he wrapped deeply anti-American, totalitarian ideas in the language of U.S. start-up culture,” Brooking said. “And his writing is popular with DOGE employees today because they prefer to tell themselves that they are running a start-up, not dismantling a country.”

Yet as Yarvin watched DOGE try to implement some of his theories, he increasingly sought to reject either praise or blame for the results.

He said Musk’s efforts — which he described as simultaneously too aggressive and not aggressive enough — had strayed from his vision, hamstringing government agencies and enragin many federal employees (as well as the broader public) without delivering true transformation.

“It’s big enough to be disruptive,” Yarvin said. “But there isn’t really this sort of sense of a deep, constructive purpose behind it.”

He pointed to the administration’s handling of the National Science Foundation and National Institutes of Health, where funding freezes, widespread firings and alleged censorship of researchers has led to the departure of top scientists. While Yarvin is sharply critical of some parts of the federal government’s scientific agenda, he said it would be a better strategy to win the loyalty of skilled researchers by giving them more funding under a less onerous grant-writing process.

The actions of Elon Musk's U.S. DOGE Service have been a focus of protests against the Trump administration, such as this one in Washington on April 5. Yarvin has accused DOGE of “really acting on a seat-of-the-pants basis.” (Astrid Riecken/For The Washington Post)

“There’s nothing that’s gained by alienating scientists,” Yarvin said. “Instead of fighting against these people because they’re an enemy class who votes for the Democrats, you [should be] saying, ‘Oooh, we have cookies for you.’”

The neo-reactionary dream

Musk has said he will soon step back from DOGE, which may not retain the spotlight or the power it has held in recent months. But Yarvin extends a similar critique to the broader Trump administration.

In a recent blog post he criticized the surprise detentions and deportations of foreign graduate students who expressed anti-Israel political views, saying that — “as a matter of objective, Machiavellian political science, without the slightest reference to whether it is good and/or evil” — the tactic would backfire.

“The narrative has no flavor unless some kind of right-wing villain shows up,” Yarvin wrote. “And because we never learn, we always do.”

Danielle Allen, a professor of political philosophy at Harvard University and democracy advocate, said it is hard to know what to make of Yarvin’s disavowals of Trump administration actions, in part because he is prone to inconsistent or contradictory statements.

“It’s unclear to me that he’s a reliable witness to his own views,” Allen said in an interview.

She believes there is “no question” that Yarvin’s work offers a blueprint for DOGE, and that any resulting problems should be chalked up to shortcomings in Yarvin’s theories, not their distortion in practice. One of the weaknesses of the autocratic style of government Yarvin has long advocated is that “ultimately it doesn’t function in the best interest of the people,” Allen said.

“That’s what we’re watching,” she said. “And so if he’s complaining about that, that’s odd.”

On a recent weeknight, Allen appeared alongside Yarvin at the Harvard Faculty Club in Cambridge, Massachusetts, for a debate on the merits of democracy. The event was organized not by the university but by Passage Press, a boutique publishing house that publishes Yarvin’s books, as well as works by other reactionary authors.

The mood on the platform was tense, but civil. Though a half dozen police officers milled inside and outside the club’s Georgian revival brick facade, only a few of the expected anti-Yarvin protesters showed up, and none disrupted the standing-room-only talk.

Allen, while strongly denouncing Yarvin’s vision, acknowledged that America’s imperfect democracy needs renovating. Yarvin, for his part, allowed that there were “real kernels of corn” worth saving in what he described as the cathedral’s dung heap.

After Allen left, Yarvin took up a position in the corner of the club’s warmly lit lounge to joust with a few left-wing critics as a small crowd gathered to watch. His challengers pressed him on DOGE, saying the initiative was clearly inspired by the “neo-reactionary” movement Yarvin founded.

“I don’t see him thinking like me,” Yarvin said of Musk.

“He’s fulfilling the neo-reactionary dream,” a young man in the front line of Yarvin’s critics said.

“No, he’s not,” Yarvin said, a trace of exasperation in his voice.

“My answer,” Yarvin added, “is, in a way: I wish.”

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New York Times

https://www.nytimes.com › 2025 › 05 › 06 › arts › yarvin-allen-debate-harvard.html

Curtis Yarvin, MAGA Court Philosopher, Lands at Harvard

May 6, 2025See more of our coverage in your search results. Add The New York Times on Google Curtis Yarvin, the computer engineer turned neo-monarchist blogger, seems to be everywhere these days.

New York Times

https://www.nytimes.com › 2025 › 01 › 18 › magazine › curtis-yarvin-interview.html

'The Interview': Curtis Yarvin Says Democracy is Done - The New York Times

thenerdreich.com

https://www.thenerdreich.com › yarvin-is-the-brain-behind-doge-washington-post-reports

'Yarvin is the brain' behind DOGE, Washington Post reports

May 9, 2025Now that the Washington Post has figured it out, can the New York Times political desk be far behind? Read the entire piece at this gift link. It is good to see major newspapers wake up to these realities. The main goal of my work has been to raise the awareness of other journalists.

The Yes Men

https://theyesmen.org › sites › default › files › 2025-04 › DOGE-NYTIMES-YarvinInterview.pdf

'The Interview': Curtis Yarvin Says Democracy is Done - The New York Times

Jan 18, 2025For a long time, Curtis Yarvin, a 51-year-old computer engineer, has written online about political theory in relative obscurity. His ideas were pretty extreme: that institutions at the heart of American intellectual life, like the mainstream media and academia, have been overrun by progressive groupthink and need to be dissolved. He believes that government bureaucracy should be radically ...

The New Yorker

https://www.newyorker.com › magazine › 2025 › 06 › 09 › curtis-yarvin-profile

Curtis Yarvin's Plot Against America | The New Yorker

Jun 2, 2025A Profile of Curtis Yarvin, the right-wing thinker behind the Substack "Gray Mirror," who has been embraced by J. D. Vance, Marc Andreessen, Peter Thiel, and other supporters of Donald Trump ...

The Washington Post

https://www.washingtonpost.com › politics › 2025 › 05 › 08 › curtis-yarvin-doge-musk-thiel

Curtis Yarvin helped inspire DOGE. Now he scorns it.

May 8, 2025The neo-monarchist muse of Silicon Valley helped inspire Elon Musk's DOGE. Now he compares it to an orchestra of chimpanzees.

Financial Times

https://www.ft.com › content › 02217acf-ac64-49c2-acd5-ef4f107f014c

The strange political philosophy motivating Musk - Financial Times

Feb 10, 2025NRx is an ideology founded by the British philosopher Nick Land and the American software developer Curtis Yarvin (who was recently interviewed in the New York Times).

Wikipedia

https://en.wikipedia.org › wiki › Curtis_Yarvin

Curtis Yarvin - Wikipedia

Curtis Guy Yarvin [23] was born in 1973 to a liberal and secular family. [24] According to Yarvin, his father worked for the U.S. government as a diplomat in Nicosia, [25] and his mother was from Westchester County, New York. [26] Yarvin's paternal grandparents were Jewish communists and his mother's family were Protestants. [27] Throughout his childhood, he was sometimes homeschooled by his ...

The New Yorker

https://www.newyorker.com › newsletter › the-daily › trumpworlds-court-philosopher

Trumpworld's Court Philosopher - The New Yorker

Jun 2, 2025Curtis Yarvin plots against America. Plus: Ronan Farrow on what Elon Musk's alleged drug use means for DOGE—and for the rest of us.

archive.fo

https://archive.fo › 5inco

Curtis Yarvin helped inspire DOGE. Now he scorns it.

May 8, 2025And as DOGE winds down its work — leaving behind a mangled but still defiant federal workforce and savings far short of the $2 trillion promised — Yarvin bears at least some responsibility, Tait argued. "I think he does own DOGE, regardless of what he says," Tait said. "It would have been

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Tommy talks to New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof about Elon Musk’s lies about DOGE and USAID. Want Pod Save the World ad-free? Subscribe to Friends of the Pod: https://www.crooked.com/friendsFor a transcript of an episode of Pod Save the World, please email transcripts@crooked.com.

not even show orphan

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-znjjUWXb9Y&t=36s)

2:08

2 minutes, 8 seconds

Yeah, it is. I want to ask you about that reporting. Yeah, I think all all total like 83% of USA ID programs were canceled. 94% of the staff were laid

2:15

2 minutes, 15 seconds

off. Some were rehired by the State Department, but that was after a long independent process. So, the suggestion that, you know, it they destroyed it.

2:23

2 minutes, 23 seconds

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mass-firings-hit-speedbump-at-hhs-00261614

A sweeping layoff plan affecting more than 10,000 employees at the Department of Health and Human Services was abruptly delayed Friday over growing backlash with how the process was being orchestrated by BRAD SMITH, the DOGE lead at HHS, two officials tell POLITICO.

At the center of the controversy is Smith’s secretive approach and his attempts to shield one HHS agency he has ties to from the reduction in force process, according to the two officials as well as two others, all granted anonymity to describe the sensitive conversations. The fallout has laid bare internal tensions within DOGE and raised questions about transparency in one of the most consequential restructuring efforts of the federal workforce.

Critics say Smith, who led the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Innovation during President DONALD TRUMP’s first administration, is maneuvering to spare the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, which houses CMMI, from the brunt of the layoffs, leading to a rare internal revolt within DOGE.

Smith and his top aide, RACHEL RILEY, “keep everything close to their chest. The playbook isn’t clear, whereas everywhere else, the playbook is very clear,” said one HHS official granted anonymity to speak candidly. They “are isolationists.”

Riley has drawn further scrutiny for her role in controlling access to the master plan that outlines in granular detail where cuts will fall across HHS. Riley, according to the HHS official, did not share the data files with many of the very people responsible for executing the layoffs — career staff and department heads — thus creating bottlenecks and confusion.

The backlash reached a boiling point at the end of last week, when department heads and senior leadership were learning about expected layoffs from news reports, according to the two people with direct knowledge of the matter. That prompted HHS chief of staff HEATHER FLICK and other department senior leadership to temporarily delay the RIF rollout.

An HHS spokesperson said that RIF notices did not go out on Friday so that all the data could be triple checked over the weekend, and that the restructuring process has been collaborative between the DOGE and HHS teams.

Each division built a plan to cut their personnel to 90 percent of Fiscal Year 2019 levels, the spokesperson said, and no division was exempted from that process. However, some parts of HHS had grown more than others over that time period.

Neither Smith nor Riley returned requests for comment. A DOGE spokesperson did not respond to a request for comment.

Smith co-founded a telehealth startup called CareBridge in 2019 before in 2021 founding Russell Street Ventures, a Nashville-based health care incubator, and later Main Street Health, a rural-focused provider network. Smith has since sold CareBridge, but he remains tied to Main Street Health, which is subject to regulation by CMS.

Smith worked closely with senior CMS officials in crafting the RIF plan, ultimately incorporating suggestions that reduced the overall impact on the agency — a contrast from other HHS agencies where he played a smaller role, according to one of the people familiar with the matter.

A revised timeline for the firings has not yet been announced, but those working on the HHS plan worked throughout the weekend to get the process back on track.

Today, CMS abruptly canceled a previously scheduled all-staff meeting with no explanation, said three people familiar with the matter granted anonymity to describe internal dynamics. But elsewhere in HHS, other employees received notices that RIFs might go out as soon as this evening, according to two others familiar with the matter and a document obtained by POLITICO. Still, the recipients acknowledged that it was only a best guess, and the timing could still change.

David Lim contributed to this report.

MESSAGE US — West Wing Playbook is obsessively covering the Trump administration’s reshaping of the federal government. Are you a federal worker? A DOGE staffer? Have you picked up on any upcoming DOGE moves? We want to hear from you on how this is playing out. Email us at .

Did someone forward this email to you? !

POTUS PUZZLER

What was the “White House Gang” of the early 1900s?

(Answer at bottom.)

Musk Radar

NEW BOSS AT USIP: A 28-year-old DOGE official has been tapped as the acting president of the U.S. Institute of Peace, the embattled organization where employees faced over the weekend.

According to a federal court filing today, NATE CAVANAUGH, a tech entrepreneur who the at the General Services Administration for DOGE, will be tasked with transfering the institute’s property to GSA, which manages the government’s leases, . In the filing, lawyers for USIP are requesting that the court blocks the transfer of USIP property to GSA.

Earlier this month, DOGE staff to USIP’s headquarters after some of the institute’s employees blocked DOGE members from entering.

WHO’S GOT ACCESS: New government disclosures released over the weekend show the broad access members of DOGE have gained to sensitive government systems, our KYLE CHENEY and JOSH GERSTEIN .

Discovery No. 1: MARKO ELEZ, who was fired from the Treasury Department last month after the discovery of his racist social media posts, has been working for weeks on sensitive systems at HHS. Elez is also part of DOGE’s core White House staff and has been detailed to at least four other government agencies, according to the documents.

Other revelations:

DOGE’s LUKE FARRITOR has access to 12 sensitive systems, including those that handle Medicare and Medicaid payments, contracts and acquisitions; National Institutes of Health grants and general HHS grants.}:

One employee detailed to the GSA, KYLE SCHUTT, has access to a database of “Unaccompanied Alien Children.”}:

DOGE acting administrator AMY GLEASON has been working on efforts to modernize Medicare and Medicaid payment systems. }:

ELON THE CHEESEHEAD: Musk was in Wisconsin on Sunday to lay out why he supports the Republican candidate in Tuesday’s high-profile state Supreme Court race, our SHIA KAPOS , and to explain why he awarded million-dollar checks to two Wisconsin residents who signed an America PAC petition opposing “partisan” judges.

“It’s to call attention” to the race, he told a crowd of about 2,000. The giveaways have sparked criticism for potentially violating election laws that bar giveaways in order to persuade voters.

The race will determine the balance of the court and serve as a litmus test for how voters are feeling nine weeks into the second Trump administration.

MAKING THEIR WAY IN: Over the weekend, DOGE gained access to a payroll system that processes salaries for about 276,000 federal workers across dozens of agencies, NYT’s CORAL DAVENPORT . That was despite objections from senior IT staff who feared the DOGE access could compromise highly sensitive government personnel information, including the possibility of making it more vulnerable to terrorist cyberattacks.

DOGE now has visibility into sensitive employee information, including Social Security numbers, and the ability to more easily hire and fire workers.

In the Courts

HOW THE TURNTABLES: Trump and his allies have in recent weeks called for the impeachment of at least five federal judges who have issued injunctions against administration actions, including DOGE moves to gut the federal government. But in past years, especially under JOE BIDEN’s administration, those same Trump allies celebrated judicial injunctions.

Two years ago, Trump which blocked the Biden administration from communicating with social media companies. “Just last week in a historic ruling, a brilliant federal judge ordered the Biden administration to cease and desist from their illegal and unconstitutional censorship and collusion with social media,” he said at a Turning Point Action summit.

In December, when a federal judge blocked the Biden administration from disposing of materials used for Trump’s promised Southern border wall before his inauguration. And in 2021, STEPHEN MILLER’s America First Legal Foundation asked for injunctions against the Biden administration, on the federal employee Covid-19 vaccine mandate.

Agenda Setting

IMPACT FELT: A 7.7-magnitude earthquake struck Myanmar on Friday. But as WaPo’s REBECCA TAN , Trump and DOGE’s cuts to USAID have stifled American response to the cleanup. Hours after the earthquake, the American officials charged with responding to the disaster received their termination letters. Most of the personnel who would have made up the U.S. response team, including security and sanitation efforts, were already on indefinite leave.

The programs that would have provided life-saving materials, including fuel and medical kits, were axed weeks ago. Trump pledged that America would provide $2 million in aid. But USAID officials say distributing the relief will be more difficult than ever, because the U.S. has severed valuable ties with local organizations and fired staff who would have restored those relationships.

GOT TWO MONTHS, BUDDY: The SEC and Musk agreed to give the president’s billionaire adviser another nine weeks to respond to the SEC’s lawsuit tied to his purchase of Twitter stock in 2022, our DECLAN HARTY . Musk will now have until June 6 to respond to the lawsuit, which revolves around the issue of when Musk first publicly disclosed his purchases of Twitter stock.

NOT CONVINCED: Trump has yet to win over Republicans with his push to transfer the Education Department’s $1.6 trillion student loan operation to another agency slated for deep staff cuts, our REBECCA CARBALLO . Trump initially was expected to transfer the portfolio to the Treasury, but instead, he plans to fold it into the Small Business Administration, surprising many lawmakers and conservatives.

Republicans are concerned about the size of the debt and the staffing needed to manage the system of servicers, borrowers and loan applications. “A lot of us were thinking it would go to the Treasury. We’re talking about the huge nature of student loans,” House Education and Workforce Chair TIM WALBERG (R-Mich.) said in an interview.

Knives Out

ELEPHANT(S) IN THE ROOM: A special election in Florida’s deep-red 6th Congressional District has enthused Democrats enough to bring out DNC Chair KEN MARTIN to canvas the area over the weekend. Half way through with our KIMBERLY LEONARD, Martin didn’t once bring up the Republican candidate, RANDY FINE. Instead, Trump and Musk were on his mind.

“I haven’t heard much about him at the doors, to be honest with you,” Martin said of Fine. “And so I think this race is about Donald Trump and Elon Musk and people’s deep dissatisfaction with what’s happening.”

What We're Reading

(NYT’s Eli Saslow)

(WaPo’s Theodoric Meyer)

(POLITICO’s John F. Harris and POLITICO Staff)

EBOLA DRC 800 SICK 6 26

Tim Meisburger, a Trump administration appointee assigned to oversee USAID operations alongside Elon Musk's Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) team, explicitly called the Ebola outbreak a "scam." [1, 2]

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tool

The Key Figures Working Alongside Elon Musk at DOGE and in the Trump Administration — ProPublica

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On President Donald Trump’s authority alone, Elon Musk, the world’s richest man, was unleashed on federal agencies. Though Musk left his appointment in May, employees from Musk’s companies and those of his allies, as well as young staffers he’s recruited, continue to wrest authority from career workers and commandeer computer systems.

While some staffers have been public about their involvement, others have attempted to keep their roles secret. With little information from the White House, ProPublica is attempting to document who is involved and what they are doing.

Musk’s team, known as the Department of Government Efficiency, has thrown entire swaths of the federal government and its programs into disarray — programs that serve millions of Americans.

Musk himself made no secret of his intentions, saying that DOGE is a “wood chipper for bureaucracy” and that he was “deleting” agencies.

Musk’s operatives continue to have a lasting impact. DOGE has helped fire thousands of government employees, and several DOGE employees have been installed into permanent government posts. Some DOGE operatives who previously concealed their involvement now publicly list their roles.

A White House spokesperson wrote, “Those leading this mission with Elon Musk are doing so in full compliance with federal law, appropriate security clearances, and as employees of the relevant agencies, not as outside advisors or entities.” None of the people identified responded to requests for comment.

We are still reporting. Do you have information about any of the people listed below? Do you know of any other Musk associates who have entered the federal government? You can reach our tip line on Signal at 917-512-0201. Please be as specific, detailed and clear as you can.

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Brian Michael Burroughs, 40

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Connected to: Department of Agriculture, Department of Education, Department of Commerce, Office of Personnel Management, State Department, General Services Administration

Burroughs has been involved in cutting information technology spending at multiple federal agencies, according to a person familiar with his work. Burroughs was previously the chief technology officer of Business Operational Concepts, a government contractor that provides IT services, according to an archived LinkedIn profile. That company had previously been awarded a contract to provide services to the Peace Corps, according to Wired. Burroughs, in an interview with Wired, confirmed he was working at GSA.

Added Nov. 20, 2025

Joshua A. Fox, 28

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Associate General Counsel

Connected to: National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Millennium Challenge Corp., Department of Agriculture

Fox is a lawyer who worked as an associate general counsel at DOGE until June 2025, according to an archive of his LinkedIn profile. He now works as an associate counsel to the president at the White House, according to the profile. He previously worked at Institute for Justice, a libertarian legal group. He has also clerked for Judge Ryan Holte, who was appointed to the U.S. Court of Federal Claims during the first Trump administration.

Added Nov. 20, 2025

Boris E. Kizenko, 23

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Senior Adviser

Connected to: General Services Administration, Small Business Administration

Kizenko has worked on multiple DOGE projects at GSA, according to people familiar with his work. He previously worked as a legislative correspondent in Rep. Matt Gaetz’s office, according to LegiStorm. In 2019, Kizenko claimed he was denied entry to his high school’s National Honor Society because of his support for Trump. Following the incident, he made an appearance on Fox News and visited the White House.

Added Nov. 20, 2025

Christopher Sweet, 22

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AI Engineer, Special Assistant

Connected to: Department of Housing and Urban Development, General Services Administration

Sweet joined HUD to use artificial intelligence to review the agency's rules and regulations, according to a report in Wired. The magazine identified Sweet as the primary developer of a tool that analyzes government agency regulations. Before joining DOGE, Sweet was a student at the University of Chicago. Sweet lists himself as an AI engineer at the Executive Office of the President on his LinkedIn profile. He also lists himself as the founder of East Edge Securities, a Chicago based trading firm.

Added Nov. 20, 2025

Alexander D. Tullman, 26

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Senior Adviser

Connected to: General Services Administration, Department of Health and Human Services

Tullman lists himself as a senior adviser at both HHS and GSA, according to his LinkedIn profile. Tullman has worked on DOGE projects relating to centralizing government acquisition systems at the GSA, according to a person familiar with his work. Tullman previously worked as a senior finance manager at Procter & Gamble. An HHS spokesperson declined to comment.

Added Nov. 20, 2025

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Ankur Bansal

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Connected to: Department of Transportation

Bansal is the president of HomeLight, a technology company that makes software for real estate agents, loan officers and prospective homebuyers. He previously founded SnapSaves, a startup that was acquired by Groupon. Bansal has been involved in identifying potential DOT grants to be canceled, according to a source familiar with his work.

Added June 10, 2025

Alison Childs

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Connected to: General Services Administration

Musk link: Employee at creative design studio that worked with Musk’s social media platform X

Childs was recently hired to work on the design of a government AI website, according to a person familiar with her role. Childs previously worked at Dream Team, a design studio that was hired by Musk’s X.

Added June 10, 2025

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Michael Cole

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Connected to: Department of Agriculture

Financial Disclosure

Cole is the founder of Shareholder Capital, a private equity firm focused on health care and life sciences. Cole appeared alongside Musk and other DOGE staffers in a Fox News interview. The New York Times reported that Cole is working at the Department of Agriculture.

Added June 10, 2025

Bee Elvy

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Connected to: General Services Administration

Musk link: Employee at creative design studio that worked with Musk’s social media platform X

Elvy was recently hired to work on the design of a government AI website, according to a person familiar with his role. Elvy previously worked at Dream Team, a design studio that was hired by Musk’s X.

Added June 10, 2025

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Justin Fox, 27

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Connected to: General Services Administration, U.S. Institute of Peace, U.S. African Development Foundation, National Endowment for the Humanities

Fox has identified himself in emails as a member of the DOGE team working at the GSA. Court documents and media reports show that Fox has worked in various government agencies, including the U.S. Institute of Peace and the National Endowment for the Humanities. Fox previously worked as an analyst at Jefferies, an investment banking firm, according to a document he filed with a financial regulator. He also worked at Nexus Capital Management, an investment firm, according to an archive of the company’s website.

Added June 10, 2025

Nicholas Gallagher, 36

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Connected to: General Services Administration

Gallagher is a lawyer working in the general counsel’s office at the GSA, according to a person familiar with his work. Gallagher was most recently an associate at Clement & Murphy, which specializes in arguing conservative causes before the U.S. Supreme Court. Gallagher clerked for 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals Judge Danny J. Boggs and for the Senate Judiciary Committee during the confirmation of Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh, according to an archived bio on the Clement & Murphy website.

Added June 10, 2025

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Derek Geissler

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Connected to: General Services Administration

According to a report from NBC, Geissler gained access to internal databases at the Department of Labor, alarming some agency staffers. Geissler has been working at the GSA since the beginning of the administration in close coordination with political leadership on DOGE special projects, including artificial intelligence and data sharing efforts, according to a person familiar with the matter.

Added June 10, 2025

Patrick George, 42

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Connected to: Department of Defense

George is the DOGE lead at the U.S. Navy, according to emails seen by ProPublica and a person familiar with the matter. He has been involved in canceling Navy contracts. He is the founder of Beachwood Ventures, a venture capital firm, and is the president of Hover Energy, a renewable energy company in Dallas. He is also a Marine.

Added June 10, 2025

Mike Gonzalez, 36

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Senior Adviser

Connected to: Office of Personnel Management

Gonzalez started his career in tech at social media giant Facebook and later joined human resource software company Zenefits while the company was run by current Trump administration AI czar David Sacks. He lists himself as a senior adviser at OPM on LinkedIn. Prior to working in government, Gonzalez founded TraceHQ, a human resources technology startup.

Added June 10, 2025

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Jim Hickey, 42

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Senior Adviser

Connected to: Department of Defense

Hickey serves as a senior adviser to the undersecretary of defense, according to his LinkedIn. He was most recently a director at Mitre, a government research firm, and previously a senior adviser to the assistant secretary of the Air Force for acquisition, technology and logistics.

Added June 10, 2025

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Rajasekar Jegannathan, 41

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Data Engineer

Connected to: General Services Administration

Musk link: Senior Tesla employee

Jegannathan is a senior employee at Tesla, serving as the vice president of IT for AI infrastructure and vehicle support operations, according to his LinkedIn profile. He has worked with the company since 2012. Jegannathan is working closely with senior political leadership at the GSA on federal acquisition efforts, according to a GSA official familiar with the matter. He holds the federal title of data engineer.

Added June 10, 2025

Tarak Makecha, 38

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Connected to: U.S. Agency for Global Media, Department of Justice, Department of State, Federal Bureau of Investigation

Musk link: Former Tesla employee

Financial Disclosure

Makecha is the former head of strategic planning at Tesla Energy, according to his LinkedIn profile. He was most recently the chief financial officer of SkySafe, a drone detection company. According to a report in The Intercept, Makecha has held roles at the FBI and DOJ, where he has focused on the agency’s grantmaking. Makecha is also making funding decisions at the U.S. Agency for Global Media, which oversees Voice of America and other federally owned international broadcasters, according to a person familiar with the matter.

Added June 10, 2025

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David Malcher, 31

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Connected to: General Services Administration, Department of Veterans Affairs

Musk link: Former SpaceX employee

Malcher has been primarily focused on DOGE initiatives at the VA, according to two people familiar with the matter. Malcher was previously a senior financial analyst at SpaceX, according to an archive of his deleted LinkedIn profile.

Added June 10, 2025

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Allan Mangaser, 44

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Senior Adviser to the U.S. Chief Information Officer

Connected to: General Services Administration, Office of Management and Budget

Updated April 9, 2026 | On his LinkedIn profile, Mangaser lists a position as a senior adviser to the U.S. chief information officer at the OMB. He previously worked at Theorem, a financial services firm, and at Palantir, a data analysis firm co-founded by Peter Thiel. He has met with officials from the Transportation Security Administration and the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, according to a person familiar with his work. In April 2026, Mangaser told ProPublica he has never been a member of DOGE.

Added June 10, 2025

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Jonathan Mendelson

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Senior Adviser to the Chairman of the SEC

Connected to: General Services Administration, Securities and Exchange Commission

Mendelson was most recently an investor at Accel, a Silicon Valley venture capital firm, according to his LinkedIn profile. According to an archived profile on the Accel website, Mendelson focused on financial technology and enterprise software. Mendelson also worked at Morgan Stanley in the technology investment banking group.

Added June 10, 2025

Donald Park, 45

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Connected to: Small Business Administration, General Services Administration

Park is a co-founder of Ionic Partners, a private equity firm based in Austin, Texas, that focuses on enterprise software. Park appeared in a Fox News interview alongside Musk and other DOGE staffers in which he described an effort to uncover alleged fraud in Small Business Administration loans.

Added June 10, 2025

Matthew Parkhurst-Session

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Connected to: General Services Administration

Financial Disclosure

DOGE member Parkhurst-Session is the founder and CEO of Antimetal, a cloud software company. He has met with officials from various government agencies, including the Department of Housing and Urban Development, the Department of Labor and the Environmental Protection Agency, according to documents seen by ProPublica. While working for DOGE, he’s also participated in meetings with major tech companies and consulting firms, including Google, Adobe, Oracle, Deloitte and Booz Allen Hamilton.

Added June 10, 2025

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Riley Sennott, 26

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Connected to: National Aeronautics and Space Administration, General Services Administration

Musk link: Former Tesla employee

Business Insider reported on a publicly available calendar belonging to Sennott that showed meetings at the GSA. In a Columbia Journalism Review essay, Sennott’s father identified him as a member of DOGE and a former Tesla employee.

Added June 10, 2025

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Ryan Shea, 34

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Connected to: General Services Administration

Shea has been working from within GSA on DOGE projects at the Department of Health and Human Services, according to records reviewed by ProPublica. He is the founder and CEO of Opus Wallet, a cryptocurrency company, according to his LinkedIn profile.

Added June 10, 2025

Mike Slagh, 40

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Connected to: Department of Defense

Musk link: Received funding from Musk-aligned investor

Slagh is the founder of Long Walk Technologies, which aims to connect defense contractors with potential government clients. He was previously the founder of Shift, a job training platform for veterans that received funding from Andreessen Horowitz, a Musk-aligned venture capital firm.

Added June 10, 2025

Jack Stein, 25

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Connected to: General Services Administration

Stein was most recently an investment banking associate at Salem Partners, according to his LinkedIn profile. Stein has worked at the GSA, according to a person familiar with the matter. He has been part of a cadre of DOGE staffers targeting independent U.S. government agencies, such as the U.S. Institute of Peace.

Added June 10, 2025

Yinon Weiss, 47

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Connected to: Department of Defense

Weiss serves as a leader of a DOGE team at the DOD, according to a person familiar with his role. Wiess was an Army Special Forces captain and is the co-founder of a technology company that builds software for automotive repair shops, according to his LinkedIn. Weiss has made multiple appearances on Fox News, advocating for increased U.S. support for the Israeli military.

Added June 10, 2025

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Marshall Wood, 27

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Connected to: General Services Administration, U.S. Agency for Global Media

Wood is involved in canceling contracts at the U.S. Agency for Global Media, according to a person familiar with his role. He was previously an investment banking associate at Jefferies, according to his LinkedIn profile. According to NPR, Wood appears in Facebook photos with another DOGE member, Justin Fox; both attended the University of Virginia at the same time.

Added June 10, 2025

Miles Collins, 36

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Connected to: Department of Labor

Collins is an employee of the Department of Labor and has been granted access to sensitive systems, according to court filings. DOGE said it is examining systems to cut spending. He most recently worked as a partner at RDC Partners, a financial firm, according to an archived version of his deleted LinkedIn profile. Collins previously ran a fertility clinic in Los Angeles, according to a report in Business Insider. Musk has reportedly donated $10 million to a fertility research project while promoting childbirth as a way to combat population decline.

Added May 7, 2025

Michael Grimes, 58

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Senior Adviser

Connected to: Department of Commerce

Musk link: Involved in Musk Twitter takeover

Financial Disclosure

Grimes was previously a managing director at Morgan Stanley, where he advised Elon Musk on his takeover of Twitter. He now has a senior role at the Commerce Department, according to The New York Times and Grimes’ LinkedIn profile. Grimes is included on a list of senior officials who have access to the administrator’s office at the General Services Administration, according to a report by the Federal News Network.

Added May 7, 2025

Adam Hoffman, 24

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Connected to: Department of Justice

Musk link: Employee of financial firm with investments in X and Tesla

Hoffman joined DOGE from financial services firm Citadel, which is run by billionaire Trump donor Ken Griffin, according to a report in Bloomberg News. He previously worked on the White House Council of Economic Advisers during the first Trump administration, according to his LinkedIn. According to media reports, Hoffman is focused on cost cutting at national security agencies. The Washington Post reported that he gained access to Department of Justice files that detail personal information of immigrants who interact with the system.

Added May 7, 2025

Anthony Jancso

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Musk link: Worked at company founded by Musk business associate

Jancso is a former employee of Peter Thiel’s national security technology firm Palantir and is involved in recruiting engineers to join DOGE, a document reviewed by ProPublica shows. Jansco has contacted former Palantir employees to join a DOGE project that seeks to “deploy AI agents” in federal agencies, the document says. Jancso is the founder of a startup called Accelerate, which its website says can “Secure AI Agents for Government.”

Added May 7, 2025

Eliezer Mishory, 41

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Connected to: Securities and Exchange Commission

Mishory is leading the DOGE team at the U.S. SEC, according to a report in Bloomberg News. He was previously the chief regulatory officer at Kalshi, a prediction and betting company; Donald Trump Jr. recently became an adviser to Kalshi. According to an archived version of his now-deleted LinkedIn page, Mishory previously worked in government, serving as an attorney at the Internal Revenue Service and special counsel at the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission during the first Trump administration. The SEC, which has faced numerous cuts to its workforce since January, is embroiled in an ongoing lawsuit against Musk over allegations the billionaire misled investors regarding his purchase of Twitter. Musk has denied those allegations and called the SEC a “totally broken organization” after the suit was filed.

Added May 7, 2025

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Todd Newnam, 42

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Connected to: Internal Revenue Service

Financial Disclosure

Newnam has been involved in evaluating government contracts at the IRS, according to a person familiar with the matter. As of December, Newnam was listed as the CEO of Encore Technology Group, an IT consulting firm based in South Carolina. He has since been removed from the company’s website. Newnam, a former managing director at The Carlyle Group, is an advisory board member of Sovereign Intelligence, which seeks to provide cybersecurity and risk services to government clients.

Added May 7, 2025

Brian Stube, 44

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Senior Adviser to the Secretary

Connected to: Department of Transportation

Musk link: Former employee of financial firm with investments in X and Tesla

Stube was formerly a quantitative researcher at financial firm Citadel, according to his LinkedIn. He left the firm in 2012. Ken Griffin, the founder and owner of Citadel, is a major Trump donor. Stube has a DOT email address and has been introduced to employees as a member of DOGE, according to a record reviewed by ProPublica and a person familiar with the matter.

Added May 7, 2025

Zachary Terrell, 25

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Connected to: Department of Health and Human Services, National Science Foundation

Terrell was an early employee at Spindl, a crypto marketing firm acquired by Coinbase. He is an employee at HHS and has access to sensitive systems, including information about those receiving Medicare benefits, according to a court filing. Terrell has been involved in reviewing funding grants at the National Science Foundation, according to people familiar with his role.

Added May 7, 2025

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Bridget Youngs, 29

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Connected to: Peace Corps

Youngs was reportedly involved in the DOGE team deployed to look into cost cutting at the Peace Corps, an independent agency of the U.S. government that trains and deploys foreign aid volunteers around the world, according to The Guardian. Youngs previously worked as a senior manager at Ramp Charging, a company that builds electric vehicle charging stations, according to an archive of her deleted LinkedIn profile. Before that, Youngs worked at New Energy Capital, a clean energy investment firm.

Added May 7, 2025

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Emily L. Bryant, 23

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Unpaid Consultant

Connected to: Federal Trade Commission, General Services Administration

Bryant has a DOGE email address linked to the Executive Office of the President and an email address at the General Services Administration, documents seen by ProPublica show. She has also been seen at the Federal Trade Commission, according to a report by The Verge and a source familiar with the agency.

Added April 17, 2025

Sam Corcos, 36

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Special Adviser to Treasury Secretary

Connected to: Department of the Treasury, Internal Revenue Service

Musk link: Founded company funded by Musk-aligned venture firm

Financial Disclosure

Corcos is the co-founder and CEO at Levels Health, which has received investments from Musk-aligned venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz. Corcos, who is also a special adviser to Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, appeared alongside Bessent in a Fox News interview to discuss DOGE’s plans at the IRS. Corcos hosted an event with staff software developers at the Internal Revenue Service in April, according to a person familiar with the matter.

Added April 17, 2025

Antonio Gracias, 54

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Connected to: Social Security Administration

Musk link: Longtime investor in Musk companies

Gracias was an early investor in Tesla and SpaceX through his investment firm, Valor Equity Partners, of which he is the founder and CEO. He sits on the board of directors of SpaceX and was formerly a Tesla board member. Gracias says he has worked closely with Musk for more than 20 years, and he contributed $1 million to Musk’s pro-Trump super PAC. Valor Equity Partners was deeply involved in Musk’s takeover of Twitter, according to the tech news publication The Information. In March, Gracias gave a presentation about Social Security data alongside Musk in Wisconsin. In an interview with Fox News, he was identified as a “DOGE volunteer.”

Added April 17, 2025

Jon Koval, 27

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Connected to: Social Security Administration

Musk link: Works at financial firm tied to Musk ally

Financial Disclosure

Koval is a vice president at Valor Equity Partners, a private equity firm run by Antonio Gracias, a Musk ally. The New York Times reported that Koval has been seen at the Social Security Administration, where Gracias is also working. Koval has a DOGE email address, according to records reviewed by ProPublica.

Added April 17, 2025

Sahil Lavingia, 32

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Connected to: Department of Veterans Affairs

Lavingia is the CEO and founder of tech startup Gumroad, an e-commerce platform. Wired reported that Lavinga had been given privileged access to the Veterans Affairs computer systems. Lavingia has polled VA employees about what type of laptops they’d like to use and said he would advocate for the change employees voted for, according to a document seen by ProPublica. On GitHub, a platform used by software developers, Lavingia requested that VA employees update a Twitter link on va.gov to reflect the social media site’s name change to X.

Added April 17, 2025

Payton Rehling, 27

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Efficiency Adviser

Connected to: Social Security Administration, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services

Musk link: Works at financial firm tied to Musk ally

Rehling works as a senior associate data engineer at Valor Equity Partners, a private equity firm run by Antonio Gracias, one of Musk’s closest allies, according to the company’s website and an archive of Rehling’s deleted LinkedIn profile. Rehling was granted access to United States Citizenship and Immigration Services databases, according to a report in FedScoop, and has an agency email address, a record seen by ProPublica shows. Wired reported that Rehling has also worked at the Social Security Administration. USCIS referred questions to DOGE.

Added April 17, 2025

Christopher Roussos, 60

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Adviser to the Chief of Staff

Connected to: Department of Veterans Affairs

Roussos, an Army veteran, is the former CEO of AllerVie Health and 24 Hour Fitness, according to his LinkedIn profile. He was also the CEO of Sequel Youth and Family Services, which operates behavioral health clinics. Roussos has a Veterans Affairs email address, according to a directory seen by ProPublica.

Added April 17, 2025

Bryton Shang, 33

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Senior Adviser

Connected to: National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration

Shang is the founder of Aquabyte, a company that makes AI-powered underwater cameras used in fish farming. On LinkedIn, Shang lists himself as a senior adviser at NOAA as of March and says he’s “passionate about applying AI to make NOAA more effective.” CNN reported that Shang and other DOGE operatives flew to California to pressure water management officials to release a massive amount of water toward Los Angeles. During that effort, Shang was pictured in a photo posted on the DOGE X account.

Added April 17, 2025

Alexander Simonpour, 28

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Connected to: General Services Administration, National Aeronautics and Space Administration, U.S. Postal Service, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration

Musk link: Tesla

Simonpour has worked at Tesla since 2015, most recently as a staff program manager in chassis engineering, according to an archive of a now-deleted LinkedIn profile. Simonpour is an employee of the General Services Administration and has been detailed to the U.S. Postal Service and NASA, according to reporting by Business Insider and a document seen by ProPublica. Simonpour’s work at the Postal Service is to assist the postmaster general in “increasing operational efficiency and reducing cost of performance.” NASA said it would not discuss personnel but that it “benefits from DOGE personnel consulting across various disciplines to identify and address any inefficiencies in our current operation. The agency retains final say.”

Added April 17, 2025

Katrine Trampe, 29

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Connected to: Department of the Interior

Trampe has been identified by The New York Times and Wired as part of DOGE. Both outlets reported that Trampe was among DOGE staffers who gained access to a payroll system for government employees housed at the Interior Department. The effort went on for two weeks, and two Interior IT staffers were placed on leave after DOGE gained access to the system, the Times reported. According to an archived LinkedIn profile, Trampe previously worked at financial firm Sixth Street, which was reportedly in talks at one point to finance Musk’s takeover of Twitter. The Interior Department said it had no comment on personnel.

Added April 17, 2025

Cary P. Volpert, 34

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Senior Adviser to the Chief of Staff

Connected to: Department of Veterans Affairs

Volpert has a Veterans Affairs email address, according to a directory seen by ProPublica. Wired reported that Volpert was among the DOGE staffers at the agency. Volpert was the founder of Lindy, a now-defunct startup focused on connecting older people.

Added April 17, 2025

Daniel Abrahamson, 41

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Senior Adviser

Connected to: Department of Transportation

Musk link: Tesla senior counsel

Abrahamson was a senior counsel at Tesla since 2022, a deleted online resume said, who was announced in early February to a role at the DOT. He has requested access to various internal databases, according to a person familiar with the matter, and is affiliated with DOGE. He is a lawyer from Austin, Texas, who served as a federal clerk and graduated from the University of Texas law school. He previously worked as a prosecutor and in the attorney general’s office in Texas, as well as for Munck Wilson Mandala, a Texas-based technology-focused law firm that has represented Tesla.

Added March 14, 2025

Justin Aimonetti, 31

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Connected to: U.S. Institute of Peace, U.S. African Development Foundation

Financial Disclosure

Aimonetti is an attorney who worked as a litigation associate at law firm Dechert LLP, his LinkedIn page said. He attended the University of Virginia School of Law, graduating in 2020, and twice held summer positions at the Department of Justice, in its Office of Legal Counsel and civil division. He has been assigned a DOGE email address, a directory viewed by ProPublica shows.

Added March 14, 2025

Ashley Boizelle, 43

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Attorney Adviser

Connected to: General Services Administration

Boizelle is an attorney who most recently worked for Amazon as a senior corporate counsel. From 2017 through 2021, during the first Trump administration, she served as both the acting general counsel and deputy general counsel of the Federal Communications Commission. She graduated from Yale Law School in 2008. Boizelle has been assigned a DOGE email address, according to directory records viewed by ProPublica, and is working as an attorney adviser in the GSA.

Added March 14, 2025

Scott Coulter, 40

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Connected to: National Aeronautics and Space Administration, Social Security Administration

Coulter, the founder of New York based investment firm Cowbird Capital, is a DOGE member seen at multiple agencies. He has wide access to internal databases at NASA, according to a screenshot shared with ProPublica. A NASA spokesperson confirmed DOGE was onsite at the agency but did not confirm members or other details. Coulter has also been active at the Social Security Administration, depositions in ongoing litigation involving DOGE show.

Added March 14, 2025

Conor Fennessy, 32

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Senior Adviser

Connected to: Department of Education, Department of Health and Human Services

Fennessy is working at the Department of Education for DOGE, according to two people familiar with the matter. He is also listed in the employee directory as a senior adviser at Health and Human Services in the Office of the Secretary.

Added March 14, 2025

Mattieu Gamache-Asselin, 34

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Senior Adviser

Connected to: Department of Health and Human Services

In January, Gamache-Asselin briefly appeared in the HHS employee directory as “Senior Advisor - DOGE” in the Office of the Assistant Secretary for Financial Resources, which advises the agency secretary on budgeting, grants and financial management. Gamache-Asselin is a former Facebook engineer and co-founder of Alto, a digital pharmacy startup.

Added March 14, 2025

Joe Gebbia, 43

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Connected to: Office of Personnel Management

Musk link: Tesla board member

Gebbia is the co-founder of Airbnb, a Musk friend and board member at Tesla. He recently revealed he was working as a volunteer for DOGE, focusing on how to improve the federal retirement process through software. Gebbia, who has contributed to both main political parties, said publicly he voted for Trump and supports Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

Added March 14, 2025

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Brady Glantz, 27

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Connected to: Federal Aviation Administration

Musk link: SpaceX

Ethics Waiver

Glantz is listed on LinkedIn as a software engineer at SpaceX. His name appeared in a federal database, The Associated Press first reported, that notes specific government workers who were given “ethics waivers” to do work that could potentially benefit one of Musk’s companies. His appointment at the FAA as a special government employee was limited to four days, according to his ethics waiver. It is unclear if Glantz is still working with the agency. He controls an FAA email address, a directory reviewed by ProPublica shows.

Added March 14, 2025

Amy Gleason, 53

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Acting Administrator

Connected to: Department of Health and Human Services

Gleason, a health technology executive who served under Presidents Biden and Trump, was recently named the official acting administrator of DOGE by the White House. The news came as government lawyers were unable to identify DOGE’s leader when pressed by a judge overseeing a related case. Gleason rejoined the U.S. Digital Service, a preexisting division under the White House that has since been repurposed to house DOGE, shortly before Trump entered the White House. She had been working with Tennessee-based Main Street Health, a firm founded by early senior DOGE member Brad Smith.

Added March 14, 2025

Joshua A. Hanley, 27

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Connected to: National Institutes of Health

Financial Disclosure

Hanley is an attorney who worked at the law firm Williams & Connolly. He graduated from the University of Virginia School of Law in 2021 and interned at the appellate section of the Department of Justice’s criminal division in 2019, his company biography says. Hanley has a DOGE email address, records viewed by ProPublica show. According to Inside Medicine, Hanley has been connected to the cancellation of two research grants from the National Institutes of Health; he is listed as the author in the metadata of the grant termination notices.

Added March 14, 2025

Tyler Hassen, 42

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Head of Policy

Connected to: Department of the Interior

Hassen is an energy executive whose former company, Basin Energy, has interests in drilling and oilfield services. The investigative news site Public Domain reported that Hassen helped lead a DOGE delegation to California to inspect water infrastructure in the wake of wildfires in Southern California the week after Trump’s inauguration. In response to ProPublica’s questions about Hassen’s role at the Interior Department, a spokesperson said it doesn’t comment on personnel, adding that there were no “DOGE staffers” at the department. Hassen was reportedly promoted recently to head of policy at the department.

Added March 14, 2025

Erica Jehling, 40

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Connected to: Environmental Protection Agency

Musk link: Purchasing director at SpaceX

Jehling has worked at SpaceX in a number of roles since 2016, her LinkedIn profile shows, most recently as a purchasing director. Jehling has been working at the EPA as part of DOGE and has appeared at the GSA.

Added March 14, 2025

Thomas Kiernan, 30

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Connected to: Federal Aviation Administration

Musk link: SpaceX

Ethics Waiver

Kiernan is listed on LinkedIn as a principal software engineer at SpaceX. His name appeared in a federal database, The Associated Press first reported, that notes specific government workers who were given “ethics waivers” to do work that could potentially benefit one of Musk’s companies. His appointment at the FAA as a special government employee was limited to four days, according to his ethics waiver. It is unclear if Kiernan is still working with the agency. He was assigned an FAA email address, a directory reviewed by ProPublica shows.

Added March 14, 2025

Scott Langmack, 66

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Connected to: Department of Housing and Urban Development

Financial Disclosure

Langmack is a real estate and technology entrepreneur on hiatus from his property technology company KuKun to work at HUD, his LinkedIn profile says. He has an email associated with DOGE, an internal directory shows. As ProPublica reported, DOGE representatives at HUD have gained access to sensitive records, including confidential personal information about alleged victims of housing discrimination and domestic violence. DOGE has said it is digging into agencies to cut wasteful spending.

Added March 14, 2025

Ted Malaska, 47

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Connected to: Federal Aviation Administration

Musk link: SpaceX

Ethics Waiver

Malaska was recently a senior director of application software at SpaceX, his LinkedIn page shows. He previously worked in engineering jobs at banking giant Capital One and video game developer Blizzard Entertainment. On X, Malaska wrote that he was, “Working to improve the safety of the national air space system.” In another X post, he lamented how media outlets questioned his role with the agency, noting: “I challenge anyone to question the honesty and my technical integrity on this matter.” His name appeared in a federal database, The Associated Press first reported, that notes specific government workers who were given “ethics waivers” to do work that could potentially benefit one of Musk’s companies. That waiver, while typically temporary, “will remain in effect for the duration” of his FAA tenure. He controls an FAA email address, a directory reviewed by ProPublica shows.

Added March 14, 2025

Clark Minor, 35

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Chief Technology Officer

Connected to: Department of Health and Human Services, National Institutes of Health

Musk link: Former employee of Palantir, co-founded by Musk business associate Peter Thiel

Financial Disclosure

Minor is now the chief technology officer of HHS, according to its employee directory. A longtime Palantir employee with patented technology at the company, he is a Bitcoin enthusiast and graduate of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He is at least the fourth new senior technology officer in government to come from Musk’s orbit of companies and those of his close allies, alongside executives at the Social Security Administration and Energy Department.

Added March 14, 2025

Michael Alexander Mirski, 32

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Connected to: Department of Housing and Urban Development

Mirski has worked with mobile home operator and manager TCC Management; Wired reported he is on leave until July. ProPublica reported that Mirski, working on behalf of DOGE, gained access to HUD’s Enforcement Management System, a database that includes sensitive personal information — including potential victims of housing discrimination or domestic violence. The White House said DOGE is examining agencies with an eye on necessary cuts.

Added March 14, 2025

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Aram Moghaddassi, 26

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Connected to: Department of the Treasury, Social Security Administration, Department of Health and Human Services, Department of Labor, Department of Homeland Security

Musk link: Former engineer at Neuralink and X

Moghaddassi has worked as an engineer at Musk companies Neuralink and X, a deleted online resume said. The New York Times reported he was part of a team that DOGE had planned to deploy to the Treasury Department in February. Business Insider reported he is part of a DOGE team that recently arrived at the Department of Labor.

Added March 14, 2025

Sam Smeal, 29

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Connected to: Federal Aviation Administration

Musk link: SpaceX

Smeal is listed on LinkedIn as a software engineer for SpaceX. He controls an FAA email address, a directory reviewed by ProPublica shows, and is part of a group of SpaceX staff that joined the FAA in recent weeks as the agency looks to modernize the nation’s air traffic control systems. SpaceX and Verizon are reportedly competing for control of a $2.4 billion government contract, according to The Washington Post.

Added March 14, 2025

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Ryan Wunderly, 26

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Special Adviser for Information Technology and Modernization

Connected to: Department of the Treasury

Wunderly is a new member of DOGE at the Treasury Department, according to a court filing relating to a lawsuit about the group’s access to sensitive internal data. Wunderly appears to have replaced another DOGE staffer at the department, Marko Elez, after Elez briefly resigned, press reports say. Wunderly previously worked as a robotics engineer at Anduril and graduated from the University of Michigan in 2020, his LinkedIn shows. Anduril was reportedly in talks with SpaceX, and others, to form a consortium to bid on U.S. defense contracts.

Added March 14, 2025

Stephen Duarte, 32

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Expert

Connected to: Office of Personnel Management

Musk link: SpaceX

Duarte worked until recently as a human resources specialist at SpaceX, his LinkedIn page said. He is listed as an “expert” at OPM — a title similarly used to classify a group of young software engineers brought in by Musk to analyze vast quantities of data at various agencies. Duarte appears to have worked in the same HR division as one of DOGE’s most senior officials, Brian Bjelde. He is part of a group of at least four HR experts brought in from SpaceX.

Added Feb. 20, 2025

Stephen Ehikian, 43

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Acting Administrator

Connected to: General Services Administration

Musk link: Spouse worked at X, former AI startup founder

Ehikian previously worked in the Silicon Valley technology industry, including spending time at Salesforce and founding an AI startup named Airkit.ai. He oversees the GSA’s expansive real estate portfolio, which includes more than $100 billion in federal contracts. A GSA press release said Ehikian will “work closely with the DOGE team.”

Added Feb. 20, 2025

Justin Fulcher, 32

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Adviser

Connected to: Department of Veterans Affairs

Fulcher is a former entrepreneur currently acting as an adviser at the Department of Veterans Affairs. He founded the health care startup RingMD, which sells a telemedicine platform. The company’s platform was used by several foreign governments to assist with patient care early in the COVID-19 pandemic, according to a presentation posted online. Fulcher has been provided wide access to the department’s HR systems, said a person familiar with the matter.

Added Feb. 20, 2025

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Christina Hanna, 39

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Expert

Connected to: Office of Personnel Management

Musk link: SpaceX

Hanna worked until recently as a senior manager for human resources at SpaceX, her LinkedIn page said. She is listed as an “expert” at OPM.

Added Feb. 20, 2025

Greg Hogan, 42

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Senior Adviser to the Director

Connected to: Office of Personnel Management

Musk link: Recently worked for AI company Comma.ai, which is backed by Musk-aligned venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz

Financial Disclosure

Hogan’s name came to light as part of a lawsuit filed by a group of federal workers over OPM’s creation of a new email system that they claim is insecure and that can directly message employees across government. OPM has moved to dismiss the lawsuit. Hogan leads the agency’s work concerning technology strategy and cybersecurity, media reports say. An agency spokesperson said Hogan was serving as its chief information officer. He is at least the third new government CIO with ties to Musk.

Added Feb. 20, 2025

Jeremy Lewin, 28

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Acting Director of Foreign Assistance

Connected to: U.S. Agency for International Development, Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, Department of State, National Institutes of Health, General Services Administration

Lewin is a Harvard-trained lawyer who is one of a handful of agency leads at DOGE, a more senior role inside the initiative. Before DOGE, he worked at the white-shoe law firm Munger Tolles and Olson. As a law student, he worked closely with prominent legal scholar and professor Laurence Tribe.

Added Feb. 20, 2025

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Kathryn Armstrong Loving, 44

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Federal Detailee

Connected to: Environmental Protection Agency

Musk link: Sibling of crypto entrepreneur with business ties to Musk’s Tesla

Loving is an “entrepreneurial scientist” with experience at multiple biotechnology firms. According to a profile page for the startup incubator Y Combinator, she’s spent more than a decade building software for biotech and pharma companies. Loving’s membership on the DOGE team was first reported by E&E News, which found she was part of Musk’s team assigned to the EPA, looking for contracts that counter Trump’s agenda. Loving is the sister of Brian Armstrong, who leads Coinbase, a firm with documented financial links to Musk companies.

Added Feb. 20, 2025

Bryanne-Michelle Mlodzianowski, 40

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Expert

Connected to: Office of Personnel Management

Musk link: SpaceX

Mlodzianowski worked until recently as human resources director at SpaceX, her LinkedIn page said. She is listed as an “expert” at OPM.

Added Feb. 20, 2025

Brooks Morgan, 39

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Connected to: Department of Education, Federal Deposit Insurance Corp.

Morgan is a technology entrepreneur from Austin, Texas, who has been seen at the Department of Education. His involvement in DOGE was first reported by The New York Times. Until recently, he was the CEO of an education-focused startup named Podium Education, which produces an online training program for tech skills, and worked at a venture capital firm.

Added Feb. 20, 2025

Noah Peters, 39

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Senior Adviser

Connected to: Office of Personnel Management, Executive Office of the President

Peters is an attorney with reported ties to The Heritage Foundation, the conservative think tank that crafted the Project 2025 policy plan. According to two internal government directories reviewed by ProPublica, Peters has an Executive Office of the President DOGE email address and is also listed as a senior adviser to the director at OPM. Peters’ name came to light shortly after the inauguration when he was tied to the creation of a governmentwide memo regarding the termination of work-from-home policies. Peters previously represented Jared Taylor, a self-described “white advocate” and “race realist,” in a lawsuit concerning alleged censorship on Twitter, now called X.

Added Feb. 20, 2025

Austin Raynor, 36

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Senior Adviser, Lawyer

Connected to: Executive Office of the President, Office of Personnel Management

Financial Disclosure

Raynor is an experienced lawyer with DOGE who previously clerked for Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas. He was a member of the conservative Federalist Society and worked on the Virginia Law Review. He has publicly declared that Trump has the legal authority to challenge the concept of birthright citizenship. In agency directories, Raynor is listed as a senior adviser to the director of OPM.

Added Feb. 20, 2025

Chris Young, 36

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Connected to: Executive Office of the President, Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, U.S. African Development Foundation, Department of Homeland Security

Musk link: Republican political adviser hired by Musk during 2024 election cycle

Financial Disclosure

Young’s association with DOGE came to light after a union group representing workers of the shuttered CFPB noticed him in an internal staff directory. Young is a former lobbyist for the pharmaceutical industry and past staffer for Louisiana Republican Gov. Bobby Jindal. Musk reportedly hired Young in 2024 to help establish a grassroots political organization focused on voter turnout. A directory reviewed by ProPublica showed he has a DOGE Executive Office of the President email address.

Added Feb. 20, 2025

Jennifer Balajadia, 36

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Connected to: Executive Office of the President

Musk link: Worked at The Boring Company

Balajadia, who also goes by “Jehn,” is an official member of the DOGE team, according to federal records viewed by ProPublica. She worked as an operations coordinator at The Boring Company for seven years, according to her LinkedIn page. Recent media reports have described her as Musk’s assistant and close confidant, traveling with him and assisting with scheduling and daily tasks.

Added Feb. 11, 2025

Alexandra T. Beynon, 36

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Connected to: Executive Office of the President, Department of Education

Beynon is an official member of the DOGE team, according to federal records viewed by ProPublica and media reports. According to her LinkedIn page, she most recently worked as the head of engineering at her husband’s startup, Mindbloom, which provides “guided at-home ketamine therapy.” She previously worked as a software developer at investment banking company Goldman Sachs. When reached by ProPublica and asked about her involvement in the new administration and DOGE, she said, “I have no idea what you are talking about.” She did not respond to additional requests for comment.

Added Feb. 11, 2025

Nicole Hollander, 42

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Connected to: General Services Administration

Musk link: Worked at X

Hollander is working at the GSA. She most recently worked at X, where she handled the company's real estate. She is married to longtime Musk lieutenant Steve Davis, according to media reports.

Added Feb. 11, 2025

Kendall M. Lindemann, 24

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Connected to: Executive Office of the President

Lindemann is an official member of the DOGE team, according to federal records viewed by ProPublica. According to her LinkedIn page, she most recently worked as an associate at Russell Street Ventures, a health care firm founded by fellow DOGE associate Brad Smith. She also previously worked as a business analyst at McKinsey & Company.

Added Feb. 11, 2025

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Adam Ramada, 35

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Connected to: Executive Office of the President, Department of Energy, Department of Labor, Department of Education

Musk link: Previously part of an investment firm with links to a SpaceX alumnus

Ramada is an official member of the DOGE team, according to federal records viewed by ProPublica. He previously worked for Spring Tide Capital, a venture capital company. Spring Tide Capital previously invested in Impulse Space, an aerospace company founded in 2021 by Tom Mueller, a founding member of SpaceX. Ramada has reportedly appeared at the Energy Department and General Services Administration, according to E&E News.

Added Feb. 11, 2025

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Ryan Riedel, 37

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Chief Information Officer

Connected to: Department of Energy

Musk link: Worked as SpaceX network security engineer

Riedel emerged in early February as the new chief information officer at the Department of Energy. His position was confirmed in a LinkedIn post by the former CIO, Ann Dunkin, who wrote, “Handing the keys over to you, virtually.” Riedel, who now lists himself online as the department's CIO, has worked at SpaceX since 2020. He previously served in the U.S. Army Cyber Command.

Added Feb. 11, 2025

Kyle Schutt, 37

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Connected to: General Services Administration, Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, Department of Health and Human Services, Department of Homeland Security

Schutt is a DOGE software engineer working at the GSA. He was previously the chief technology officer at Revv, an online fundraising platform that’s a frequent vendor for the Republican Party. According to his recently deleted LinkedIn profile, Schutt led the development and launch of WinRed, the GOP’s major online fundraising platform, which helped raise $1.8 billion for Republicans in the 2024 election cycle.

Added Feb. 11, 2025

Ethan Shaotran, 22

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Connected to: General Services Administration, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Social Security Administration, U.S. Postal Service, U.S. African Development Foundation, Inter-American Foundation

Musk link: Participated in a hackathon organized by Musk's artificial intelligence company xAI

Shaotran is part of the DOGE team. He recently attended Harvard University and studied computer science. He founded Spark, a scheduling assistant startup, for which he said he received a $100,000 grant from OpenAI. He was a member of a team that was a finalist in a hackathon organized by xAI, Musk’s artificial intelligence company. Shaotran’s name first came to light in an article by Wired magazine about a group of young software engineers recruited by Musk to analyze internal government data and technology programs.

Added Feb. 11, 2025

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Jordan M. Wick, 28

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Connected to: Executive Office of the President, Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, National Labor Relations Board, Department of Labor, Department of Education

Wick is an official member of the DOGE team, according to federal records viewed by ProPublica. According to his personal website, which has recently been taken offline, he graduated from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and recently worked at autonomous car company Waymo as a software engineer. Before joining the government, Wick was listed as the co-founder of an e-commerce startup named Intercept, which is affiliated with the California-based tech incubator Y Combinator. The incubator has featured speaker events with Musk and other AI leaders.

Added Feb. 11, 2025

Jacob Altik, 32

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Lawyer

Connected to: Executive Office of the President, U.S. African Development Foundation, Inter-American Foundation, U.S. Institute of Peace

Financial Disclosure

Altik is a 2021 graduate of the University of Michigan Law School. He clerked for D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals Judge Neomi Rao, a Trump appointee known for critiquing the administrative state. For the last year and a half, he worked as a corporate litigation associate at Weil, where he co-authored a detailed legal analysis on administrative law jurisprudence at the Supreme Court. Last year, he was selected to begin a clerkship for Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch in the 2025 term, which is set to begin this summer.

Added Feb. 7, 2025

James Burnham, 41

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General Counsel

Connected to: Executive Office of the President, U.S. Institute of Peace

Burnham is a former litigation partner at Jones Day and a high-ranking Justice Department and White House official from the first Trump administration. The New York Times first reported his involvement with DOGE as a lawyer in January. His title at DOGE is listed internally as general counsel, according to records reviewed by ProPublica. Burnham previously served as a clerk to Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch. On a website for one of his past companies, Burnham is described as having played a “central role” in the selection and confirmation processes for Gorsuch, Justice Brett Kavanaugh and then-Judge Amy Coney Barrett.

Added Feb. 7, 2025

Keenan D. Kmiec, 45

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Lawyer

Connected to: Executive Office of the President

Keenan Kmiec’s career veered from elite law to, more recently, crypto. After clerking for then-Judge Samuel Alito on a federal circuit court, he clerked on the Supreme Court for Chief Justice John Roberts in the 2006-2007 term, according to his LinkedIn. He did a stint at a corporate law firm and had his own firm focused on insider-trading litigation. In 2021, Kmiec began working for a Swiss foundation that promotes a blockchain called Tezos, according to his LinkedIn. He then served for nine months as CEO of a now-defunct startup called InterPop, which described itself as “forging the future of digital fandom with comic, game, and collectible NFTs minted responsibly on the Tezos blockchain.”

Added Feb. 7, 2025

Anthony Armstrong, 57

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Senior Adviser to the Director

Connected to: Office of Personnel Management

Musk link: Worked on Musk’s purchase of Twitter

Armstrong is a technology banker at Morgan Stanley who worked on Musk’s $44 billion acquisition of Twitter — since rebranded as X — in 2022. He has been given an influential role at OPM, which handles personnel issues across the federal government. Since Trump took office, OPM has spearheaded the new administration’s efforts to dramatically reduce the federal workforce and roll back telework and remote work policies.

Added Feb. 6, 2025

Riccardo Biasini, 39

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Senior Adviser to the Director

Connected to: Office of Personnel Management

Musk link: Former engineer at Tesla, executive at the Boring Company

Financial Disclosure

Biasini is an engineer and former executive who has worked at two of Musk’s companies, the Boring Company and Tesla. He has also taken a high-ranking role at OPM. Biasini was listed as the contact person for the government-wide email system put in place by the Trump administration and used to send messages directly from OPM to millions of federal workers across the government, according to a recent court filing.

Added Feb. 6, 2025

Brian Bjelde, 44

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Senior Adviser

Connected to: Office of Personnel Management

Musk link: Vice president of people operations at SpaceX

Bjelde is a longtime SpaceX employee who’s spent more than 20 years at the company, according to his LinkedIn profile, where he’s had a variety of jobs, including as managing director of the “food services group.” He previously worked for NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory. He’s been referred to in press reports as a “top DOGE Lieutenant,” working at OPM to slash head count. CNN previously revealed that Bjelde had informed OPM staff of a plan to cut 70% of the agency’s workforce. The New York Times reported that Bjelde helped Musk cut staff at Twitter following its takeover.

Added Feb. 6, 2025

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Akash Bobba, 21

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Senior Adviser to the Director

Connected to: Office of Personnel Management, Social Security Administration, Department of Education

Bobba was named by Wired magazine as part of a team of six young engineers picked by Musk for his DOGE team. A recent graduate of the University of California, Berkeley, Bobba worked as an intern at Meta, the social media company, and at Palantir, the software and data analytics firm that is a major defense contractor. Bobba is listed in personnel records as an “expert” at OPM, where he has reportedly been able to access internal databases. He graduated from high school in 2021; in his graduation speech, featured in the Spotlight New Jersey newspaper, he told his fellow graduates that, in life, the “answers we deserve demand discomfort.”

Added Feb. 6, 2025

Nate Cavanaugh, 28

permalink

Connected to: General Services Administration, U.S. African Development Foundation, U.S. Institute of Peace, National Endowment for the Humanities, Institute of Museum and Library Services, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Inter-American Foundation, Minority Business Development Agency, National Labor Relations Board

Cavanaugh is an entrepreneur who has founded companies focused on intellectual property management and small-business finance. He has been interviewing staffers at the GSA as part of the DOGE team, according to those who have spoken with him. GSA procures technology tools, real estate, and other services for federal government agencies. In published interviews, Cavanaugh has expressed an admiration for tech luminaries, including Peter Thiel, Elon Musk, and Mark Zuckerberg, and has said he is “very interested in crypto.”

Added Feb. 6, 2025

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Edward Coristine, 19

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Expert

Connected to: Office of Personnel Management, Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, Department of State, Department of Homeland Security, Federal Emergency Management Agency, General Services Administration, Department of Health and Human Services, U.S. Agency for International Development, Department of Education

Musk link: Interned at Neuralink

Coristine is a recent undergraduate student at Northeastern University and part of the group of young DOGE staffers detailed to OPM, the government’s human resources office. Wired reported that Coristine interned at Neuralink, Musk’s brain-computer interface company. Friends of Coristine told Northeastern University’s independent student newspaper that Musk was one of Coristine’s idols and that while he finished the fall 2024 semester, he did not return to school for the spring term. According to CBS News, Coristine has been seeking access to the Small Business Administration’s internal records on behalf of DOGE.

Added Feb. 6, 2025

Steve Davis, 45

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Connected to: Executive Office of the President, General Services Administration

Musk link: Longtime Musk lieutenant, CEO of the Boring Company

Davis has been a senior executive and close associate of Musk’s for over two decades, working with him at SpaceX, X and the Boring Company. He was one of the first people to be associated with the DOGE effort last year. The New York Times reported he was on early calls with Musk as they conceived of the DOGE effort and explored ways to cut federal programs. Bloomberg reported that Davis has helped recruit staffers for DOGE.

Added Feb. 6, 2025

Marko Elez, 25

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Connected to: Department of the Treasury, Social Security Administration, Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, Department of Health and Human Services, Department of Labor, Department of Homeland Security, Department of State

Musk link: Worked as an engineer at X and SpaceX

Elez works at the Treasury Department, a staffer at the office of the Secretary of Treasury confirmed in a call with a ProPublica reporter. Wired reported Feb. 4 that Elez, who graduated from Rutgers in 2021 and studied computer science, has gained access to the highly sensitive payment systems of the U.S. Treasury Department. According to Elez’s LinkedIn bio, which was recently deleted, he was most recently an engineer at X in New York for roughly a year and an engineer at SpaceX in the Los Angeles area for around three years before that. Elez reportedly resigned Feb. 6 after The Wall Street Journal reported that he has links to a social media account that posted racist comments online. Musk said publicly he planned to rehire the engineer, saying that “to err is human, to forgive divine.”

Added Feb. 6, 2025

Luke Farritor, 23

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Executive Engineer in the Office of the Secretary

Connected to: Department of Health and Human Services, Social Security Administration, Department of Energy, Department of State, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, National Institutes of Health, U.S. Agency for International Development, Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, National Science Foundation

Musk link: Former SpaceX intern

Farritor works as an executive engineer at the HHS, according to agency data. He studied computer science at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln and interned at SpaceX, working on its Starlink Wi-Fi team and Starship launchpad software, according to his Linkedin profile. In March 2024, he received a Thiel fellowship, a two-year program founded by billionaire tech entrepreneur Peter Thiel that awards a $100,000 startup grant to students who drop out of college.

Added Feb. 6, 2025

Stephanie Holmes, 43

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Human Resources

Connected to: Executive Office of the President, Department of the Interior

Holmes is running human resources at DOGE, according to government workers who have been in meetings with her. A former lawyer with Jones Day, a firm that frequently represents Trump, she was previously the chief people officer at Oklo, a nuclear energy company chaired by OpenAI CEO Sam Altman. She also ran her own HR consulting firm, BrighterSideHR, which advised companies to pursue “non-woke” approaches to diversity and inclusion in the workplace.

Added Feb. 6, 2025

Gautier “Cole” Killian, 24

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Federal Detailee

Connected to: Environmental Protection Agency, Social Security Administration, Department of Labor, General Services Administration, Department of Homeland Security

Killian works at the EPA, according to agency data. His position is a federal detail, which typically allows government employees to transfer between agencies for temporary roles. He studied math and computer science at McGill University, where he conducted blockchain-related research. He recently worked as an engineer at Jump Trading, an algorithmic financial trading company, and is a member of the DOGE team, according to recent media reports.

Added Feb. 6, 2025

Gavin Kliger, 25

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Senior Adviser to the Director

Connected to: U.S. Agency for International Development, Office of Personnel Management, Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, National Institutes of Health, Internal Revenue Service, Federal Trade Commission, Department of Agriculture, Voice of America

Financial Disclosure

Kliger is a senior adviser at OPM, according to his LinkedIn profile. He spent nearly five years as a software engineer at Databricks, a cloud-based AI company. He is widely reported to be part of Musk’s DOGE team. On his personal Substack, he wrote an essay titled “Why I gave up a seven-figure salary to save America,” according to press reports, and described failed U.S. attorney general nominee Matt Gaetz, who withdrew from Congress amid allegations of sexual misconduct, as a “victim” of the deep state. On Feb. 3, workers at USAID received an email announcing that their Washington offices would be closed that day. Replies to the email were directed to Kliger at a USAID email address.

Added Feb. 6, 2025

Tom Krause, 47

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Expert

Connected to: Department of the Treasury

Financial Disclosure

Krause is a part of DOGE’s efforts to gain access to sensitive federal payment systems as part of Musk’s larger effort to root out spending perceived as wasteful. According to the Treasury Department, Krause leads a team of people who have been granted “read-only” access to the code for the agency’s Fiscal Service payment system, which processes payments for major programs such as Social Security and Medicare. The department has clarified he is designated as a “special government employee.” The New York Times reported that Krause is affiliated with Musk’s DOGE team.

Added Feb. 6, 2025

Katie Miller, 33

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Spokesperson

Connected to: Executive Office of the President

In December, during the transition, Trump named Miller, who served in the first administration as a press secretary to Vice President Mike Pence, as one of the first members of DOGE. She is the wife of White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller. After reports that DOGE personnel accessed internal USAID data, Katie Miller defended the group, saying that “no classified material was accessed without proper security clearances.”

Added Feb. 6, 2025

Justin Monroe, 36

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Adviser

Connected to: Federal Bureau of Investigation

Musk link: Senior director for security at SpaceX

Monroe is working as an adviser within the office of the director of the FBI, according to three people familiar with the matter. NBC News previously reported that an unnamed SpaceX employee has been placed in the FBI director’s office but said it could not confirm the individual’s identity. Monroe is a seasoned information security professional who previously served in the U.S. Navy as an information warfare officer.

Added Feb. 6, 2025

Nikhil Rajpal, 30

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Expert

Connected to: Office of Personnel Management, Social Security Administration, Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration

Musk link: Former Twitter employee

Financial Disclosure

Rajpal is listed as an “expert” now working for OPM. An archived version of his personal website from 2018 lists his job title as an engineer at Twitter. Rajpal has extensive access to sensitive personnel data used by OPM, according to a source familiar with his role. Wired reported Feb. 5 that Rajpal also sought and was later granted access to data at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Wired magazine reported that he is part of the DOGE team.

Added Feb. 6, 2025

Rachel Riley, 33

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Senior Adviser in the Office of the Secretary

Connected to: Department of Health and Human Services, National Institutes of Health, National Science Foundation

Financial Disclosure

Riley works as a senior adviser at HHS, according to agency data. She previously worked for consultancy firm McKinsey & Company for about eight years, most recently as a partner leading teams advising the company’s state and federal government clients. She has been working closely with Brad Smith, a former health official in Trump’s first administration who ran DOGE during the transition period, according to media reports.

Added Feb. 6, 2025

Michael Russo, 67

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Chief Information Officer

Connected to: Social Security Administration

Musk link: Former chief technology officer of Starlink payment processor Shift4 Payments

Russo is a top-ranking technology official at the SSA, which disburses over $1.5 trillion in benefits annually. Russo spent over seven years as an executive and senior adviser with Shift4 Payments, a payment processing company that is both an investor in SpaceX and a payment processor for StarLink, according to his Linkedin. The CEO of Shift4 Payments, Jared Isaacman, has been nominated by Trump to lead NASA and is a friend of Musk’s who has purchased multiple spacewalks with Musk’s SpaceX company. Russo’s office will oversee the SSA’s over $2 billion IT budget.

Added Feb. 6, 2025

Amanda Scales, 34

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Chief of Staff

Connected to: Office of Personnel Management

Musk link: Previous employee of xAI

Financial Disclosure

Scales’ name came to light in the first week of the Trump administration as federal employees received a memo putting them on notice that diversity, equity, inclusion and accessibility initiatives in the federal government were now barred through an executive order — and to report efforts to conceal them. The message listed Scales as the point of contact for questions. Scales worked in the human resources department at xAI, Musk’s artificial intelligence company, prior to OPM. Before that, she worked in recruiting at ridesharing company Uber. She is reportedly an integral part of OPM’s sweeping efforts to restructure the federal workforce.

Added Feb. 6, 2025

Thomas Shedd, 28

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Federal Acquisition Service Deputy Commissioner and Director of Technology Transformation Services

Connected to: General Services Administration, Department of Labor

Musk link: Software engineer at Tesla

Shedd’s work at Tesla focused on building software that operates vehicle and battery factories, according to a GSA press release. The office Shedd runs, known as TTS, helps federal agencies improve their tech practices. GSA leaders have told employees they plan to cut 50% of the budget. Shedd has told colleagues he plans to run TTS like a “startup software company,” according to Wired magazine, which will reportedly involve the use of artificial intelligence to analyze government contracts.

Added Feb. 6, 2025

Brad Smith, 42

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Connected to: Executive Office of the President, Department of Health and Human Services

Smith was among the earliest names associated with DOGE outside of its founder. The New York Times reported he was helping lead the group. He served in a series of health-related policy roles during the first Trump administration, including being part of the board of Operation Warp Speed, the historic COVID-19 vaccine development program. According to The New York Times, which first reported Smith’s involvement in DOGE, he is a friend of Jared Kushner, Trump’s son-in-law.

Added Feb. 6, 2025

===

21 OF ORIG ORG QUIT ?

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3 11? 26 2 NEW DOGEBAGS GRABBED SSN FOR PVT?!

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GGL 5 26

Akash Bobba is a 23-year-old software engineer and UC Berkeley alumnus who was recruited by Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE). He and his team subsequently created the National Design Studio (NDS) to modernize government websites and make them function like private tech companies. [1,,, 4,]

Key Facts & Developments

Background: A former intern at Meta, Palantir, and Bridgewater Associates, Bobba gained viral attention in tech circles for his rapid coding and AI analytics skills. [1,]
Role in DOGE/NDS: He joined DOGE for top-level tech modernization efforts and was instrumental in establishing the NDS. The NDS effectively transformed the former U.S. Digital Service into a tech-startup-style unit focused on overhauling federal digital infrastructure. [1, 2, 3]

Controversy & Data Access: Bobba and other DOGE operatives were granted deep, unprecedented access to sensitive federal databases, including Social Security and Treasury records. This sparked significant privacy lawsuits and congressional scrutiny. Federal judges, such as U.S. District Judge Ellen Lipton Hollander, intervened to block or heavily restrict DOGE's sweeping, unvetted access to personal taxpayer and citizen data. [1, 2, 3, 4, 5]

Current Status: Following initial agency overhauls and mass reductions, DOGE was formally phased out as a standalone temporary initiative, with its roles absorbed or institutionalized by the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) and Office of Management and Budget (OMB). [1, 2]

For further context on how DOGE operatives reshaped federal agencies and digital policies, you can read investigations by ProPublica's DOGE Tracker

The Key Figures Working Alongside Elon Musk at DOGE and in the Trump Administration — ProPublica

or view the Senate Homeland Security Report on DOGE.

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AN 5 26

A small disclaimer on a website just exposed a secret project with no reporting, oversight, transparency or accountability under the thumb of President Donald Trump's office.

Audrey Henson, who researches and writes about the intersection of technology and power, found the disclaimer in the footer of a page on the TrumpRx website, which claims to offer access to drugs the government is trying to renegotiate prices for.

"In the footer of the page, beneath all of it, I found something I have never seen on a federal government website in my life. A byline. The government does not do this," explained Henson. "The IRS does not sign its work. The FBI does not. Social Security does not. No federal agency that has ever built a website has felt the need to take credit for it. In plain bold text, sitting directly above the privacy policy, it said: Designed and Engineered in D.C. by National Design Studio. So I clicked through."

What she said she found was "The National Design Studio," an "office" created by one of Trump's executive orders in Aug. 2025.

According to Joe Gebbia, co-founder of Airbnb, the goal was to redesign how Americans experience their government online. He reports directly to Trump's chief of staff, Susie Wiles.

"His position requires no Senate confirmation, which means he files no financial disclosures, which means the office he runs does not appear in any federal procurement database, which means, as far as the official record is concerned, it barely exists," wrote Henson. That, she said, is the point.

Staff is hired under Section 3161, which allows for temporary advisory bodies meant to be part-time advisors and volunteers. Their salary isn't public, and there is no inspector general to keep an eye on ethics. Henson called it essentially what DOGE was meant to be, the "department" that was promised would save $2 trillion by cutting "waste, fraud and abuse" in government. Gebbia was previously working for DOGE.

So, Henson compared the names from DOGE with those of the National Design Studio and found them remarkably similar. " The National Design Studio is not a successor to DOGE. It is DOGE with a better logo and a design philosophy," she said.

What she found in the code of the pages on TrumpRx is that each page is "making phone calls to servers all over the internet with dozens per second." One of those is "PostHog," a Silicon Valley analytics company that records what users do on a website and reports it back to those who own it. It's everything from following mouse movements to scrolls and clicks.

"I had not clicked anything. I had just opened the page, and it was already on the phone with PostHog telling them about me," Henson said. It includes your IP address and any other identifying information it can obtain. Henson said it's not something she expected to see on a government website.

So, she checked other government sites. Real Food, Trump Accounts and others are all part of the PostHog tracking and data collection.

"And on ndstudio.gov alone, running alongside PostHog, was something someone had built entirely by hand. Five hundred and forty lines of custom JavaScript with a name embedded directly in the code: AutoMonitor. What it appears to do is rewire the part of the browser that handles how a page talks to the outside world, so that every conversation the page has with any server gets copied and forwarded to a private backend with no public presence. The studio has the structural ability to keep a copy of every recording as it passes through their infrastructure. I cannot prove they are keeping one. The pipe is built that way on purpose, and that is the part that matters," Hensen explained.

The problem is that the government requires a number of things for websites, which include privacy disclosures, notices in the Federal Register and published contracts with outside vendors, she said. None of those exist on the 12 National Design Studio programs. Those laws were enacted after Watergate to protect Americans from secret government surveillance programs. Each missing piece at those 12 sites is a crime, resulting in 36 breaches of federal law. There is a privacy disclosure on the Trump Rx page, but Hensen said that some paragraphs contradict each other.

"A federal health website is lying to the people using it and cannot even keep the lie consistent," Hensen warned.

Then she went searching for more, finding at least 40 on top of the first 12. Some of the sites haven't been announced.

"I started reading the names. Sites that looked like they belonged to the State Department. To NASA. To the Department of Homeland Security. And then two that stopped me cold: a working preview of vote.gov, and something called fbi-kirk-tipline. I checked the public ownership records for every subdomain, and every single one traced back to the same place, the Executive Office of the President," she said.

The sites were built by the National Design Studio. Everything was built by the White House using the same Cloudflare account, which isn't normal for a federal agency either.

"The login screen for the gated preview sites read: loveisaskill.cloudflareaccess.com. Love is a skill is a phrase Gebbia has used publicly to describe Airbnb’s design philosophy," said Henson. To her, this indicates Gebbia owns these personally, not the government.

Akash Bobba, one of the people on DOGE, now controls one of the sites for an agency as well as emails and security configurations. It "means a White House staffer has full visibility into who applies for grants, who gets approved and who inside that agency is talking to whom," said Henson.

Henson also remembered an Oct. 2025 conference call in which Bobba was recorded saying that the group was building a federal voter registration system on vote.gov.

"Voters would register through a federal portal, their identities verified through Login.gov, their citizenship verified through DHS’s SAVE database, their registrations transmitted to the states," Henson continued. "A state election director asked him what data the federal government would retain. He said, on a recording, in an election year: I don’t know what they retain and what they are logging. The person presenting a federal voter registration system to state election directors did not know what data his own system kept on American voters."

She noted that there is a previous law that blocks the White House from overseeing voter registration, so it violates that law too.

A few weeks before Trump signed the executive order, essentially forcing small parts of the SAVE Act on the public, the security certificate appeared. The order mandates that within 90 days of the signing, they must have a federally created "list" of citizen-verified voters. That 90 days is up in a few weeks. The Justice Department told the judge overseeing lawsuits against the order that it was in the deliberation phase. The websites show that the claim doesn't match up with reality.

"The certificate is dated April 10. DOJ told a federal court the infrastructure does not exist. Both of those cannot be true," Henson said. "Either DOJ lied to a federal judge, or the studio is building a replacement for the country’s voter registration site without telling the agencies whose work it would replace. There is no third option."

She then went to the State Department website for passports. The White House owns that website now, too. On May 5, the first security certificate was issued. The new website has no official seal on it or a privacy notice. She said that, based on the staging environment, it looks to her like the government wants to require Americans "to upload their passport photo through a White House-controlled website, on the same Cloudflare account, by the same people, with no privacy notice on file. A passport photo is biometric quality. Linked to your identity through Login.gov. Collected through infrastructure the White House owns, sealed from public view."

She cautioned that it appears the site is being built this week.

---

AN 3 26

For years, Donald Trump and his MAGA followers railed against the so-called "deep state" within the government that was working to prevent his political goals. Now, according to a new analysis from MS NOW, the president is the one creating his own deep state within the government by heavily staffing agencies with loyalists.

In a piece published Wednesday, MS NOW's Zeeshan Aleem argued that the administration was in the process of "Trumpifying" the federal workforce. He characterized this as the second phase of Trump's larger plan to create a "MAGA state," following his mass layoffs earlier in his second term. This plan, to staff the government top to bottom with loyal followers who would rubber-stamp his every whim, was a major proposal contained in Project 2025.

Aleem cited a recent report from the Washington Post, which detailed how the administration is now working to bring in a "wave of new federal employees who will unthinkingly obey the president’s political directives," as opposed to the traditional bureaucrats Trump fired last year, who were only concerned with "providing nonpartisan expertise." Stephen Miller, Trump's controversial far-right senior advisor, is reportedly overseeing this process and "ensuring that new hires are aligned with Trump’s agenda."

"That’s a clear sign that the Trump administration has real ambition to change the way the federal bureaucracy works," Aleem wrote. "Miller is one of the most Machiavellian figures in the Trump administration and one of its most vocal ideologues in favor of authoritarian and nativist governance. Miller surely approves of a new immigration services job posting titled 'Homeland Defender,' which, according to the Post, asks applicants to be ready to 'protect your homeland and defend your culture.'"

Aleem also highlighted comments from Scott Kupor, the head of the Office of Personnel Management, who pledged to make the civil service workforce younger and established a "Tech Force" program to work with companies like OpenAI and Meta to create a pathway to private sector jobs for employees who work for a time in the federal government. The reporter argued that those plans are merely a cover to "import brash young tech bros with the kind of 'move fast and break things' ethos that DOGE used to take a wrecking ball to vital social services."

These efforts to reshape the federal workforce, he warned, could long outlast Trump's presidency.

"Put all these things together, and a clear agenda to morph the civil service into a political instrument of Trump comes into view," Aleem concluded. "Historically, the federal workforce is a corps of nonpartisan employees who use their expertise to advise on and execute the policies of the federal government. Trump wants to turn it into an army of reactionary yes-men. Even after he leaves office, many of these MAGA state hires are likely to remain, and the government will be worse off because of it."

---

WIKI 3 26

TABLE DOGE network Name	Type	Roles	Ties	Involvement	See
Daniel Abrahamson	Lawyer	DOT (Feb–Mar 2025); USDA senior advisor	Law – Munck Wilson Mandala;[114] Musk – Tesla lawyer	Worked at a department investigating Tesla[7]	[c][j]
Justin Aimonetti	Lawyer	EOP	Law – Dechert LLP,[115] FedSoc contributor;[116] Trump – first administration[117]	Entered USIP[115] and CCR;[118] contacted the Vera Institute[119]	[c][j]
Baris Akis	Ally[b]	OPM recruiter (non-US resident)[120]	Musk – Human Capital co-founder;[121]	Directed e-meetings; assigned work to Lavingia at VA[120]	[l][f][b]
Jacob "Jake" Rodenhaus Altik	Lawyer	OPM	Law – New Civil Liberties Alliance, Weil, Gotshal & Manges; Trump – Neomi Rao clerk, Neil Gorsuch clerk;[38]	USADF standoff;[122] OPM's Fork in the road trial[66]	[c][f][j][n]
Marc Andreessen	Ally	West Palm Beach meetings and strategy[b]	Musk – a16z backed SpaceX, xAI, and Twitter; Trump – transition team	Networked to hire talents; pushed for return-to-office[123]	[b][e]
Anthony John Armstrong	Executive	OPM senior advisor to the Director (Feb–Apr, 2025)[124]	Musk – Twitter purchase; Morgan Stanley	Appeared on Fox News;[125]	[c][f][l][n]
Jennifer "Jehn" Balajadia	Leadership – aide	EOP;[41] ED	Musk – confidant and assistant, Boring		[c][l][f][e]
Ankur Bansal	Executive	DOT	Startups – Homelight; SnapSaves	Identified grants to be canceled	[c]
Sam Beyda	Tech	DOL		Extracted DOL data[112]; turned CDC deputy chief of staff[94]
Alexandra T. Beynon	Tech – engineer	ED[43]	Musk – Mindbloom, ketamine-assisted therapy company founded by her husband;[126] Goldman Sachs		[c][f]
Riccardo NMN Biasini	Executive	OPM senior advisor	Musk – Boring, Twitter, Tesla; disclosed 1–5M in Boring stocks and 1–5M in Boring options[127]	Involved in the "Fork" email	[c][e][f][l][n]
Jared Birchall	Ally	DOGE (Nov 2024–)	Musk – wealth manager, Neuralink; Trump – transition team	Interviewed DOS candidates	[a]
Frank Bisignano	Ally[f]	SSA commissioner	Fintech – Fiserv, First Data Corp[128] JPMorgan Chase, Citigroup[129]	Described himself as "fundamentally a DOGE person".	[f]
Brian N. Bjelde	Executive	OPM senior advisor	Musk – early SpaceX employee,[130] terminated 80% of Twitter workforce; NASA – Rain (autonomous Black Hawk helicopters)	Instructed agencies to cut 70% of their workforces[131]	[c][f][l][n]
Adam Blake	Executive	NRC DOGE team lead[132]		Controlled NRC decisions;[133] questioned Steve Davis's continued influence at DOGE as a non-employee[134]
Akash Bobba	Tech – coder	OPM, GSA	Thiel – Palantir intern; Diversity Discovered CIO[135]	Worked on OPM's Online Retirement Application system;[136] accessed "every bit of data" at the SSA[137][138][113]	[c][f][e][h][i][n]
Ashley Boizelle	Lawyer	GSA attorney advisor	Trump – FCC, under Ajit Pai;[139] Sandra Ikuta clerk; Gibson Dunn[117]		[c][j][f]
Christina Angelina Bonnarrigo Villamil		OPM			[n]
Emily Bryant		CFPB[140]		Entered the FTC[141]	[c]
James Burnham	Lawyer – general counsel	EOP; USIP	Trump – first administration, Neil Gorsuch clerk;[38] FedSoc;[142] Jones Day	Resigned on May 29, 2025[89]	[c][j][f]
Nate Cavanaugh	Executive	USIP acting president[143]	Startups – Brainbase, FlowFi	ICH; entered USADF, IAF, IMLS, NEH, MBDA; contacted the Vera Institute;[144] misrepresented USAID on Fox News[145] paid $120,500 by the GSA[105]	[c][e][c]
Alison Childs	Tech – web design	GSA	Musk – Dream Team		[c]
Yat Choi	Tech – engineer (non-citizen)[2]	OPM	Gebbia – AirBnB engineer	Worked on OPM's Online Retirement Application system;[136]	[c]
Carl Coe	Executive	DOE chief of staff	Mango Practice Management[146]	Led DOGE efforts in the DOE[147]
Brandon Mayhew	Senior Advisor	OPM	Musk – Twitter[148]	Facilitated restructurings	[n]
Michael Cole	Executive	USDA	Startups – Shareholder Capital	Appeared on Fox News	[c][f]
Miles Collins		DOL	Pronatalism – Fertility clinic, brother of Malcolm Collins[149]	Named in GAO audit notes; has access to National Farmworker Jobs Program system[150][151]	[c]
George Cooper	Ally – recruiter	DOGE	Thiel – Palantir engineer	Hired Palantir talent[50]	[e][h]
Sam Corcos	Advisor	USDT chief information officer	Andreessen – Levels co-founder; health influencer; wife tied to Suleyman Kerimov	Initiated Direct File termination after meeting with lobbyists;[152] accessed taxpayer and vendor information;[153] planned to develop an API for IRS data in Palantir's Foundry;[154] organized an IRS hackathon; appeared on Fox News;[155] granted access to Bureau of Fiscal Services system[156]	[c]
Edward "Big Balls" Coristine	Tech – coder	SSA senior advisor;[2] CISA;[157] GSA[92]	Musk – Neuralink intern; Tesla.sexy LLC owner;[22] LesserEvil; Path Network fired intern;[158] The Com;[19] Valery Martinov grandson	Appeared twice on Fox News;[159] left in June 2025 to work for SSA;[92] accessed CISA systems[157] granted access to USCIS databases[160]	[c][l][c][f][e]
Scott Coulter	Executive	SSA chief information officer (Feb–March); NASA DOGE lead	Tiger Cubs – Cowbird Capital (now closed)[161]	Involved in the SSA takeover;[113] told SSA executives to take the fork; relabeled 6,100 living immigrants as dead[162] access NASA databases	[c][e][i]
Steve Davis	Leadership – second in command (Feb–May 2025)[89]	EOP, OPM, GSA	Musk – SpaceX, Twitter, Boring; Atlas Society advisor[163]	Occupied a GSA floor; involved in the SSA takeover;[113][125] tried to hold a meeting after having left[134]	[c][l][c][f][e][j]
Clayton James Cromer		OPM, USAID		Involved in USAID shutdown[164]	[n]
Stephen Dominic Duarte	Executive – human resources	OPM	Musk – SpaceX, Bjelde colleague		[c][f][l][n]
Leland Dudek	Ally – DOGE sherpa[f]	SSA acting commissioner (February to May, 2025)	Facilitated DOGE entry at SSA	Threatened to shutdown SSA;[16] placed on leave after contesting Trump's 40% claim;[113] wrote an op-ed in the New York Post[165]	[c][f]
Stephen Ehikian	Ally and Executive[f]	GSA acting administrator[108](Feb–July 2025)[166]	Musk – spouse worked at X; Salesforce; AI startup	Transferred USIP building to GSA at no cost; replaced by Michael Rigas[166]	[c][f]
Marko Elez	Tech – coder	USDT	Musk – SpaceX, X, xAI, Neuralink	Fired from DOGE for past racist posts; re-hired after JD Vance's intervention; accidentally published an API key for 52 xAI LLMs in a GitHub repository[167]	[c][f][e][i]
Bee Elvy	Tech – web designer	GSA	Musk – Dream Team		[c]
Luke Farritor	Operative	GSA senior advisor[168]	Musk – SpaceX; Thiel Fellowship	Helped DOGE recruitment;[50] accessed at least 12 databases (HHS, DOS, etc.)	[c][l][f][e][h][i]
Conor Fennessy	Executive	ED, HHS			[c]
James Fishback	Ally	DOGE (Feb–May 2025)	Trump – Launched his investment fund at Mar-a-Lago in December 2024	Claimed to have advised DOGE, but Katie Miller disputed that he did. [169]Suggested a "DOGE dividend"; distanced himself from DOGE during the Trump–Musk feud[170]	[g][b]
Joshua ("Josh") Fox	Lawyer		Trump – Court of Federal Claims (Ryan T. Holte);[117] Charles Koch: Institute for Justice;[171] Alston & Bird		[j]
Justin Fox	Executive	GSA	Finance – Nexus Capital Management	Detailed: NLRB, USADF, IAF, NEH, USIP, the Wilson Center, MEC, etc[144]
Justin Fulcher	Executive	DOD, VA	Musk – longtime collaborator. Tech entrepreneur.	Accessed VA's systems; resigned from DOGE, promoted by Hegseth at DOD;[172] resigned in July[173]	[c]
Nicholas Gallagher	Lawyer	GSA	Law – Clement & Murphy associate, clerked for Danny J. Boggs; National Review and Real Clear Politics author[174][175]		[c]
Mattieu Gamache-Asselin	Executive	HHS senior advisor	Startup – Alto	Advised on budgeting, grants and financial management	[c]
Joseph Nicholas "Joe" Gebbia	Ally[176]	OPM (Feb–Aug 2025); National Design Studio chief design officer (Aug 2025–)[177]	Musk – Tesla board;[178] Trump – supports Robert Kennedy Jr[179]	Appeared on Fox News[125][159] rolled out OPM's fully digital retirement application system; left to lead new National Design Studio[180]	[f][n]
Derek Geissler	Tech	DOL		Extracted DOL data[112]	[c]
Patrick George	Staff Operations	DoD			[c]
Brady Glantz	Tech – engineer	FAA	Musk – SpaceX engineer	Special employee for 4 days; still has an FAA email	[c][l]
Amy Gleason	Leadership–DOGE leader	USDS acting administrator	Smith – Russell Street Ventures;[181][182] Trump – USDS	Nominally overs both USDS and USDSTO and reports to Susie Wiles	[f][e]
Mike Gonzalez	Executive	OPM senior advisor	David Sacks: Zenefits; TraceHQ	Lamented the state and process of the federal budget; left after his role has been revealed	[c][g]
Antonio Gracias	Ally	SSA	Musk – old friend, Tesla and SpaceX early investor, America PAC funder; Trump – transition	Involved in the SSA takeover;[113] pushed anti-immigrants myths in media and townhall[183]	[c][l][f][i]
Michael Grimes	Ally[f]	DOC advisor	Musk – Twitter acquisition; Morgan Stanley	Expected to lead the new sovereign fund[184]	[c][l][f]
Josh Gruenbaum	Ally[f]	GSA: Federal Acquisition Service commissioner	Law; private equity	GSA – slashed its budget in half and ramped up monitoring of remaining staff;[185] accused Harvard of "racial discrimination"[186]	[f]
Joshua A. Hanley	Lawyer	NIH	Trump – DOJ; Federalist Society; Williams & Connolly[117]	Authored grant termination notices	[c][j][f]
Christina Zohny Zaki Hanna	Executive – human resources	OPM	Musk – SpaceX HR manager		[f][l][n]
Tyler Hassen	Executive	DOI principal deputy assistant secretary[187] (Feb–Aug 2025)	John Fitzgibbons – Basin Holdings[187]	Failed to open the Jones Pumping Plant;[188] Fox News appearance; sought access to the Federal Personnel Payroll System;[189] presumably left in August[190][191]	[c][f]
Jim Hickey	Staff Operations	DoD	Friend of Emil Michael	Left DOGE after Yinon Weiss joined	[c]
Vinay Hiremath	Ally – recruiter	DOGE (Dec 2024–Jan 2025)	Trump – transition team; Startups – Loom	Left DOGE to focus on himself[192]	[e][b]
Adam Hoffman		DOJ	Musk – Citadel invested in X and Tesla; Trump – White House Council of Economic advisors	Accessed DOJ files on immigrants	[c]
Gregory John Hogan	Executive	OPM chief information officer	Musk – Comma.ai	Named in a lawsuit vs OPM	[c][f][n]
Nicole Hollander	Executive – real estate	GSA	Musk – Twitter, Married to Steve Davis	Initiated thousands of lease cancellations on federal buildings;[193][194] resigned on May 29, 2025[195]	[c][l][f][e][j]
Stephanie Holmes	Executive – human resources head	DOI (–July 2025)[196]	Federalist Society;[197] Jones Day lawyer; Oklo chief people officer; BrighterSideHR: anti corporate DEI (closed)	Involved in the three-phase DEI purge plan; involved in the Fork email;[198] sought write permissions to DOI's HR resources and credentialing systems	[c][f]
Jared Isaacman	Ally	NASA administrator[199]	Musk – SpaceX	Nomination pulled after the [[Trump–Musk feud]][200] then reupped[201]	[l]
Kenneth Jackson	Executive	USAID acting deputy administrator		Authored a memo about the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation[202]
Anthony Jancso	Ally – recruiter		Thiel – Palantir software engineer, AccelerateX (partnership with Palantir)[50]	Recruited Palantir alumni to deploy AI in federal agencies[203]	[c][e][h]
Rajasekar Jegannathan	Tech – engineer (data)	GSA	Musk – Tesla senior employee		[c]
Erica Jehling	Executive	EPA, GSA	Musk – SpaceX purchasing director		[c]
Thomas Kiernan	Tech – engineer (data)	FAA	Musk – SpaceX software engineer	Left on February 6; had an official email	[c][l]
Gautier "Cole" Killian	Tech – coder	EPA, DOL	Jump Trading (engineer)[204]	Extracted DOL data[112]	[f][e][i]
Gavin Ian Kliger	Tech – engineer	CFPB senior advisor to the Director, OPM, USAID, IRS	Musk – Tesla stock owner; Edgelord past; Ron Unz fan; Databricks: disclosed 1–5M in Databricks; LinkedIn	Manually blocked USAID payments authorized by Rubio; CFPB: abuse toward other CFPB employees; potential conflict of interest[205]	[c][f][e][n]
Andrew Richard Kloster		OPM			[n]
Keenan D. Kmiec	Lawyer	EOP	Law – federal circuit court (Samuel Alito), Supreme court (John Roberts), InterPop (Tezos), Sidley Austin;[38] Douglas Kmiec's son		[c][j]
Jon Koval	Executive	SSA	Musk – Valor Equity Partners, co-founded by Gracias, invested in SpaceX and Tesla[206]		[c][l][i]
Tom Krause		USDT acting Fiscal Assistant Secretary of the Treasury (Feb–Jun 2025)[207]	Musk – Citrix and Twitter share underwriter; still CEO of Cloud Software Group, where he axed thousands of jobs, some leading to security weaknesses[208][g][209][210]	Granted access to Bureau of Fiscal Services system;[156] appeared on Fox News; involved in USAID's dismantlement; disclosed interests conflicting with USDT[211]	[c][l][c][f][e]
Michael Kratsios	Ally – recruiter		Trump – Chief Tech Officer in the first administration, wrote the 2020 pro-AI investment executive order; Thiel – Thiel Capital[206]	Helped find the DOGE core members	[e][h]
Scott Kupor	Ally[b]	OPM director (July 2025–)[212]	Andreessen – a16z; self-help author; National Venture Capital Association[213]	Replaced Charles Ezell	[f][g]
Scott Langmack	Executive – real estate manager	HUD senior advisor	Real-estate: Kukun COO; wrote The Fast Track to Your Ideal Job; became a loan shark during the 2008 recession	Holds read and write access to two HUD core systems;[214] Pitching SweetREX deregulation AI to other agencies[215][216]	[c][f]
Sahil Lavingia	Ally – volunteer	VA advisor to the Chief of staff (–May 2025)	Musk fan, brother was working at Twitter c. 2022; Gumroad CEO who fired most of his employees in 2015, to replace them with bots	Wanted to "digitize the agency" with vibe coding; "got the boot" in May, after the Fast Company interview;[217] suspected that DOGE will fizzle out after Musk's departure[218][219][220][221][222]	[c]
Jeremy Lewin	Lawyer	USAID chief operating officer; received $167,000 from GSA;[105] DOS acting head of foreign assistance (April 2025)[223]	Musk – Munger, Tolles & Olson (Tesla); Trump – defended Matt Gaetz[17]	Authorized USAID shutdown; overrode 58 objections to grant the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation $30 million[202] racism and violence issues[224]	[c][j][f][e]
Jeremy Lichtman		USDA senior advisor		Involved in terminating Harvard grants[186]
Kendall M. Lindemann	Executive – human resources	EOP, USDS	Smith – Russell Street Ventures associate		[c][f][h]
Kathryn Armstrong Loving		EPA federal detailee	Musk – Tesla; Brian Armstrong's sister; Y Combinator	Looking for contracts contra Trump's agenda; resigned on May, 23	[c]
Matt Luby	Executive	DOI advisor[225]	Ramaswamy – chief of staff and childhood friend; Startups – Outreach, Subsplash[226]	Decided to approve new spendings; has requested access to GrantSolutions[189]	[b]
Shaun Maguire	Ally – recruiter	DOGE	Trump – supporter; Musk – Sequoia Capital (through Roelof Botha)	Screened candidates; vocal DOGE fan on Musk's social	[g][b]
Tarak Makecha	Executive	FBI, DOJ, DOS senior advisor	Musk – Tesla	Fired by Rubio. Advised outside the executive government (the DOJ) on grant cuts[119][227]	[c][f]
Ted Malaska	Tech – engineer	FAA (Jan-Feb 2025)	Musk – SpaceX software engineer	Left on February 6, 2025, after being given an ethics waiver	[c][l][g]
David Malcher	Executive – finance	GSA, VA	Musk – SpaceX senior financial analyst		[c]
Allan Mangaser	Executive	GSA, OMB senior advisor	Thiel – Palantir		[c]
Jonathan Mendelson	Executive	GSA, SEC senior advisor, USDT	Partner at Accel	Identified across multiple financial regulators	[c]
Katie Miller	Leadership – spokesperson (Jan-May 2025)		Trump – Mike Pence press secretary during the first administration, wife of White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller[228]	SSA takeover;[113] left to work with Musk on May 25, 2025[89]	[c][f][e]
Clark Minor	Executive	HHS chief information officer	Thiel – Palantir: disclosed a $244,000 Palantir salary, and between 1 and 5M in Palantir stocks		[c][h]
Michael Alexander Mirski	Executive – real estate	FHFA and HUD	Real estate – TCC Management, a mobile-home park business with a possibly predatory model[216][50]	Gained access to HUD's Enforcement Management System	[c][f]
Eliezer Mishory	Lawyer	SEC	Law – Kalshi attorney; Trump – Commodity Futures Trading Commission official	SEC – spearheaded a DOGE team, sought access to email, personnel, contract and payment systems[229]	[c]
Bryanne-Michelle Mlodzianowski	Executive – human resources	OPM	Musk – SpaceX HR Manager		[c][l][f]
Aram Moghaddassi	Executive	SSA chief information officer[2]	Musk – Neuralink, Twitter	Detailed at DOL; appeared on Fox News; froze aid payments at USDT[230] granted access to USCIS databases[160]	[c][e][l][n]
Justin Charles Monroe	Tech – security	FBI	Musk – SpaceX; Navy information warfare officer[231]		[c][f][l][n]
Brooks Morgan		ED	Podium Education		[c][f]
Elon Musk	Leadership – de facto leader	Senior advisor to the president (Sep 2024–May 2025)	Trump – spent $290 million to elect him, spent weeks at Mar-a-Lago	Authored an op-ed;[232] involved in the SSA takeover;[113] appeared on Fox News five times;[67] resigned in May[233][89]	[c][e]
Todd Newnam		IRS	Encore Technology Group CEO; The Carlyle Group; Sovereign Intelligence	Declared holding Intuit stocks;[211] granted access to Bureau of Fiscal Services system[156]	[c]
Donald Park	Executive	SBA, GSA, VA	Private equity investor and gym owner	Sought access to SBA systems;[234] appeared on Fox News[235]	[c][f]
Matthew Parkhurst-Session		GSA			[c]
Noah Barnett Peters	Lawyer	OPM, Executive Office senior advisor	Law – Jared Taylor lawyer, Federalist Society; Trump – first administration, Project 2025	Authored the work-from-home termination memo;[236] placed USAID officials on leave;[43] pleaded in court to keep RIFs secret[237]	[c][j][f][n]
McLaurine Elizabeth Pinover		OPM			[n]
Nikhil "Nik" Rajpal	Tech – coder	CFPB, NOAA, OPM	Musk – Twitter	NOAA[34]	[c][e][f][i][n]
Adam Ramada	Executive	EOP, DOL, ED	Musk – investment firm tied to a SpaceX alumnus	ED: planned to introduce AI[238]	[c][l][f][h]
Vivek Ramaswamy	Leadership – co-leader	DOGE (Nov 2024–Feb 2025)	Startup – Roivant Sciences;Thiel – Strive[239] Trump – endorsed his Republican nomination, endorsed by him	Authored a Wall Street Journal op-ed;[232] recruited first candidates; lobbied Vought;[240] left on January 20, 2025[241]
Austin Lewis Raynor	Lawyer	OPM, Executive Office senior advisor	Federalist Society; clerk for Clarence Thomas;[112][242] DOJ; Pacific Legal Foundation	Condones Trump's Birthright Citizenship challenge	[c][f][h][j][n]
Payton Rehling	Tech – coder	SSA	Musk – Valor Equity Partners, an early Tesla investor[243]	Granted access to USCIS databases[160]	[c][l][i]
Ryan Riedel	Tech – engineer	DOE chief information officer	Musk – SpaceX network security engineer; U.S. Army Cyber Command		[c][f]
Rachel Riley	Executive	HHS senior advisor(–Mar 2025)	Smith – colleague; McKinsey & Company	Requested access to Medicare payment systems; declared a stake in Patriot Family Homes;[244] resigned in March, 2025; replaced the admiral in charge of the Office of Naval Research in OctoberCeder, Riley (2025-10-30). "Navy replaces admiral leading naval research with former DOGE staffer". Navy Times. Retrieved 2025-11-01.	[c][l][f][b]
Christopher Roussos	Executive – human resources	VA advisor to the chief of staff	Tech – AllerVie Health, 24 Hour Fitness, Sequel Youth and Family Services		[c]
Michael Russo	Executive	SSA chief information officer (Mar–Jun 2025),[2] special advisor[245]	Musk – Shift4, Starlink, founded by Isaacman	Involved in the SSA takeover;[113]	[c][f][e][i]
Amanda Danielle Scales	Executive	OPM chief of staff (Jan–May 2025)	Musk – xAI; Baris Akis – Human Capital; Uber	"Fork on the road" operation; returned to xAI by May 20, 2025[246]	[c][l][f][g][n]
Frank Schuler	Executive – real estate	GSA senior advisor (Jan-Aug 2025)[247]	Real estate: syndicated real estate deal, land development[248]	OPM: Fork in the road email;[196] collaborated with Nate Cavanaugh on interviews, Senior Advisor to Stephen Ehikian, Acting Administrator of GSA.[249]	[f]
Kyle Schutt	Tech – engineer (software)	GSA;[105] CISA[157]	Startup – Outburst, DOGE web host; Trump – Revv and WinRed raised funds for the Republican Party;	Deobligated FEMA funds; accessed UAC portal; granted access to USCIS databases[160]	[c][e][h]
Riley Sennott	Executive	NASA, GSA senior advisor	Musk – Tesla; Thiel – Palantir	Conducted DOGE interviews[250]	[c]
Bryton Shang	Executive	NOAA senior advisor[251]		Unsuccessfully attempted to turn on water at the Jones Pumping Plant[188]
Ethan Shaotran	Tech – coder	GSA,[168] ED	Musk – xAI hackathon runner-up; OpenAI grantee with Energize.ai, on "democratic methods to decide the rules that govern AI systems"[252]	Requested access to a decade's worth of GSA data; involved in the SSA takeover;[113] interviewed by Jesse Watters[159]	[c][f][e][j]
Gary Shapley		IRS acting administrator (–Apr 2025)	Trump – first administration	Put into the role by Musk without having consulted with Trump or Scott Bessent; fired, and replaced by Michael Faulkender[253]
Ryan Shea		GSA			[c]
Thomas Shedd	Ally[f]	GSA (TTS acting director),[254] chief information officer (DOL)	Musk – Tesla engineer	Lead ai.gov	[c][l][f][e][j]
Roland Shen	Tech – engineer	USDT[2]	Thiel – Ramp
Alexander Simonpour	Executive	NASA	Musk – Tesla	Involved in terminating Harvard grants;[186] appeared on Fox News[235]	[c][l]
Mike Slagh	Staff Operations	DoD	Andreessen – Founder of company that received funding from a16z	Left after Yinon Weiss took over DOGE at DoD	[c]
Sam Smeal	Tech – engineer	FAA	Musk – SpaceX software engineer	Had an official email; left on February 6, 2025	[c]
Brad Smith	Leadership – chief of staff	DOGE (Jan–May 2025); DOS (Sept–)	Trump – FEMA, CMMI, Jared Kushner friend;[255] Musk – met with him and Lutnick at Mar-a-Lago	Requested access to the Medicare payment system at HHS;[75] appeared on Fox News; left with Musk in June[256]	[c][c][g][b]
John Solly		SSA		Analyzed death data in Numident[2]
Branden Spikes	Tech	OPM (Jan–Mar 2025)	Musk – PayPal, Zip2 Tesla, SpaceX; Spikes Security; California Russian Association[257]	Left after two months	[e]
Christopher Allan Stanley	Tech	OPM, Fannie Mae	Musk – SpaceX principal engineer, Twitter security engineer; Trump – assisted January 6 rioters; leaked LizardStresser's database[258]	Named on Fannie Mae board, resigned; installed Starlink terminals on the Whitehouse	[c][f][e][l][n]
Jack Stein	GSA(started April 15)		Salem Partners	Targeted USIP[144]
Brian Stube	Executive	DOT senior advisor	Musk – former Citadel quant	Has a DOT email address; introduced to employees as DOGE member	[c]
Jamie Sullivan		OPM		OPM: Online Retirement Application system[136]
Christopher Sweet	Tech – coder	HUD		Developed an AI for deregulation[215] accessed PIH data[259]
Zachary Terrell	Executive	DHH, NHS	Brian Armstrong – Early Spindl employee	Has access to sensitive systems, including information about those receiving Medicare benefits; reviewed and vetoed NSF grants[260]	[c]
Katrine Trampe	Executive	DOI advisor (–July 2025)[196]		Sought access to the Federal Personnel and Payroll System[261]	[c]
Tullman Alexander D.	Executive	GSA and HHS advisor	Proctor & Gamble	Worked on centralizing government acquisition systems	[c]
Andrew Vilcsak		OPM	Gebbia – AirBnB engineer	OPM: Online Retirement Application system[136]	[l]
Cary Volpert		VA	Recruited by Baris Akis		[c]
Russell "Russ" Vought	Ally – insider[b]	OMB acting director	Trump – same role under the first administration; Project 2025; Heritage Action; Center for Renewing America[262]	Named himself acting administrator of the CFPB to shut it down[263]	[f]
Yinon Weiss	Executive	DOD		left DOGE in July[264]	[c]
Owen West	Executive	DOD	Trump – assistant secretary of defense in first administration; Goldman Sachs former financial analyst	Involved in push for US drone dominance[264]
Linda Whitridge		USDT		Declared holding Intuit stocks;[211] granted access to Bureau of Fiscal Services system[156]
Jordan M. Wick	Tech – coder	CFPB, DOL	Thiel – Accelerate SF; Waymo	Granted extensive access to CFPB data; posted firing bot snippets on GitHub;[265] suspected of having extracted NLRB data;[266] USDA: payment system access[267]	[c][f][e]
Joanna Rose Miller Wischer	Executive – policy analyst	OPM	Trump – speech writer	DOL[112]	[b][f][n]
Marshall Wood		GSA (April 21-)[144]	J efferies	DFC;[268] USAGM: cancelled contracts	[c]
Ryan Wunderly	Executive	USDT special advisor	Thiel – Anduril	Granted access to Bureau of Fiscal Services system[156]	[c][f][h]
Christopher Jordan "Chris" Young	Leadership–top political advisor[269][270]	CFPB, Executive Office	Trump – America PAC's director and treasurer; Bobby Jindal staffer; PhRMA lobbyist; Republican National Committee	Gets between 100K and 1M from Musk while at CFPB	[c][e][h][n]
Bridget Youngs			Ramp Charging, New Energy Capital	Asked to access Peace Corps' financial records[271]	[c]

---

3 26

Network of the Department of Government Efficiency - Wikipedia

QUITE A LOT OF TALK, THREAT TO DELETE? LANG WRANGLES

THe network of the Department of Government Efficiency consists of affiliates and allies associated with the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) in the second presidency of Donald Trump. DOGE members entered or joined various federal agencies.^[2] They took control of information systems to facilitate mass layoffs. DOGE actions have met various responses, including lawsuits.

While Elon Musk promised full transparency, the identity of DOGE personnel has not been publicly disclosed; staffers revealed by investigative journalists were young coders without government experience.^[3] Roughly 40 affiliates are tied to Musk; others come from Silicon Valley, the Trump administration, and conservative law.^[4] In July 2025, ProPublica tracked down more than 100 DOGE members, of whom at least 23 made cuts at agencies regulating where they previously worked.^[5]

DOGE's structure has not been published. Leadership was also blurred: while Amy Gleason was named Acting Administrator^[6] and Steve Davis reportedly managed daily operations,^[7] Trump has described Musk as being "in charge",^[8] and a court has declared him de facto leader.^[9] Musk and his inner circle left DOGE at the end of May.^[10]

Background

Allies

On December 6, 2024, New York Times investigative journalists named Silicon Valley billionaires who tried to influence the Trump transition team toward deregulation of AI, crypto, and space industries: Marc Andreessen, Jared Birchall, Michael Kratsios, Shaun Maguire, and other Musk allies.^[11] On January 12, they reported that "an unpaid group of billionaires, tech executives and some disciples of Peter Thiel, a powerful Republican donor, are preparing to take up unofficial positions in the U.S. government in the name of cost-cutting". Communication between them was encrypted through Signal; Baris Akis, James Fishback, and Brad Smith were introduced, along with Matt Luby, Rachel Riley, and Joanna Wischer; Vinay Hiremath was the only one to comment.^[12]

"DOGE Kids"

[](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Luke_Farritor_%28AI_Tinkerers_SF,_October_2023%29_-2.jpg)Luke Farritor is one of the several engineers aged 19–24 working for DOGE with little to no prior experience in government.

On February 2, Wired revealed that DOGE hired six coders aged 19–24 with no experience in government: Akash Bobba, Edward Coristine, Luke Farritor, Marko Elez, Gautier Killian, Gavin Kliger, and Ethan Shaotran.^[3] They reportedly conducted video interviews with federal workers without identifying themselves, with queries such as "whom they would choose to fire from their teams if they had to pick one person",^[13] and surprise code reviews, silently supervised by "extremely young men".^[14] They have been called "Doge Kids" by officials, reporters, and social media users.^[15][16][17]

Coristine has gone by the name "Big Balls" on the internet.^[18] According to Brian Krebs, his past poses security risks:^[19] the 19-year-old son of the LesserEvil owner^[20] leaked information from the company where he was interning,^[21] mingled with 'The Com', owned domains registered in Russia,^[22] and provided tech support to another cybercrime group.^[23] Kliger credited Ron Unz for his political awakening,^[24] reposting Nick Fuentes and Andrew Tate, along with supremacist memes.^[25] Elez too has an edgelord past, with posts such as "You could not pay me to marry outside of my ethnicity" and "Normalize Indian hate."^[26]

In February, Farritor and Kliger manually blocked payments for programs approved by Marco Rubio.^[27][28] Court documents filed on March 14 have revealed that DOGE staffer Marko Elez violated Treasury policy by mishandling personal information.^[29] In May, Kliger was said to have coerced Consumer Financial Protection Bureau staff into a 36-hour shift.^[30]

Doxing accusations

On February 4, Musk accused of doxing those who circulated the names of the DOGE kids.^[31] The next day, Ed Martin stated this violated the law,^[32] According to New York Times reporter Ken Bensinger, Musk was attempting to describe traditional journalism as doxing in order to invalidate the role of the media in government accountability.^[33]

[](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:We_Choose_to_Fight-_Nobody_Elected_Elon_Protest_-_54307687491.jpg)The "We Choose to Fight: Nobody Elected Elon" protest, organized by MoveOn, was held at the Treasury on February 4, 2025.Duration: 1 hour, 27 minutes and 1 second.1:27:01Several US Congress members spoke against Musk's role in the government during the "We Choose to Fight: Nobody Elected Elon" protests.

Lists

On February 4, Wired identified Rajpal at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.^[34] The next day, The Guardian said Kliger, Farritor entered USAID with Jeremy Lewin and Pete Marocco.^[17] On February 7, NPR noted the opacity of the scope of DOGE's work and the identities of its members; it named four with senior roles: Ricardo Biasini, Tom Krause, Amanda Scales, and Thomas Shedd, all with Musk ties;^[35] CNN also said Farritor has been granted access to Department of Energy's information systems despite their chief information officer's objections,^[36] and Kliger, Rajpal, and Chris Young were reported by Wired at the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau;^[37] later Bloomberg also revealed Lewin, Young, and Jordan Wick in that operation.

Days after it identified three lawyers tied to the Supreme Court,^[38] ProPublica published on February 8 a list of who is involved in DOGE; it last updated its list on June 10, reaching 109 names; few have a known contractual status; some have tried to conceal their roles; the White House provided little information.^[39] On February 11, Business Insider listed more than 30 DOGE members, and four new names: Kendall Lindemann, Adam Ramada, Kyle Schutt, and Austin Raynor;^[40] ProPublica also disclosed new names: Jenn Balajada, Nicole Hollander, and Ryan Riedel.^[41] Wired revealed the next day that the new chief information officers of the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), the Office of personal Management (OPM), and the Department of Energy (DoE) were tied to Palantir or SpaceX.^[42] The Washington Post published on the same day (February 7) that DOGE overtook 15 agencies with 30 DOGE operatives (staffers and allies); of the few it named, only Noah Peters and Alexandra Beynon were not known.^[43]

On February 18, TechCrunch published a list of DOGE staffers, and the senior advisors coming from Musk's inner circle;^[44] that list has been updated on May 20.^[45] On February 24, Wired identified Farritor, Lewin, Rachel Riley, and Clark Minor at the National Institute of Health.^[46] Days later, the New York Times said much of DOGE's "operations are opaque, and most of its personnel have not been disclosed by the Trump administration"; they tracked the roles DOGE members officially took, and the agencies to which they were delegated, and also mapped the ties that could explain why the members were hired.^[47]

On March 6, Fortune issued its list of "top players" at DOGE.^[48] Bloomberg published the day after a list of DOGE members tied to Peter Thiel.^[49] Wired followed suit, naming three affiliates tied to Palantir.^[50] At the end of March, Politico listed names from DOGE's "legal army".^[51] Wired mapped DOGE's corporate connections as known by the end of March.^[4] Musk appeared at the end of the month on Fox News, along seven DOGE advisors, whom The Hill profiled.^[52] The Washington Post published its own comprehensive list on April 8.^[53] Bloomberg made a second list in mid-April, about Musk associates.^[54]

Obfuscation

While Musk promised "maximal transparency" and Trump revealed the size of DOGE (c. 100 people), details about its operations were not made public by the administration.^[55] The structure of DOGE has not been published.^[56] USDS staffers reported that the DOGE team embedded isolated themselves from the other members of the agency.^[57] CNN sent Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests in February for security clearance records of DOGE members who were granted access to sensitive or classified government data; the response, from an OPM email address, was: "Good luck with that they just got rid of the entire privacy team". Sources told CNN that employees from the communications staff and those who handle FOIA requests were also dismissed.^[58]

Administration officials have contested DOGE membership in internal communications, in public, and in courts.^[59] Amy Gleason argued in group chat she had no control over DOGE members hired by other agencies, nor any responsibility regarding their actions, including firings.^[60] General Services Administration (GSA) administrator and DOGE member Stephen Ehikian stated "there is no DOGE team at GSA"^[61] even though DOGE leadership occupied the sixth floor at GSA protected by security, with IKEA bedroom furniture, a child's play area and washing appliances.^[62][63] In a legal case involving the Department of Labor, DOGE lawyers objected to the plaintiffs' meanings of "DOGE employee", "sensitive systems", "access", "records", and "authority", which they deemed "vague and ambiguous"; they restricted the concept of DOGE employee to "individuals who have a formal relationship" with the US DOGE Service.^[64][65] In a court case involving the "Fork in the road" mass email, DOGE member Jacob Altik has been presented as an OPM lawyer when trying to shut down the African Development Foundation along with other DOGE members.^[66]

Few DOGE members spoke to the press. Musk appeared on Fox News multiple times and spoke to Joe Rogan, but declined challenging interviews.^[67]

Leadership

One month after being taken over by DOGE, Multiple legacy USDS employees could not identify its leadership.^[6] In a February 17 affidavit, Office of Administration director Joshua Fischer told Judge Tanya Chutkan that Musk was not the administrator or an employee of DOGE but a special government employee with no "authority to make government decisions". Trump declared two days later to have put "Musk in charge" of DOGE.^[68] At a February 24 hearing, Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly questioned the constitutionality of retrofitting DOGE as the United States Digital Service and asked the government attorney, Bradley Humphreys, about its structure; he said that he ignored Musk's role beyond that of Trump advisor.^[69] On the next day, Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said that Musk is "overseeing DOGE" but refused to identify its administrator.^[70][71]

Later the same day, the White House named Amy Gleason, who worked from 2018 through 2021 at US Digital Service (USDS), as acting administrator.^[72][73] On February 28, Justice Department lawyer Joshua Gardner told Judge Theodore D. Chuang that he was unable to identify the administrator of DOGE before Gleason.^[74] In a filing submitted under seal but partly released in March, the Trump administration recognized that Gleason has been working at Health and Human Services at the same time that she said having worked full-time as an administrator of the US DOGE Service.^[75] At the end of February, neither the White House nor its lawyers could confirm who was running it.^[6]

In his March 4 joint address to Congress, Trump repeated that DOGE "is headed by Elon Musk".^[76][77] After being quoted in lawsuits days later, Trump reportedly told members of his Cabinet that they rather than Musk and DOGE were to make staffing decisions for their departments, but a few hours later remonstrated "If they don't cut, then Elon will do the cutting."^[78] On March 18, Chuang determined that Musk was "the leader of DOGE" and that his actions in dismantling USAID violated the Appointments Clause.^[9] In a May 21 Supreme Court filing, Solicitor General John Sauer told the court that Musk "is not part of" DOGE.^[79] In a separate lawsuit involving Musk's company X, his own lawyers stated that he is "in charge of" DOGE.^[80]

Departures

During Tesla's earnings call on April 22, Musk told his investors that he planned to reduce his government work, but that he will "likely" continue for the remainder of Trump's term.^[81][82][83] Musk clarified that he was not planning to step away from DOGE entirely, saying that he would "spend a day or two per week on government matters for as long as the president would like me to do so".^[84] Musk began working remotely around the same time,^[85] months after expressing his intent to ban remote work for federal workers.^[86] Musk's offboarding began on May 28 at the end of his scheduled time as a special government employee.^[87][88] Top Musk lieutenant Steve Davis, top DOGE advisor Katie Miller and DOGE general counsel James Burnham would be leaving as well.^[89] Trump officially thanked Musk during an Oval Office farewell on May 30, and said Musk was "not really leaving".^[90] During an interview with Brett Baier on June 1, Musk criticized the One Big Beautiful Bill Act for undoing DOGE's work.^[91] Shortly after, the Trump–Musk feud erupted.

Institutionalization

Main article: Department of Government Efficiency § Institutionalization

After the Trump–Musk feud in June, DOGE affiliates started to integrate other agencies, not as members of a separate organization embedded to them. Edward Coristine has disappeared from GSA's directory and joined the SSA,^[92] alongside Aram Moghaddassi; Joe Gebbia has been appointed as the first chief design officer of the National Design Studio; Jeremy Lewin joined the Department of State; Zachary Terrell has become HHS chief information officer; Rachel Riley has become the Office of Naval Research chief; Amy Gleason, presumably the acting administrator, became an adviser to Robert F. Kennedy Jr. in March;^[93] Sam Beyda is now CDC's chief of staff.^[94] Legacy employees told Wired they were asked not to call them "DOGE".^[2] DOGE has continued to recruit tech workers, promising up to $195,000.^[95] According to Sahil Lavingia and other sources, Davis was still involved after he officially left, through Signal.^[2][96]

In the same month, OMB director Russell Vought told lawmakers that DOGE affiliates have become "institutionalized" and that he envisioned them "as in-house consultants as a part of the agency's leadership".^[97][98] In November 2025, Scott Kupor told Reuters that DOGE had ceased to exist and that the government-wide hiring freeze was over.^[99] In follow-up questions, he told Time that OPM and OMB would "institutionalize" the changes made by DOGE.^[100]

Composition

Type

DOGE members have been classified into leadership, staffers and allies; allies either have no formal affiliation with DOGE^[11][12] or joined the administration through other means.^[47] Types of staffer resemble DOGE teams mentioned in the first executive order:^[101] executive, tech, and lawyer.^[a] An "affiliate" is thus either a leader or a staffer.^[4]

DOGE involvement extends beyond employee status: personnel consisted of volunteers at first.^[40] While the Office of Presidential Personnel made political loyalty to Trump a cornerstone of its hiring strategy, DOGE employees were onboarded through a separate Musk-led process.^[102] Musk said in March 2025 that there are around 100 employees and that he planned to double the staff.^[103] Special government employees have an advisory role limited to a 130-day work period that can be paid or unpaid. Those who earn a substantial salary have to disclose it. Unlike federal workers, special employees are allowed to keep outside salaries and may not need to disclose conflicts of interest.^[104][105]

Roles

Many DOGE members are embedded in other government units under specific roles.^[106] At least 23 employees hired at the OPM between Jan. 20 and Feb. 20 worked for DOGE.^[107] By March, DOGE was installed at GSA^[108] and SSA.^[109] DOGE teams have been detailed to almost every executive branch agency; six members affiliated to GSA tried to embed DOGE teams in units outside of it.^[110]

Ties

Wired mapped four connections: Musk (roughly 40 DOGE members were tied to him), conservative lawyers, Trump, and Silicon Valley.^[4] ProPublica found 29 executive managers, 28 engineers, 16 investors, and 12 lawyers; more came from finance than any other field; it also found that most staffers are young (60% under 40) men (83% male) with limited government experience.^[5] Bloomberg found connections between DOGE members and either Musk or Thiel.^[54][49]

At least 23 DOGE officials are making cuts at agencies that regulate where they previously worked.^[5] Many DOGE members made financial contributions to the Trump campaign.^[111]

Involvement

Besides appearing in lists, DOGE affiliates were covered with specific news of their exploits. Five were named when NBC broke the news that DOGE transferred data out of the Department of Labor on February 13: Sam Beyda, Derek Geissler, Cole Killian, Adam Ramada and Jordan Wick.^[112] On June 16, the New York Times listed the key 8 DOGE official involved with SSA.^[113]

Network

Keys

^[a] – New York Times' billionaires list^[11]
^[b] – New York Times' insider look^[12]
^[c] – ProPublica's updated list^[39]
^[d] – Business Insider's squad^[40]
^[e] – TechCrunch's universe^[45]
^[f] – New York Times' tracker^[47]
^[g] – Fortune's top power players list^[48]
^[h] – Bloomberg's Thiel network^[49]
^[i] – Wired' SSA list^[109]
^[j] – Politico's "legal army"^[51]
^[k] – The Hill's Fox News list^[52]
^[l] – Bloomberg's Musk associates^[54]
^[m] – Washington Post's list^[53]
^[n] – Bloomberg' OPM list^[107]

Table

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an 3 26

Even as he has vowed to eliminate “every dollar of waste, fraud, and abuse across the federal budget and operations,” the new acting administrator of the General Services Administration, Stephen Ehikian, has appointed a senior adviser whose firm used to specialize in tax transactions that a bipartisan Senate committee excoriated and that the IRS branded as “abusive” and among “the worst of the worst tax scams.” The adviser has been battling the tax agency in court over $4 billion in disallowed deductions for thousands of his clients.

The GSA, the federal agency responsible for managing the government’s land and property, will now be taking advice from Frank Schuler IV, the 57-year-old co-founder and longtime president of Ornstein-Schuler, an Atlanta-based real estate investment company. Schuler’s firm was for years among the most prolific promoters of tax-shelter deals known as “syndicated conservation easements.”

Schuler and his colleagues exploited a tax deduction that was created to reward landowners who give up development rights for their acreage, usually by donating those rights to a nonprofit land trust. When used as intended, conservation easements can preserve pristine land, sometimes as a park that the public can use, and reward the land donor with a charitable tax deduction.

But middlemen like Schuler’s firm turned the tax provision into a highly profitable business, packaging easements into what were essentially outsized tax deductions for purchase. After snatching up a cheap piece of vacant land, Schuler and others typically hired a private appraiser willing to declare that the property had huge untapped development value — that it was suited to become anything from a gravel mine to a luxury resort — and was worth many times its purchase price. They then sold stakes in the easement donation to rich individuals, who claimed wildly inflated tax deductions based on the appraisal, cutting their taxes by twice as much as they’d invested. ProPublica first began investigating the syndicated easement business, which has cost the government tens of billions in tax revenue, back in 2017.

The IRS, the Justice Department and Congress struggled for years, through public warnings, hundreds of audits, tax court cases and criminal prosecutions, to shut down the scheme. Those efforts were countered by $11 million in lobbying expenditures from the promoters and the creation of a Washington-based trade group, called Partnership for Conservation, which Schuler founded. Syndication advocates pressed Congress to defund the IRS crackdown.

In 2020, the Senate Finance Committee released a bipartisan investigative report on the transactions. (Schuler was one of six people subpoenaed by the committee to provide information.) The report, which detailed Ornstein-Schuler’s practices, described syndicated easements as a “dollar machine” for wealthy taxpayers, saving them two dollars in taxes for every dollar they put in, “with promoters pocketing millions of dollars in fees for organizing the deals.” The practice was finally curbed through legislation passed in late 2022, but it remains on the IRS’ “Dirty Dozen” list of “bogus tax avoidance strategies.”

“This is someone who made his money by ripping off American taxpayers and who shouldn’t come anywhere near a position of authority over tax dollars,” commented Sen. Ron Wyden, the Oregon Democrat who helped oversee the Senate investigation, in a written statement after being told about Schuler’s appointment. “He’ll fit right in with the Trump administration.”

Schuler’s exact role in the government is unclear. A GSA staffer said that he was present on a recent 15-minute video “check-in” conducted by Nate Cavanaugh, a 28-year-old who ProPublica has identified as being part of Elon Musk’s DOGE team. Cavanaugh introduced Schuler, who said little, as “my colleague Frank.”

Schuler’s photo and contact information were also listed last week in the agency’s internal staff directory shortly after his profile disappeared from the Ornstein-Schuler website. But it’s unknown whether he’s a paid government employee or a volunteer associated with Elon Musk’s DOGE effort. Schuler and Matt Ornstein did not respond to calls, messages and emails seeking comment. The GSA and Ehikian did not respond to emails sent to the agency’s press office.

In the past, Schuler has described his tax transactions as legitimate and well intentioned. In a 2017 interview with ProPublica, he said his entry into the business of syndicating easements was the result of a personal epiphany sparked when his toddler son compared the paving of a residential development to pollution. As Schuler described it, “The importance of conserving land for him and future generations really pushed me to this point. … That’s why today I’m so passionate about conservation.”

Ornstein-Schuler dropped out of the syndicated-easement business in 2019, citing “recent developments and the uncertainty related to the conservation and gifting of property.” The firm turned to other real estate and tax realms, including launching a new division to buy and sell Georgia state film tax credits. Schuler also reportedly earned a credit as an executive producer on a film in which Mira Sorvino played an AI home security system. (Ornstein, who’s still CEO of Ornstein-Schuler, also co-founded a private equity firm, whose holdings include a chain of dental offices and a chain of car washes.)

But the legal warfare over Ornstein-Schuler’s tax-avoidance business continues today. According to a recent IRS filing, the firm has filed more than 100 tax court cases involving its transactions, contesting more than $4 billion in disallowed charitable deductions from some 2,000 investors. Many of the cases are still pending. Ornstein-Schuler has made long-running efforts to reach a global settlement with the IRS; another filing includes an August 2022 letter from one of its law firms asserting that such an agreement would clear the way for collection of $1.5 billion in taxes and would personally cost Schuler and his partner approximately $150 million in additional taxes, interest and penalties.

A tax court decision handed down last year resolved the first of Schuler’s cases to actually go to trial, involving multiple conservation easements from 2014 on 4,607 acres in rural Alabama. The promoters claimed that the potential for sand and gravel mining justified a total of $187 million in charitable deductions. Investor promotional materials, evidence showed, projected $200,000 in tax savings for every $100,000 invested. The decision, which resolved 13 linked cases involving the property, backed the IRS, disallowing about $180 million of the $187 million in write-offs and imposing 40% “gross valuation misstatement” penalties on most of the disallowed amounts. The judge found that partnerships promoted by Schuler had claimed deductions as high as $50,000 an acre on land that had been purchased less than a year earlier for $2,200 an acre.

In his opinion, Albert Lauber, a senior judge in U.S. Tax Court, pointedly noted how Ornstein-Schuler’s standard pitch of promising investors $2 in tax savings for every $1 they invested assumed he’d obtain a sky-high property appraisal, generating a profitable investor write-off. “When asked at trial how he could have posited in advance a deduction-to-investment ratio of $4.389 to $1, before any appraisals had been performed, Mr. Schuler said that appraisals were basically irrelevant to the tax write-off they were offering,” the judge wrote. He called the land values Schuler’s firm had claimed “wholly implausible.”

“We were making plenty of money,” Schuler testified during the case. “The investors were doing well. And we felt that it was great that land was being conserved.”

Ornstein-Schuler is also among the defendants in a federal class-action suit in Georgia filed by three investors. The suit claims Ornstein-Schuler collaborated with lawyers, accountants, appraisers and others to collect millions in fees through a “fraudulent scheme” that deployed “a mountain of misrepresentations and omissions” to promote invalid easement deductions based on “egregiously inflated appraisals.” Ornstein-Schuler and other defendants have filed a joint motion to dismiss the case, asserting that the risks of the easement investments were fully disclosed and they misled no one.

Ornstein-Schuler has also gone on the attack. In December 2023, it sued the IRS, claiming that the agency had failed to respond to a Freedom of Information Act request for an array of agency documents. The firm complained of “IRS abuses relating to its targeting of conservation easement transactions,” which it said were part of a “well-publicized campaign.” Among the requested documents: “all records of communications between IRS employees and members of the news media,” including ProPublica reporter Peter Elkind, Wall Street Journal reporter Richard Rubin and Forbes reporter Peter Reilly, regarding conservation easements. Rod Rosenstein, a deputy U.S. attorney general during the first Trump administration, is representing Ornstein-Schuler in the case.

Doris Burke contributed research. Avi Asher-Schapiro contributed reporting.

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‘They’re trying to get rich off it’: US contractors vie to rebuild Gaza, with ‘Alligator Alcatraz’ team in the lead | US news | The Guardian

exclusive: group behind notorious Florida immigration detention center created bid for reconstruction deal

Aram Roston and Cate Brown in Washington

Sun 14 Dec 2025

Trump administration insiders and well-connected Republican businesses have been jostling to dominate pending humanitarian aid and reconstruction logistics in the shattered Gaza Strip, according to sources and documents reviewed by the Guardian.

With three-quarters of Gaza’s structures damaged or destroyed by two years of Israeli strikes, the rebuilding effort to come – estimated at $70bn by the United Nations – could be a rich prize for companies that specialize in construction, demolition, transportation and logistics.

But there’s no way to issue long-term contracts for reconstruction or humanitarian aid yet: a Board of Peace, chaired by Donald Trump, was endorsed by the United Nations to administer the territory but is not yet in operation. And the mandate of the new Civil-Military Coordination Center is limited.

Parallel to these official efforts, the White House has established its own Gaza taskforce led by Jared Kushner, Steve Witkoff and Aryeh Lightstone.

The Guardian has learned that two former Doge officials – once assigned to Elon Musk’s effort to slash government and fire federal workers in bulk – are leading the group’s conversations about humanitarian assistance and the postwar reconstruction of Gaza. They have circulated slide decks with detailed plans for logistics operations, including prices, financial projections and the locations of potential warehouses.

US companies are gathering for the spoils. One contender, the Guardian has learned, is Gothams LLC, a politically connected contractor that won a $33m contract to help run the notorious south Florida detention center nicknamed “Alligator Alcatraz”, where immigrants are housed in tents and trailers.

Documents and three people familiar with the plans say that the contractor had an “inside track” to secure what might be the most lucrative contract it’s ever had.But in an interview on Friday, after questions from the Guardian, the company’s founder, Matt Michelsen, said he had reconsidered his company’s participation and was pulling out, citing security concerns.

Eddie Vasquez, a spokesperson for the White House Gaza taskforce, did not provide answers to detailed questions about the White House-led process. He said in an email that this story “illustrates a fundamental ignorance of how the Gaza team operates and the current state of play. We are at the early stages of planning and there are many ideas and proposals currently being discussed with no final decisions having been made.”

Meanwhile, sources say contractors have been flying to the region in order to meet with influential US officials and potential business partners before the holidays.

“Everybody and their brother is trying to get a piece of this,” one long-time contractor familiar with the process . “People are treating this like another Iraq or Afghanistan. And they’re trying to get, you know, rich off of it.”

$1.7bn for a ‘master contractor’

In November, the UN endorsed Trump’s plan for Gaza.

While Trump and Kushner both have envisioned wealthy resort concepts, most of the international community wishes to see Gaza rebuilt as a livable home for its 2.1 million Palestinian residents. Meanwhile, Israel continues to control half of the Gaza Strip, and has said it will forbid reconstruction on the half overseen by Hamas until the group disarms.

Two former Doge officials were dispatched to the region as planning for postwar Gaza ramped up this fall. One was Josh Gruenbaum, an appointee to the General Services Administration now serving as a senior adviser to the Gaza taskforce. The other was Adam Hoffman, a 25-year-old Princeton graduate, who joined Elon Musk’s Doge efforts last March. Two people who have dealt directly with the junior adviser say that Hoffman has become a driving force in the newest plans.

“The impression is that whatever those guys say is going to happen,” said a person familiar with the process. “That is the perception anyway.”

Hoffman has conservative political activist credentials going back to his teen years. At 14, he worked as a volunteer for the Republican governor of Texas, Greg Abbott, according to a 2020 profile by the Jewish Telegraphic Agency. And even before finishing college, he briefly worked in Trump’s first administration at the Council of Economic Advisors. At Princeton, he alleged there was antisemitism on campus after a prominent critic of the Israeli government was invited to speak at a solidarity event with Gaza.

Three sources familiar with the process say Hoffman has been soliciting ideas for a new logistics scheme in Gaza. The Guardian has reviewed a planning document, which the sources say was circulated by Hoffman, that details a new “Gaza Supply System Logistics Architecture”.

Labeled “Sensitive but Unclassified”, Hoffman’s planning document calls for a “Master Contractor” to supply 600 humanitarian and commercial truckloads to Gaza per day. It suggests charging a $2,000 fee for every humanitarian load and a $12,000 fee to commercial trucks.

By operating as a licensing entity, the contractor could “earn a fair return” off humanitarian and commercial clients entering Gaza, the document says. If a “Master Contractor” performs apace, the Guardian estimates that they could gross $1.7bn a year on trucking fees alone.

Trucking will be crucially important to any reconstruction efforts in Gaza. Before the war, about 500 trucks entered the enclave each day, providing critical imports to a population that’s lived under Israel’s military blockade for decades.

Since 7 October 2023, Israel has intermittently cut off all entry and exit to Gaza, limiting access to basic goods, including food, fuel and building supplies. While the ceasefire deal reached in October established that 600 trucks of aid would enter the territory daily, Israel has limited entry to an average of only 140 trucks a day.

Historically, the United Nations has participated in the delivery of humanitarian aid across Gaza – once supplying more than 80% of its residents with basic goods, education and healthcare.

It’s unclear what role the United Nations or other longtime humanitarian actors will play moving forward. Israeli authorities control access permits for all groups that work in Gaza, including the for-profit contractors lining up to consider future work with the Board of Peace.

Amed Khan, an American philanthropist who runs the Amed Khan Foundation and delivers medicine to Gaza, said the reconstruction planning is flawed and buffoonish. “None of these people are humanitarians or have backgrounds in humanitarian assistance. It’s a bunch of crap,” he said. “There’s no surge of medicine, no surge of medical equipment.”

The Guardian reviewed a proposal by Gothams, signed by the firm’s chief financial officer and addressed to the Board of Peace. “In response to requests to provide a proposal to the future Board of Peace,” Gothams wrote, it was offering a “fully integrated humanitarian logistics system to support large scale aid operations into Gaza”.

Three sources say Gothams has been the apparent frontrunner to handle logistics, and has been lining up suppliers and subcontractors.

Michelsen, the firm’s founder, is a politically connected Republican who’s donated extensively to Greg Abbott and Florida governor Ron DeSantis.

After a wide-ranging career that brought him in contact with Lady Gaga, 50 Cent and several Silicon Valley tycoons, including executives at Meta and Palantir, Michelsen turned to the disaster-response business, founding Gothams in 2019.

The company has had a remarkable rise in recent years thanks to lush government contracts. It was awarded hundreds of millions in government funding for running Covid-19 programs during the pandemic, and supplying logistics in the booming industry of state-run detention operations.

In 2022, the Texas Observer reported that Michelsen donated a quarter-million dollars to Abbott’s campaign efforts, the same year Texas awarded Gothams a $43m contract.

Michelsen said he donated to Abbott because he likes him: “I support Abbott.”

He told the Guardian on Friday that he was limited in how much he could say about Gaza plans, and was unwilling to discuss Hoffman, Gruenbaum or the process. “I’ve agreed not to share anything about the government,” he said.

Michelsen did say that the plans had changed drastically over the past two weeks, growing in scale. “The original premise has changed,” he said. “This thing has changed massively.”

In his interview, Michelsen said questions from the Guardian had prompted him to pull out of the Gaza contracting effort. “Your questions have really hit me,” he said. He said he’d just made the decision, and was notifying the Guardian before even telling Gothams’ staff. He was concerned about bad publicity, he said, and about potential security risks, if he goes forward.

“Gothams will not be participating,” he said. “I wish them well.”

Michelsen did promise, if he changes his mind again, to let the Guardian know.

---

Kyle Schutt

https://dogetrack.info/wreckers/kyle-schutt/)

doge tracktool

##kyle Schutt

Wrecker (https://dogetrack.info/people/wreckers), coder, age 37

Kyle Schutt (https://dogetrack.info/wreckers/kyle-schutt) is from the intersection of technologist and Republican party politics, having built an online fundraising platform Revv, that is frequently used by the GOP. He was also linked to the development (https://xcancel.com/samwcyo/status/1889527715029557607) of DOGE’s website doge.gov (https://doge.gov/), which was hacked and vandalized at launch because he left the database accessible to the outside world (https://www.404media.co/anyone-can-push-updates-to-the-doge-gov-website-2/), and his computer has been infected with credential-stealing malware multiple times (https://cyberpress.org/stolen-credentials-from-doge-employee/). For its part, DOGE gave him access to a highly-sensitive database containing information on unaccompanied migrant children and admin credentials at CISA (https://dogetrack.info/agencies/homeland-security).

Positions

click for sources; full legend (https://dogetrack.info/about/these-symbols/)

Position

Notes

GSA (https://dogetrack.info/agencies/gsa)

GSA (https://dogetrack.info/agencies/gsa) c.2/18 appointed (GS-15/10, $195,200)

DHS (https://dogetrack.info/agencies/homeland-security)

GSA (https://dogetrack.info/agencies/gsa) DHS (https://dogetrack.info/agencies/homeland-security) c.2/19 likely detailed

DHS (https://dogetrack.info/agencies/homeland-security) CISA (https://dogetrack.info/agencies/homeland-security) 2/19 likely detailed Senior Advisor

DHS (https://dogetrack.info/agencies/homeland-security) CBP (https://dogetrack.info/agencies/homeland-security) date unknown internal xfer

DHS (https://dogetrack.info/agencies/homeland-security) FEMA (https://dogetrack.info/agencies/homeland-security) date unknown internal xfer

DHS (https://dogetrack.info/agencies/homeland-security) ICE (https://dogetrack.info/agencies/homeland-security) date unknown internal xfer

DHS (https://dogetrack.info/agencies/homeland-security) TSA (https://dogetrack.info/agencies/homeland-security) date unknown internal xfer

DHS (https://dogetrack.info/agencies/homeland-security) USCIS (https://dogetrack.info/agencies/homeland-security) date unknown internal xfer

HHS (https://dogetrack.info/agencies/health)

GSA (https://dogetrack.info/agencies/gsa)? HHS (https://dogetrack.info/agencies/health) 3/14 likely detailed

Systems

click for sources; full legend (https://dogetrack.info/about/these-symbols/)

System

Notes

FEMA-Go

FEMA (https://dogetrack.info/agencies/homeland-security)

FEMA Grants Outcomes (https://dogetrack.info/all/systems#fema-go) 2/10

A system for managing grant program for communities affected by disasters

read access

IFMIS

FEMA (https://dogetrack.info/agencies/homeland-security)

Integrated Financial Management and Information System (https://dogetrack.info/all/systems#ifmis) 2/10

A system for processing all FEMA grant payments

source-code access

UAC Portal

HHS (https://dogetrack.info/agencies/health)

Unaccompanied Alien Children (UAC) Portal (https://dogetrack.info/all/systems#uac) 3/21

The UC Portal manages all medical (mental and dental health included), educational, and sponsorship information for UC in ORR custody

read access granted by CTO

Events

click for sources; full legend (https://dogetrack.info/about/these-symbols/)

Date

Event

1/23 GSA (https://dogetrack.info/agencies/gsa)

Sighting:

A GSA (https://dogetrack.info/agencies/gsa) employee reports meeting Kyle Schutt (https://dogetrack.info/wreckers/kyle-schutt) and Ethan Shaotran (https://dogetrack.info/wreckers/ethan-shaotran/) and also bumping into Edward Coristine (https://dogetrack.info/wreckers/edward-coristine). They are described as being giddy and interested and curious and then shifting in tone the following week with DOGE staff “frantically running around trying to do impossible shit with no context and no flexibility and no ability to push back.”

c.2/11 FEMA (https://dogetrack.info/agencies/homeland-security)

Disruption:

In a meeting, Kyle Schutt (https://dogetrack.info/wreckers/kyle-schutt) asks FEMA (https://dogetrack.info/agencies/homeland-security) staff about the viability of deobligating appropriated funds for the agency, in essence returning the money to Treasury rather than using it for its appropriated purpose.

2/10 FEMA (https://dogetrack.info/agencies/homeland-security)

Access:

Kyle Schutt (https://dogetrack.info/wreckers/kyle-schutt) is granted access to the FEMA (https://dogetrack.info/agencies/homeland-security) Grant Outcomes (FEMA (https://dogetrack.info/agencies/homeland-security) GO) system that is used by FEMA (https://dogetrack.info/agencies/homeland-security) for tracking disaster and other grants across America. He is also given access to the source code for FEMA’s Integrated Financial Management and Information System (IFMIS) which processes payments.

2/10 DHS (https://dogetrack.info/agencies/homeland-security)

Report:

In a meeting providing him with an overview of DHS (https://dogetrack.info/agencies/homeland-security) programs, Kyle Schutt (https://dogetrack.info/wreckers/kyle-schutt) stuns federal staff in the Office of Civil Rights by declaring one of their programs (CRCL) looks like money laundering.

2/11 DOGE (https://dogetrack.info/agencies/white-house)

Report:

Online security researchers post evidence that the DOGE website was developed and is hosted by Outburst Data, a company run and operated by Kyle Schutt (https://dogetrack.info/wreckers/kyle-schutt).

2/19 CISA (https://dogetrack.info/agencies/homeland-security)

Access:

Edward Coristine (https://dogetrack.info/wreckers/edward-coristine) and Kyle Schutt (https://dogetrack.info/wreckers/kyle-schutt) are reportedly given elevated access to CISA (https://dogetrack.info/agencies/homeland-security) systems, including documents and staff emails.

3/04 GSA (https://dogetrack.info/agencies/gsa)

Directory:

Wired reports that some DOGE staff (Kyle Schutt (https://dogetrack.info/wreckers/kyle-schutt), Nate Cavanaugh (https://dogetrack.info/wreckers/nate-cavanaugh)) are being paid as full-time GSA (https://dogetrack.info/agencies/gsa) employees, but other staff are listed as volunteers for that agency.

Edward Coristine (https://dogetrack.info/wreckers/edward-coristine), Ethan Shaotran (https://dogetrack.info/wreckers/ethan-shaotran/), Kyle Schutt (https://dogetrack.info/wreckers/kyle-schutt), Luke Farritor (https://dogetrack.info/wreckers/luke-farritor), Nate Cavanaugh (https://dogetrack.info/wreckers/nate-cavanaugh)

Nicole Hollander (https://dogetrack.info/people/enabler-staff#nicole-hollander)

Derek Geissler (https://dogetrack.info/people/unknowns#derek-geissler)

3/19 DHS (https://dogetrack.info/agencies/homeland-security), DOD (https://dogetrack.info/agencies/defense), EPA (https://dogetrack.info/agencies/epa), GSA (https://dogetrack.info/agencies/gsa)

Interagency:

During a discussion on how to strip grants from the University of Pennsylvania and San Jose State, GSA (https://dogetrack.info/agencies/gsa) FAS Commissioner Josh Gruenbaum (https://dogetrack.info/people/enabler-staff#josh-gruenbaum) sends an email to coordinate grant freezes from DOD (https://dogetrack.info/agencies/defense), DHS (https://dogetrack.info/agencies/homeland-security) and the EPA (https://dogetrack.info/agencies/epa). He includes DOGE staffers Kyle Schutt (https://dogetrack.info/wreckers/kyle-schutt), Adam Hoffman (https://dogetrack.info/wreckers/other#adam-hoffman) and Kathryn Armstrong Loving (https://dogetrack.info/wreckers/other#kathryn-loving) as the recipients of these requests.

Adam Hoffman (https://dogetrack.info/wreckers/other#adam-hoffman), Kathryn Armstrong Loving (https://dogetrack.info/wreckers/other#kathryn-loving), Kyle Schutt (https://dogetrack.info/wreckers/kyle-schutt)

Josh Gruenbaum (https://dogetrack.info/people/enabler-staff#josh-gruenbaum)

3/20 GSA (https://dogetrack.info/agencies/gsa)

Directory:

Wired Magazine list DOGE staff stationed within GSA (https://dogetrack.info/agencies/gsa), all of whom were listed on GSA (https://dogetrack.info/agencies/gsa) payroll on March 20, the same day Stephen Ehikian (https://dogetrack.info/people/enabler-staff#stephen-ehikian) claimed there were no DOGE staff in the agency.

Edward Coristine (https://dogetrack.info/wreckers/edward-coristine), Jeremy Lewin (https://dogetrack.info/wreckers/jeremy-lewin), Kyle Schutt (https://dogetrack.info/wreckers/kyle-schutt), Luke Farritor (https://dogetrack.info/wreckers/luke-farritor), Nate Cavanaugh (https://dogetrack.info/wreckers/nate-cavanaugh), Riley Sennott (https://dogetrack.info/wreckers/other#riley-sennott)

Nicole Hollander (https://dogetrack.info/people/enabler-staff#nicole-hollander), Thomas Shedd (https://dogetrack.info/people/enabler-staff#thomas-shedd)

Ashley Boizelle (https://dogetrack.info/people/support-team#ashley-boizelle), Justin Aimonetti (https://dogetrack.info/people/support-team#justin-aimonetti)

3/21 DHS (https://dogetrack.info/agencies/homeland-security)

Disruption:

The Trump administration eliminates the DHS (https://dogetrack.info/agencies/homeland-security) Office for Civil Rights and Civil Liberties and two ombudsman offices responsible for investigating allegations of abuse from immigrants. This also includes the CRCL program that was characterized as “money laundering” by DOGE staffer Kyle Schutt (https://dogetrack.info/wreckers/kyle-schutt).

3/28 USCIS (https://dogetrack.info/agencies/homeland-security)

Access:

USCIS (https://dogetrack.info/agencies/homeland-security) CIO William McElhaney sends a message to DHS (https://dogetrack.info/agencies/homeland-security) Deputy Secretary asking them to review access that was granted to DOGE staffers Kyle Schutt (https://dogetrack.info/wreckers/kyle-schutt), Edward Coristine (https://dogetrack.info/wreckers/edward-coristine), Aram Moghaddassi (https://dogetrack.info/wreckers/aram-moghaddassi) and Payton Rehling (https://dogetrack.info/wreckers/payton-rehling).

3/29 HHS (https://dogetrack.info/agencies/health)

Directory:

In response to a discovery request made in AFL-CIO vs. DOL, the government provides an incomplete list of DOGE staff who have worked at HHS (https://dogetrack.info/agencies/health).

Edward Coristine (https://dogetrack.info/wreckers/edward-coristine), Kyle Schutt (https://dogetrack.info/wreckers/kyle-schutt), Luke Farritor (https://dogetrack.info/wreckers/luke-farritor), Marko Elez (https://dogetrack.info/wreckers/marko-elez/)

Amy Gleason (https://dogetrack.info/people/leaders#amy-gleason)

3/XX DHS (https://dogetrack.info/agencies/homeland-security)

Disruption:

Kyle Schutt (https://dogetrack.info/wreckers/kyle-schutt) and Edward Coristine (https://dogetrack.info/wreckers/edward-coristine) repeatedly pressure staff over the next two months at DHS (https://dogetrack.info/agencies/homeland-security) to use Grok, a chatbot from Elon Musk (https://dogetrack.info/people/leaders#elon-musk)’s xAI, despite the fact it had not been approved for use in the agency. A DHS (https://dogetrack.info/agencies/homeland-security) spokesperson later denied the allegations.

4/11 DHS (https://dogetrack.info/agencies/homeland-security)

Directory:

Politico profiles a DOGE immigration task force that is located within DHS (https://dogetrack.info/agencies/homeland-security) but has contacts with DOGE staff at other agencies. It includes multiple DOGE staffers detailed from various agencies.

Aram Moghaddassi (https://dogetrack.info/wreckers/aram-moghaddassi), Edward Coristine (https://dogetrack.info/wreckers/edward-coristine), Kyle Schutt (https://dogetrack.info/wreckers/kyle-schutt), Marko Elez (https://dogetrack.info/wreckers/marko-elez/), Payton Rehling (https://dogetrack.info/wreckers/payton-rehling)

Antonio Gracias (https://dogetrack.info/people/leaders#antonio-gracias)

5/23 DHS (https://dogetrack.info/agencies/homeland-security)

Disruption:

Reuters reports that DOGE staffers Kyle Schutt (https://dogetrack.info/wreckers/kyle-schutt) and Edward Coristine (https://dogetrack.info/wreckers/edward-coristine) have attempted to gain access to DHS (https://dogetrack.info/agencies/homeland-security) employee emails in recent months and ordered staff to train AI to identify communications suggesting an employee is not “loyal” to Trump’s political agenda. Given earlier reports, the AI in question is like xAi’s “Grok” AI system.

7/08 FEMA (https://dogetrack.info/agencies/homeland-security)

Disruption:

Funds for FEMA’s Shelter and Services Program (SSP) normally used for disaster relief are redirected to instead provide $608.4 million to ICE (https://dogetrack.info/agencies/homeland-security) for the construction of an immigration detention camp in the Florida Everglades. This anount is only slightly smaller than the entire 2025 budget for the program, which has only $83.5 million in reserve for this fiscal year. Possibly, DOGE aide Kyle Schutt (https://dogetrack.info/wreckers/kyle-schutt) might have assisted in finding money by deobligating other grants.

---

AN 6 25

Since President Donald Trump and Tesla/SpaceX CEO Elon Musk began their public feud, staffers at Musk's Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) are now wondering whether they themselves will still have jobs in the Trump administration.

The Wall Street Journal recently reported that DOGE staffers across multiple federal agencies — whose jobs have mostly consisted of singling out probationary federal workers for mass layoffs — are now in fear of losing their own employment given their ties to Musk. According to the Journal, the White House is defending DOGE's mass firings, though one former staffer who previously worked for Musk's quasi-agency expressed fear that DOGE itself may soon crumble.

"I worry with Elon gone, no one will join, and it will just slowly fade away," software engineer Sahil Lavinigia told the Journal, adding that his work "felt like pushing a boulder up a mountain."

After the Trump-Musk spat reached a fever pitch on Thursday — with Musk calling on Congress to "KILL the BILL" (in reference to the massive budget bill currently being debated in the Senate) — DOGE staffers were reportedly texting each other frantically wondering whether their jobs would be next on the chopping block. That news prompted Amazon Web Services senior software development engineer Alex Wood to post to Bluesky: "It’s a shame that they cut research funding because even with recent advances we still don’t have a violin small enough for this."

IFrame Content

"As a #firedfed, I wish a very sincere F--- You to all the worried DOGE staff, and warm Hope The Door Slams Your D--- Off On The Way Out," environmental toxicologist and former federal employee J.C. Rallo wrote on the platform.

Users of Musk's X social media platform also found joy in the thought of Musk's disciples within the federal government fretting about losing their jobs. Massachusetts legislative aide Rob Cohen acknowledged the "potentially incredible irony" of people who fired government workers en masse now being the ones worried about their own potential firings. Former NFL executive Upton Bell tweeted that he hoped "those leeches are fired" in response to the Journal's report. Puck News' Julia Ioffe wondered: "When has the revolution ever not eaten its own?"

"Alex, I'll take people who I hope have terrible lives for $100," author Angel Luis Colón wrote on Bluesky.

Click here to read the Journal's report in its entirety (subscription required).

---=

comm dr an 5 25

More than a million people in some of the world's most impoverished countries could be fed for three months and hundreds of thousands of children's lives could be saved if $98 million in ready-made meals and other rations were able to leave four warehouses run by the U.S. foreign aid agency dismantled by the Trump administration.

But instead, there is no end in sight to the food languishing in the facilities—or to the starvation of millions of people in Gaza, Sudan, South Sudan, and other parts of the Global South facing high levels of hunger and malnutrition.

Some of the 66,000 tonnes of food, including grains, high-energy biscuits, and vegetable oil, are slated to expire as soon as July, when they will likely be turned into animal feed, incinerated, or otherwise destroyed, Reuters reported Thursday.

The warehouses are located in Houston, South Africa, Djibouti, and Dubai, and are run by the U.S. Agency for International Development's (USAID) Bureau for Humanitarian Assistance. Many of the staff who help run the warehouses are scheduled to be fired on July 1 in the first of two rounds of cuts that will effect nearly all of USAID.

Contracts with suppliers, shipping companies, and contractors have been canceled since USAID was taken over by the Trump administration's so-called Department of Government Efficiency, with the White House saying the agency—with a relatively small budget of just $40 billion—was responsible for "significant waste."

IFrame Content

Since DOGE, run by tech billionaire Elon Musk, targeted USAID in one of its first full-scale attacks on a federal entity, the agency is being run by Secretary of State Marco Rubio. The State Department's Office of Foreign Assistance has not yet approved a proposal to give the stranded food stocks to aid organizations for distribution, two former USAID staffers told Reuters.

That office is being led by Jeremy Lewin, a 28-year-old former DOGE employee who is overseeing the complete decommissioning of USAID, which has provided humanitarian assistance in conflict zones and the Global South for more than six decades.

Max Hoffman, a foreign policy adviser to Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), said the massive waste of life-saving food rations was the result of President Donald Trump and Musk deploying "some idiot 20 year old staggering around USAID turning things off without the faintest idea of the consequences."

Some of the rations were intended for Gaza, where half a million Palestinians are currently facing starvation and the rest of the population of 2.3 million people are suffering from acute levels of food insecurity due to Israel's total blockade on humanitarian aid which was reimposed in March after a brief cease-fire. Thousands of children have been hospitalized with acute malnutrition since the beginning of the year, but Israel's U.S.-backed assault on Gaza has left health providers with extremely limited means to treat them.

The entire population of Gaza could be fed for a month and a half with the food rations that are on the verge of rotting in the four warehouses, Reuters reported.

Nearly 500 tonnes of high-energy biscuits in Dubai are among the stocks that will expire in July, a former USAID official told the outlet. They could feed at least 27,000 acutely malnourished children for a month.

The food aid was also scheduled to go to Sudan, where famine has been confirmed in at least 10 areas as the country faces the third year of a civil war.

Action Against Hunger is one of many aid groups that have had to scale back operations after losing significant funding due to U.S. cuts; the group said last month that its suspension of work in the Democratic Republic of Congo had already directly led to the deaths of at least six children.

In addition to USAID's warehouses full of soon-to-be-expired food, the U.S.-based company Edesia, which makes the peanut-based Plumpy'Nut, told Reuters that USAID's cuts to transportation contracts had forced the company to open an additional warehouse. A $13 million stockpile of 5,000 tonnes of Plumpy'Nut, which is used to prevent severe malnutrition in children, is in the warehouse now—but could be used to feed more than 484,000 children.

"The dismantling of USAID and cuts to humanitarian aid has been devastating and unacceptable," said Oxfam America.

---

DOGE Dossier — A Deep Dive Into ...

Reddit · r/union

:{:{30+ comments · 1 month ago}:

https://www.reddit.com/r/union/comments/1jo0opi/i_just_released_the_doge_dossier_a_deep_dive_into/

The entire dossier is available via a public Google Drive link accessible here:

https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1r0Im7mnui-dtNjTwO_aBRB072L_DF8C9

I Just Released the DOGE Dossier — A Deep Dive Into the Secretive Agency Quietly Dismantling the U.S. Government From the Inside. Discussion.

Email : jeremy_lewin@outlook.com

:{:{DOGE Personnel Included in Part 1:}:

1. Adam Ramada 2. Akash Bobba 3. Alexandra “Aly” Beynon 4. Amanda Scales 5. Austin Raynor 6. Brian Bjelde 7. Brooks Morgan 8. Christina Hanna 9. Christopher Stanley 10. Ethan Shaotran 11. Gautier “Cole” Killian 12. Gavin Kliger 13. Greg Hogan 14. Jacob Altik 15. James Burnham 16. Jennifer “Jehn” Balajadia 17. Jennifer Balajadia 18. Jeremy Lewin 19. Jordan M. Wick 20. Justin Monroe 21. Kathryn Armstrong Lovin 22. Katie Waldman Miller 23. Kendall M. Lindemann 24. Kyle Schutt 25. Luke Farritor 26. Marko Elez 27. Michael Russo 28. Nate Cavanaugh 29. Nicole Hollander 30. Nikhil “Nik” Rajpal 31. Noah Peters 32. Rachel Riley 33. Riccardo Biasini 34. Ryan Riedel 35. Stephen Duarte 36. Stephen Ehikian 37. Steve Davis 38. Thomas Shedd 39. Tom Krause}:

---

'I’m not dead': How 'countless' US citizens were 'killed off' Social Security databases thanks to DOGE

an 4 25

---

an 4 25

Employees at one federal agency were reportedly kept up for more than a day and a half straight due to the demands of a staffer from South African centibillionaire's Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE).

That's according to a Friday article from CNN, which reported on DOGE staffer Gavin Kliger's alleged treatment of workers at the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB). The allegations stem from a sworn declaration a CFPB employee made in U.S. District judge Amy Berman Jackson's court anonymously out of fear of retaliation.

In the declaration, the worker stated that Kliger "kept CFPB staffers working for 36 hours straight to send out mass layoff notices" and was apparently "screaming at those he thought weren’t working fast enough." Kliger — who Reuters reported had amplified content from white supremacist Nick Fuentes — has since been ordered to appear at a hearing scheduled for April 28 pertaining to the mass firing of CFPB employees.

On Friday, Judge Jackson ruled that the roughly 1,500 fired CFPB workers (out of approximately 1,700) would have to be reinstated, as she weighed whether their firings were a violation of a prior court ordered preventing DOGE from effectively shutting down the agency aimed at protecting American consumers from financial scams.

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That prior decision ruled that the mass firings of workers at the agency were illegal, as it would prevent the CFPB from meeting its statutory requirements that Congress legislated at the time of its creation. Because the CFPB is a Congressionally authorized agency, it would take an act of Congress to dismantle it.

The Trump administration argued that the mass firings were legitimate, asserting that the CFPB had "pushed well beyond the limits of the law" in its work while "engag[ing] in intrusive and wasteful fishing expedition. Mark Paoletta, who the administration named as the CFPB's chief legal officer, insisted that leaving the CFPB with just 200 employees was sufficient for the agency to fulfull its statutory obligations.

"An approximately 200 person agency allows the Bureau to fulfill its statutory duties and better aligns with the new leadership’s priorities and management philosophy," he said.

an 4 25

Elon Musks’ Department of Government Efficiency is getting its own moment under the microscope, reports WIRED.

Records show the Government Accountability Office (GAO) has launched a probe of DOGE, requesting “comprehensive information from the agencies in question, including incident reports on ‘potential or actual misuse of agency systems or data’ and documentation of policies and procedures relating to systems DOGE operatives have accessed, as well as documentation of policies for the agency's risk assessments, audit logs, insider threat programs, and more.”

The GAO is an independent auditing, research and investigative agency for Congress.

Musk has sent DOGE operatives, most with no experience with government auditing, to ransack federal agencies of funding and employees. Additionally, Trump appointed administrators are working with DOGE teams to strip their own departments of resources, laying off hundreds of employees.

Democrats have vocally opposed such efforts with what critics call low-energy speeches and internet dance scenes, but WIRED reports the GAO audit is likely “one of the first real signs of possible accountability and oversight.”

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“GAO has received requests to review actions taken by DOGE across multiple agencies,” GAO spokesperson Sarah Kaczmarek told WIRED. “The first thing GAO does as any work begins is to determine the full scope of what we will cover and the methodology to be used. Until that is done, we cannot provide any additional details or estimates on when the work will be completed.”

Information obtained by WIRED shows the GAO is focused on investigating safeguards in place serving “confidentiality, integrity, and availability of agency systems and information” according to files.

Read the WIRED story here.

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narvarro made up ron anagram, tossed under bus in 48 min recd?

beef elon car assembler bag of bricks

Tech billionaire and Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) head Elon Musk's brother, Kimbal Musk, also a businessman, said Tuesday President Donald Trump's top trade advisor Peter Navarro is "truly a moron."

"What he says here is demonstrably false,” Musk said in a post on the social platform X while reacting to a video in which Navarro claimed Tesla is seen as a “car manufacturer” but is actually just a “car assembler.”

“@realDonaldTrump Mr President, if Peter Navarro has lied to you about Ron Vara, what else has he lied to you about?” Kimbal Musk wrote. “Put America first and fire him!”

ALSO READ:'Car assembler': Top Trump aide hits back at Elon Musk’s criticism

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“Navarro is dumber than a sack of bricks,” Musk added.

On Monday, Navarro called Elon Musk a "car assembler," saying that people consider him a car manufacturer — which he is not.

“When it comes to tariffs and trade, we all understand in the White House and the American people understand that Elon’s a car manufacturer, but he’s not a car manufacturer. He’s a car assembler in many cases,” Navarro, who is an architect of Trump's controversial policy on tariffs, said on CNBC.

Navarro was trying to clear the air after the DOGE head called him out over Trump's tariff policy over the weekend. Navarro referred to Musk as a "car person," while insisting that he does not have major disagreements with the DOGE head.

ALSO READ:'Warning to the GOP': WSJ sounds alarm over 'MAGA backlash'

This clash between Navarro and the Musk brothers came as Trump has imposed a series of sweeping global tariffs, including a 25 percent tariff on imported vehicles.

Kimbal is the DOGE head's younger brother who operates a restaurant chain named The Kitchen, serves on Tesla's board, and has previously held positions as a director at SpaceX and Chipotle. He has also co-founded and invested in various food and tech startups, such as Square Roots, an indoor agriculture company, and Nova Sky Stories, a producer of drone light displays that he acquired from Intel.

ALSO READ:'Basic betrayal': CEOs terrified of Trump retaliation won’t speak out against policies

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While Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) Gen-Z-aged software programmers are firing federal employees (includingveterans), a computer code appears to have been responsible for the laying off of 30 medical-related employees, including more than 10 laboratory leaders, at the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (NINDS). NINDS’ office of Human Resources scrambled to quickly re-hire the wrongly fired staff this week after a coding error mislabeled employees with incorrect position codes.

“NIH leadership has informed us that the individuals below should be contacted ASAP and told immediately return to work,” the HR email stated. Among reinstated employees are three senior scientists and staff in the Office of Research Training and Career Development, as well as people in the Office of the Scientific Director and facilities. One of the employees also included Richard Youle, who claimed a 2021 Breakthrough Prize in Life Sciences after showing how clearing out damaged organelles discourages Parkinson’s disease.

“I am infuriated at the inefficiency of the time wasted by staff running around having to respond to these events, heartbroken for the emotional cost for hardworking, dedicated civil servants and scientific trainees just starting their careers,” an anonymous NINDS employee told The Transmitter.

These 30 individuals are just a few of about 10,000 federal workers hit with reduction-in-force notices after Department of Health and Human Services secretary Robert F. Kennedy announced an administrative overhaul. This includes more than 1,000 National Institutes of Health (NIH) probationary employees receiving termination notices in February. The agency later walked back some of those dismissals as well.

Kennedy’s blanket purge is impacting many government facets connected to public health. CBS News recently reported that at least two-thirds of National Institute of Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) staff expected to be removed as part of Kennedy’s “restructuring” effort, despite Congress being the creating authority in the 1970s. The expulsions ended "health hazard evaluation" probes within the agency while other health-related layoffs are threatening life-saving studies and services, say critics.

U.S. Sen. Charles Schumer (D-New York) slammed Kennedy today over layoffs that included employees who’d worked with survivors and first responders to the Sept. 11, 2001 terror attack. Schumer said Kennedy had broken his commitment “to strengthen the health programs in a meeting with senators” prior to his confirmation as Health and Human Services secretary.

Republican politicians who advocated support for blanket lay-offs and the administration behind them are finding strong opposition at public meetings and events. After a wave of argument and hostility, some GOP members are even declining public engagements. President Donald Trump himself may be toying with the possibility of pulling Elon Musk’s controversial DOGE project.

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Despite his pledge of "maximum transparency," Elon Musk has gone to great lengths to obscure the names and activities of staffers working for his Department of Government Efficiency—even claiming at one point that it is illegal to publicly identify members of the advisory commission.

That didn't stop Wired from publishing a story on Thursday that names 10 DOGE operatives who have infiltrated the Social Security Administration, which is facing deep staffing cuts that advocates warn could impact the delivery of benefits.

The staffers, according to Wired, are Akash Bobba, Scott Coulter, Marko Elez, Luke Farritor, Antonio Gracias, Gautier Cole Killian, Jon Koval, Nikhil Rajpal, Payton Rehling, and Ethan Shaotran. The list "includes a number of young engineers whose presence at the SSA has not been reported."

"This team appears to be among the largest DOGE units deployed to any government agency," the outlet noted. "Many of them have worked or interned at Musk companies such as Tesla and SpaceX, and the majority of them have also appeared at other government agencies in recent weeks, as part of DOGE's incursion into the government."

Three of the DOGE staffers—Gracias, Koval, and Rehling—don't seem to have any prior government experience," Wired observed, "but Gracias does have a long history with Musk—he worked at Tesla for 14 years as a company director and helped Musk take the company public."

The details came amid widespread alarm and legal action over DOGE staffers' access to highly sensitive information at SSA, which administers benefits to tens of millions of Americans.

Bloombergreported Thursday that "at least seven DOGE staffers have been granted access to a database known as the Master File of Social Security Number Holders and SSN Applications, also known as Numident."

"They currently have read-only access as they try to connect the dots between Social Security numbers and possible fraudulent benefits," Bloomberg added.

Both Musk and President Donald Trump have falsely claimed in recent weeks that tens of millions of dead people are receiving Social Security benefits.

Wired reported that "one of the tasks the DOGE cohort will be assigned is how people identify themselves to access their benefit payments."

"Experts with decades of experience at the agency are now worried that DOGE operatives working across multiple agencies increases the risk of SSA data being shared outside of the agency, or that their inexperience will lead to them breaking systems entirely," the outlet added.

Leland Dudek, whom Trump installed as acting SSA commissioner last month, has acknowledged to senior agency staff that Musk's lieutenants are now effectively in the driver's seat at the department, making key decisions despite their lack of knowledge of SSA systems.

"Are we going to break something?" Dudek asked during a recent closed-door meeting with SSA staffers and advocates. "I don't know."

The new reporting on DOGE staffers' presence at SSA comes as Democratic lawmakers are demanding an investigation into Musk's activities at the agency amid mounting concerns that he wants to privatize Social Security.

In a letter to the Republican chair of the Senate Finance Committee earlier this week, Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) and other Democratic senators warned that DOGE staffers' "unfettered access" to SSA data raises "a profound risk of causing irreparable harm to the agency's systems and Americans' financial security."

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ref wired

no lnx

WIRED

These Are the 10 DOGE Operatives Inside the Social Security Administration

Makena Kelly David Gilbert

:{:{PoliticsMar 13,}:

These Are the 10 DOGE Operatives Inside the Social Security Administration

The team working at the Social Security Administration appears to be among the largest DOGE units deployed to any government agency.

At least 10 people associated with Elon Musk’s so-called Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) are now working at the Social Security Administration, according to government records reviewed by WIRED; this includes a number of young engineers whose presence at the SSA has not been reported. The ballooning of DOGE’s presence at the federal agency—which Bloomberg, citing sworn statements filed in federal court Wednesday, previously reported—comes as Musk and his cohorts are publicly threatening social security benefits, citing unsubstantiated claims of mass fraud.

The DOGE-affiliated personnel in question are currently listed in the agency’s internal organizational chart. Background checks for two are still pending, according to a filing by the SSA in federal court in Maryland opposing a motion for a temporary restraining order filed by unions that would prevent DOGE from accessing SSA records. (A sworn statement attached to the filing from the SSA’s deputy commissioner of human resources claims that six of the background checks are still pending.)

The operatives—whom the government did not name in its filing—are, according to internal documents, Akash Bobba, Scott Coulter, Marko Elez, Luke Farritor, Antonio Gracias, Gautier Cole Killian, Jon Koval, Nikhil Rajpal, Payton Rehling, and Ethan Shaotran. This team appears to be among the largest DOGE units deployed to any government agency.

Ten of the DOGE-affiliated staffers are listed as part of the same group within Microsoft Teams, which SSA employees use for internal communication, according to a screenshot shared with WIRED. They are listed as “IT Specialists” based at the agency’s headquarters in Washington, DC, except for Bobba, who is listed as “Front Office” in the office of the chief information officer (CIO).

Many of them have worked or interned at Musk companies such as Tesla and Space X, and the majority of them have also appeared at other government agencies in recent weeks, as part of DOGE’s incursion into the government. Musk has made wild claims about the social security system, calling it a “Ponzi scheme” and falsely claiming that millions of 150-year-olds were fraudulently collecting benefits.

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Are you a current or former government employee who wants to talk about what's happening? We'd like to hear from you. Using a nonwork phone or computer, contact the reporters securely on Signal at makenakelly.32 and davidgilbert.01.

According to the SSA court filing and accompanying sworn statements, seven of them have read-only access to several datasets including the Master Beneficiary Record, which contains detailed information about individuals and their benefits. Those same DOGE representatives also have read-only access to Numident, a database containing information about everyone who’s ever applied for a Social Security number, as well as data referred to as “Treasury Payment Files Showing SSA Payments from SSOARS.” (The Social Security Online Accounting and Reporting System is a set of systems containing “information on the SSA’s financial position and operations,” according to the SSA.)

These records contain a great deal of personally identifying and financial information; in filings the government says DOGE accessing them is necessary to “detect fraud.”

While it’s been unclear even to well-placed insiders what specifically DOGE is doing inside the Social Security Administration, Musk has repeatedly voiced his desire to “eliminate” large parts of the system in the US, recently claiming that the fact that there are more Social Security numbers than there are US citizens—a well-known quirk of the SSA system—“might be the biggest fraud in history.”

Sources have told WIRED that one of the tasks the DOGE cohort will be assigned is how people identify themselves to access their benefit payments. Experts with decades of experience at the agency are now worried that DOGE operatives working across multiple agencies increases the risk of SSA data being shared outside of the agency or that their inexperience will lead to them breaking systems entirely.

In the SSA filing, lawyers for the agency claim that the DOGE operatives have “no access to SSA production automation, code, or configuration files.” A previous sworn statement from Tiffany Flick, the agency’s former acting chief of staff, claims that its CIO, Michael Russo, was DOGE-aligned and demanded that Bobba be given access to “everything, including source code.”

Last month, President Donald Trump’s administration appointed Russo as the SSA’s new CIO, despite his having no apparent previous government experience. Russo came to DOGE from payments company Shift4, which was founded by Jared Isaacman, Trump’s nominee to run NASA. The office of the CIO works on “implementation of a comprehensive systems configuration management, database management and data administration program,” according to the agency’s own website, and is responsible for strategic planning.

According to an affidavit filed on Friday as part of a lawsuit designed to halt what the suit called DOGE’s “unprecedented” seizure of SSA data, Flick outlined how she tried to educate Russo on how information at SSA is handled and the measures in place to prevent fraud.

“Mr Russo seemed completely focused on questions … based on the general myth of supposed widespread social security fraud, rather than facts,” Flick said, adding that Russo was unwilling to understand SSA’s complex systems and instead seemed fixated on conspiracy theories about fraud within the system, such as Musk’s claim that millions of 150-year-olds were receiving benefit payments. Flick also wrote that she was “not confident” that DOGE operatives had “the requisite knowledge and training to prevent sensitive information from being inadvertently transferred to bad actors.”

Flick’s affidavit named Coulter and Bobba as two of the DOGE associates joining SSA, alongside Russo. Coulter was a New York–based hedge fund manager whose fund, Cowbird Capital, was shuttered last year, according to Business Insider. (Coulter appears to be the DOGE lead at SSA. While the affidavit from the deputy commissioner of human resources doesn’t name him, it does identify the lead as a worker detailed from NASA, and Coulter is the only one of the 10 DOGE workers listed in internal NASA records reviewed by WIRED.)

Gracias, another private equity figure who is now part of the DOGE team at SSA, is the founder of Valor Equity Partners. Men named Jon Koval and Payton Rehling are listed on Valor's website as a vice president and a data engineer, respectively.

Gracias, Koval, and Rehling don’t seem to have any prior government experience, but Gracias does have a long history with Musk—he worked at Tesla for 14 years as a company director and helped Musk take the company public. Gracias spent time with Musk at Mar-a-Lago ahead of Trump’s inauguration and later described their conversations about how they believed the government functioned, on the All In podcast. (“It's broken now. And so literally, money is flowing out,” went one confusing Gracias claim, about how money is moving from the Treasury department to other agencies.) Later, Gracias mentioned the SSA. “The only audit that I've seen is actually from the Social Security Administration. When you read it, I've got one of the partners who have read the thing, it's just riddled with material weaknesses.”

Justin Aimonetti

According to his LinkedIn profile, Aimonetti was an associate at the Dechert LLP law firm in Washington, D.C., until some point in February. Reached by phone, Aimonetti said he had “no comment” about working for DOGE.

Aimonetti graduated from University of Virginia School of Law in 2020, and during the first Trump administration spent a summer working in the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel. After clerking for two federal judges, he joined Dechert in 2022.

Dechert’s website no longer has a page for Aimonetti, but an archived version from January lists him as a member of the firm’s securities and complex litigation group. While at the firm, Aimonetti represented Fox News in an ongoing defamation lawsuit brought by Hunter Biden, according to his firm bio. It also notes he did legal work for conservative groups like the Competitive Enterprise Institute, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, and the Manhattan Institute for Policy Research.

Ashley Boizelle

Boizelle worked as a litigator at Amazon until some point in February, according to her LinkedIn profile. Reached by phone, Boizelle hung up without answering questions about her involvement with DOGE. Boizelle graduated from Yale Law School in 2008. During the first Trump administration, Boizelle was a high-ranking attorney at the Federal Communications Commission, briefly serving as the FCC’s acting general counsel in 2020.

Joshua Fox

Until at least late January, Fox was a legal fellow at the Institute for Justice, a libertarian legal group, according to posts on LinkedIn from his former coworkers. (A LinkedIn profile for Fox has been deactivated.) He graduated from the University of Chicago Law School in 2022, according to an archived bio page on the Institute for Justice’s website. Fox did not reply to The Intercept’s inquiries by phone, text message, or email.

Joshua Hanley

Until recently, Hanley worked at the law firm Williams & Connolly, according to an archived version of his bio page from January. (ALinkedIn profile for Hanley has been deactivated.) A January press release from the firm mentioned Hanley as a current employee. Like Aimonetti, Hanley recently graduated from UVA Law and briefly worked for the Trump Justice Department during law school. Hanley did not respond to The Intercept’s inquiries by phone, text message, or email.

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The *New York Times* has identified 45 individuals working in the so-called Department of Government Efficiency formed by Elon Musk with Donald Trump's blessing.

The quasi-government advisory board has recommended sweeping cuts to federal agencies and tossed thousands of federal employees out of their jobs after Trump established DOGE through an Inauguration Day executive order, but the group's leadership structure and staffing remains murky enough that White House Press Secretary Katherine Leavitt was reluctant to reveal the top official in charge.

That turned out to be veteran federal employee Amy Gleason, although Leavitt was unsure how long she'd been in the position.

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Longtime conservative commentator Byron York was mocked for complaining the Times had outed the mostly inexperienced members of Musk's team.

"The so-called New York Times outs 45 people working for DOGE," he complained on X.

The flak his comment received was immediate.

"Hate when the newspaper 'outs' White House employees," said researcher Tyson Brody.

"It’s called journalism," posted David Corn, D.C. bureau chief for Mother Jones. "These are not classified government workers. They have no right to secrecy as they work — supposedly — for the American public. Why would you want DOGE in the shadows?"

"It's bizarre to me that some conservatives suddenly think that reporting on publicly-funded employees is doxing," said Reason reporter Billy Binion. "That is snowflakery. If Biden had created a new agency & refused to say who was working in it, the right would've (justifiably) been pissed. You don't get to work a taxpayer-funded job with considerable influence over the federal government & operate in secrecy."

"After eight years of warning about the deep state, pro-Trump conservatives are *literally* defending the existence of an anonymous, unaccountable, secret org controlling the spending power of the federal govt. And upset about transparency," added journalist Isaac Saul. "Just totally, completely insane."

The Times identified nearly 50 individuals, many of whom are young men with backgrounds in engineering or artificial intelligence, and noted that some of them had recently deleted their social media profiles when their names appeared in news reports.

In addition to Musk and Gleason, the newspaper reported that Steve Davis, a close aide to the tech mogul for more than two decades, effectively served as the leader of DOGE, while health care entrepreneur Brad Smith essentially functioned as its chief of staff.

Others named as DOGE employees are real estate manager Nicole Hollander, who followed Davis, into the federal government after working with Musk after he bought Twitter and is now responsible for assessing federal buildings and leases through the General Services Administration, and Leland Dudek, a mid-level manager at the Social Security Administration who was suddenly elevated this month as its acting commissioner.

Software engineer Gavin Kliger has been installed in various roles throughout the government, where he's gained access to highly sensitive data despite the concerns of officials in the Office of Personnel Management, United States Agency for International Development andInternal Revenue Service.

"The Times attempted to contact each DOGE staffer on this list through a combination of verified email addresses and social media accounts," the newspaper added in an article crediting 15 reporters by name, as well as two additional journalists who contributed. "For those without known contact information, Times reporters tried to reach them by sending emails to a name and address pattern consistent with other known email addresses. No one returned the Times’s requests for comment."

wired

elon Musk’s takeover of federal government infrastructure is ongoing, and at the center of things is a coterie of engineers who are barely out of—and in at least one case, purportedly still in—college. Most have connections to Musk, and at least two have connections to Musk’s longtime associate Peter Thiel, a cofounder and chair of the analytics firm and government contractor Palantir who has long expressed opposition to democracy.

WIRED has identified six young men—all apparently between the ages of 19 and 24, according to public databases, their online presences, and other records—who have little to no government experience and are now playing critical roles in Musk’s so-called Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) project, tasked by executive order with “modernizing Federal technology and software to maximize governmental efficiency and productivity.” The engineers all hold nebulous job titles within DOGE, and at least one appears to be working as a volunteer.

the engineers are Akash Bobba, Edward Coristine, Luke Farritor, Gautier Cole Killian, Gavin Kliger, and Ethan Shaotran. None have responded to requests for comment from WIRED. Representatives from OPM, GSA, and DOGE did not respond to requests for comment.

The six men are one part of the broader project of Musk allies assuming key government positions. Already, Musk’s lackeys—including more senior staff from xAI, Tesla, and the Boring Company—have taken control of the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) and General Services Administration (GSA), and have gained access to the Treasury Department’s payment system, potentially allowing him access to a vast range of sensitive information about tens of millions of citizens, businesses, and more. On Sunday, CNN reported that DOGE personnel attempted to improperly access classified information and security systems at the US Agency for International Development and that top USAID security officials who thwarted the attempt were subsequently put on leave. The Associated Press reported that DOGE personnel had indeed accessed classified material.

“What we're seeing is unprecedented in that you have these actors who are not really public officials gaining access to the most sensitive data in government,” says Don Moynihan, a professor of public policy at the University of Michigan. “We really have very little eyes on what's going on. Congress has no ability to really intervene and monitor what's happening because these aren't really accountable public officials. So this feels like a hostile takeover of the machinery of governments by the richest man in the world.”

Bobba has attended UC Berkeley, where he was in the prestigious Management, Entrepreneurship, and Technology program. According to a copy of his now-deleted LinkedIn obtained by WIRED, Bobba was an investment engineering intern at the Bridgewater Associates hedge fund as of last spring and was previously an intern at both Meta and Palantir. He was a featured guest on a since-deleted podcast with Aman Manazir, an engineer who interviews engineers about how they landed their dream jobs, where he talked about those experiences last June.

Coristine, as WIRED previously reported, appears to have recently graduated from high school and to have been enrolled at Northeastern University. According to a copy of his résumé obtained by WIRED, he spent three months at Neuralink, Musk’s brain-computer interface company, last summer.

Both Bobba and Coristine are listed in internal OPM records reviewed by WIRED as “experts” at OPM, reporting directly to Amanda Scales, its new chief of staff. Scales previously worked on talent for xAI, Musk’s artificial intelligence company, and as part of Uber’s talent acquisition team, per LinkedIn. Employees at GSA tell WIRED that Coristine has appeared on calls where workers were made to go over code they had written and justify their jobs. WIRED previously reported that Coristine was added to a call with GSA staff members using a nongovernment Gmail address. Employees were not given an explanation as to who he was or why he was on the calls.

Farritor, who per sources has a working GSA email address, is a former intern at SpaceX, Musk’s space company, and currently a Thiel Fellow after, according to his LinkedIn, dropping out of the University of Nebraska—Lincoln. While in school, he was part of an award-winning team that deciphered portions of an ancient Greek scroll.

Kliger, whose LinkedIn lists him as a special adviser to the director of OPM and who is listed in internal records reviewed by WIRED as a special adviser to the director for information technology, attended UC Berkeley until 2020; most recently, according to his LinkedIn, he worked for the AI company Databricks. His Substack includes a post titled “The Curious Case of Matt Gaetz: How the Deep State Destroys Its Enemies,” as well as another titled “Pete Hegseth as Secretary of Defense: The Warrior Washington Fears.”

Killian, also known as Cole Killian, has a working email associated with DOGE, where he is currently listed as a volunteer, according to internal records reviewed by WIRED. According to a copy of his now-deleted résumé obtained by WIRED, he attended McGill University through at least 2021 and graduated high school in 2019. An archived copy of his now-deleted personal website indicates that he worked as an engineer at Jump Trading, which specializes in algorithmic and high-frequency financial trades.

Shaotran told Business Insider in September that he was a senior at Harvard studying computer science and also the founder of an OpenAI-backed startup, Energize AI. Shaotran was the runner-up in a hackathon held by xAI, Musk’s AI company. In the Business Insider article, Shaotran says he received a $100,000 grant from OpenAI to build his scheduling assistant, Spark.

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MMA

Right-wing media celebrate the gutting of the federal government as critical agencies are expected to reel from layoffs

Written by Gideon Taaffe & Pete Tsipis

Published 02/20/25

As the Trump administration orders thousands of layoffs of “probationary” federal employees, new reporting shows that many of these firings hit people who had been in public service for years, and some employees are now being rehired because of the critical nature of their jobs — suggesting the layoffs have been rolled out haphazardly. But many right-wing media figures responded by celebrating the layoffs, praising the supposed “line by line” cutting of waste in the federal budget and the mass firings of “entitled” public employees.

The Trump administration is firing thousands of federal employees with little justification

- The Trump administration is targeting probationary employees for mass layoffs as part of efforts to gut the federal government. A probationary employee “is often a recent hire to the agency or a long-serving employee who was moved or promoted into a new position,” NPR reports. “They are put on a ‘probationary’ period that typically lasts for one or two years, though it can be longer at some agencies.” They do not have the same protections as more senior employees and can be fired at will — a status that impacts hundreds of thousands of federal workers. NPR, [2/15/25]

- According to the National Federation of Federal Employees union, around 30% of all federal employees are veterans — warning that if planned 75% workforce cuts proceed, “nearly half a million veterans will go jobless.”While it is unclear exactly how many federal workers have already been fired, the impacted departments and agencies include the Departments of Veterans Affairs, Interior, Energy, Education, Health and Human Services, and Homeland Security, as well as the Office of Personnel Management, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, and the Small Business Administration. National Federation of Federal Employees, [11/20/24; CNN, 2/14/25]

- Government worker unions have vowed to fight the layoffs in court, claiming the firings are not about employee performance as many of the termination letters claimed.The layoffs reportedly included many employees who had received high performance reviews. A lawyer specializing in federal labor issues told the Washington Post that “firing employees en masse with the same claim of poor performance is illegal,” adding that “it violates federal law covering career civil service employees.” Some of those impacted by the latest round of weekend layoffs have “dubbed the error-ridden run of firings the ‘St. Valentine’s Day Massacre.’” The Washington Post, [2/17/25]

## The ramifications of mass layoffs have dire consequences for critical government programs

- Hundreds of employees at the Federal Aviation Administration have been placed on leave. The Associated Press reports that these layoffs have included staff responsible for “FAA radar, landing and navigational aid maintenance.” According to Rolling Stone, a handful of employees were fired from an Oklahoma City team that evaluates “many tens of thousands of potential new hazards — such as new buildings, windmills, and especially cranes — to inform flight procedures each year.” The Associated Press, [2/17/25; Rolling Stone, 2/18/25]

- The HHS cuts hit pandemic preparation agencies, the National Institutes of Health, the Food and Drug Administration, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, and fellowship programs.CBS News reported, “Some letters were also sent in error to people not intended to be let go, officials said.” The outlet added that many scientists it spoke to “said they had uprooted their lives for the chance to serve the federal government, sometimes taking steep pay cuts from what they could be earning in academia or the private sector. Others had been on probation for staff roles after many years working for the same agency as a contractor.” CBS News, [2/15/25]

- The World Trade Center Health Program faces a 20% staffing cut that workers say will cause a backlog for treatment to “first responders and others sickened by toxic smoke and debris” from the 9/11 terror attacks. One of the workers affected said his termination notice claimed he was let go due to performance issues despite being given “the top ratings” in previous reviews. NY1, [2/17/25]

- A former Environmental Protection Agency official said that many of the cuts to the EPA targeted those responsible for internal audits and managing the agency’s grants. Zealan Hoover told Politico: “They say that they want to fight waste, fraud and abuse, and yet they are firing many of the staff who were hired to be audit specialists, project officers and grant specialists.” E&E News, [2/14/25]

- The Federal Emergency Management Agency estimates that 1,000 jobs were cut as the agency is actively dealing with over 100 natural disasters across the U.S. The Washington Post reports “the cuts will affect disaster victims seeking individual assistance funds, rural and tribal communities trying to bolster their infrastructure, and towns trying to obtain large grants to help them rebuild, according to nine current and former FEMA officials.” The Washington Post, [2/18/25]

- The U.S. Forest Service lost 10% of its workforce — “on top of a funding freeze also ordered by the administration that has interrupted work designed to clear national forests of vegetation that can feed wildfires.”The New York Times highlighted that those laid off were largely “frontline workers, the people working in forests, rather than behind desks in Washington.” The New York Times, [2/15/25]

- With over 1,000 people let go from the Department of Veterans Affairs, veterans will have trouble accessing health care. One veteran in Virginia reported that a day after the layoffs were announced, her annual mammogram appointment was cancelled due to staffing shortages and she was told she could reschedule in June at the earliest. WTKR, [2/17/25]

- Some of the seemingly haphazard layoffs have had to be reversed because those affected are working on critical projects.The Department of Agriculture accidentally fired employees working on the government’s bird flu response and is now having to rehire them; the firing of nearly 1,000 Indian Health Service employees had to be rescinded; and employees who were maintaining the United States’ nuclear arsenal were fired and rehired. NBC News, [2/18/25; Native News Online, 2/16/25; The New York Times, 2/16/25]

## Right-wing media touted the Trump administration’s mass layoffs, criticized federal workers, and downplayed the importance of public servants

- Fox News host Jesse Watters attacked federal employees, claiming, “Everybody that works in the government is a Democrat.”Watters said: “They think it’s their government and they think it’s their money. The way they talk about it, it is like the DNC is being audited. And in a way, they are right, because everybody that works in the government is a Democrat. So the way they recycle money is they tax it, they take it, and they give it to the Democrats, and then the Democrats win elections and then they hire more people to work for the government.” Fox News, *The Five*, [2/18/25]

- Watters praised the firings and called for more, saying, “Two billionaires who build things for a living know how to run a business and are applying business principles to running the government.”Watters continued to suggest the government is being made more efficient, saying, “These bureaucrats and politicians have never run a business. When they need money, they tax it, and when that's not enough, they print it. And when they screw up, they don't fire people, they instead hire people. The worse they do, the more money they get — it’s the opposite of how the real world works.” Fox News, *Jesse Watters Primetime*, [2/18/25]

- Watters gloated about federal employees waking up up “to a big ‘you are fired.’”With an on-screen graphic celebrating the “bureaucrat blow out,” Watters continued: “A thousand workers at the VA, fired; 2,000 workers at the Department of Energy, fired; 3,000 workers at the U.S. Forest Service, fired; and one-tenth of the CDC was fired too.” Fox News, *Jesse Watters Primetime*, [2/14/25]

- The Fiveco-host Jeanine Pirro attacked federal employees, saying they “think they're entitled to a job.” Pirro: “How absurd is it that because you have to go to the office, they're saying you're being, you know — they're watching you and it's ‘a reign of terror,’ as if working in the office means you're subject to surveillance? I mean, these people think they're entitled to a job. They think they have the right to work from home, and it is a manufactured narrative.” Fox News,*The Five*, [2/18/25]

- The Daily Wire’s Ben Shapiro downplayed cuts to national park workers: “You can cut all those people by just having an automatic parking meter.” He added, “Supposedly, this is going to mean the trash will pile up and restrooms won't be cleaned, and maintenance problems will grow, and guided tours will be cut back or canceled. And they say public safety will be at risk. No. I'm sorry. No.” The Daily Wire,*The Ben Shapiro Show*, [2/19/25]

- Fox News contributor Katie Pavlich insisted that the cuts are not indiscriminate, saying, “They are going through … line by line through the federal government to find this waste and abuse.” She also reassured viewers that the cuts are being done by “some of the most successful businessmen in the entire world.” Fox News,*America’s Newsroom*, [2/14/25]

- Fox News hosted former FAA Administrator Dan Elwell to claim that the firing of FAA employees should have “zero effect on safety.” Elwell claimed, “I'm not concerned at all” about the firings at the FAA, adding, “Letting go 400 probationary employees is going to have zero effect on safety in my opinion.” Fox News,*Fox & Friends*, [2/18/25]

- Fox & Friends Weekendguest co-host Lisa Boothe downplayed the impact of government jobs cuts, claiming, “What this election is about is the American people taking their power back; it is a ‘We the People’ election, and we’re seeing a ‘We the People’ administration.”Boothe also said: “The biggest problem with where we are right now with our country with our federal government — it's too big. This is not the original vision of America. We’re supposed to have a decentralized government. That was the whole vision of the Founding Fathers. So what we have now is the antithesis of what America's supposed to be. And when government becomes so centralized and so big, it becomes corrupt. And that’s what we are seeing, and that’s what we saw with the Biden administration.” Fox News, *Fox & Friends Weekend*, [2/15/25]

- Discussing “mass layoff letters” sent to probationary federal workers, The Wall Street Journal’s James Freeman claimed, “This has to happen and it's happening lawfully with our president saying, ‘Let's find the waste.’”Freeman asserted, “We have a problem. Obviously, there are too many federal employees. Obviously, the government is spending way too much.” Fox News, *The Story with Martha MacCallum*, [2/17/25]

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no lnx an

Why is the media ignoring Trumpworld's latest shout-outs to hardcore racists?

U.S. President Donald Trump speaks while signing executive orders during a brief event in the Oval Office at the White House in Washington, U.S., January 30, 2025.

REUTERS/Elizabeth Frantz

Thom Hartmann February 18, 2025

One of the enduring mysteries in today’s American political life is why so many Republican politicians and their friends are adopting or promoting openly Nazi symbols, iconography, and slogans.

Is it a shout-out to the hardcore racists and haters that make up the GOP’s base, all just a performance to get enough votes to win elections? Or a proclamation that the end-goal of Republican governance is the destruction of American democracy, perhaps in deference to Vladimir Putin? How about it’s being a bizarre attempt at trolling people old or well-educated enough to remember or know what Nazism inevitably leads to?

And why are America’s mainstream media so unwilling to even report on, much less discuss, all the Nazi and neo-Nazi references surrounding Trump and today’s captive Republicans?

Elon Musk, Trump’s #1 campaign donor and co-president, threw two Nazi “Sieg Heil” salutes following Trump’s inauguration, causing the media to fall all over itself trying to make excuses for his behavior. Actual, declared Nazis and white supremacists were thrown into an ecstatic tizzy, however, with the Ohio Proud Boys posting the clip with the words, “Heil Trump!”

The neo-Nazi group Blood Tribe posted the Musk clip with the Waffen SS lightning-bolt emoji; their leader, Christopher Pohlhaus, wrote: “I don’t care if this was a mistake. I’m going to enjoy the tears over it.” Other neo-Nazi, Nazi, and white supremacist groups across the web jumped in to celebrate the salute, as Rolling Stone extensively documented.

ALSO READ: Trump's days of defiant bribery are numbered — here's why

It all seems to have really picked up steam after young neo-Nazis marched in Charlottesville in 2017, chanting Nazi slogans, murdering a young woman protestor, and giving Hitler salutes.

Our media completely failed to identify them as Nazis, even though they were proclaiming that themselves.

Since Trump’s endorsement of their behavior with his “good people on both sides” comment, which he continues to defend, such behavior has been emulated across the nation.

Poke anything associated with Trump and odds are Nazi memes will pop out.

The “America First” slogan was the name of an openly pro-Nazi movement in America in the 1930s, a fact that seems to have been lost down the memory hole. And Trump told his former Chief of Staff, Marine General John Kelly, that “Hitler did some good things…” along with referring to American soldiers as “suckers” and “losers.”

And then there are Trump’s attacks on the media, echoing Joe Stalin and Adolf Hitler with their “enemy of the people” rhetoric. He’s suing media outlets left and right, just like Putin and Orbán did in their early years to intimidate reporters and bankrupt opposition publications and websites.

Elon Musk just called for reporters for CBS’s 60 Minutes program — “the biggest liars in the world” — to receive “a long prison sentence.”

In an echo of Hitler’s “denunciations,” his “border czar” is even calling for the police at the Department of Justice to investigate Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez for telling immigrants about their constitutional rights.

After pointing out at a rally that Hitler said that Jews were “poisoning the blood” of Germany (yes, he pointed it out himself), Trump then said of nonwhites in America:

“It’s true. They’re destroying the blood of the country, they’re destroying the fabric of our country, and we’re going to have to get them out.”

The 2021 CPAC meeting featured a stage resembling the Odal Rune, a potent Nazi symbol, that drew a rebuke from the hotel hosting the conference.

In 2022, Trump dined with Nick Fuentes, a prominent and out Holocaust denier. Trump later posted a 30-second video that twice references a “unified Reich.” Trump’s buddy Steve Bannon has repeatedly endorsed the notoriously antisemitic and racist novel The Camp of the Saints” which characterizes Black Americans, “dirty Arabs,” and “feces-eating Hindu rapists” as engaging in a conspiracy to destroy white people and civilization.

His son, Don Jr., retweeted a message by a white supremacist who attacks interracial dating and queer people, “liked” tweets by another account that posts pictures of Jews with exaggerated noses, made a “joke” about gas chambers and our media, and participated in an interview with a talk show host who said slavery was the best thing to have ever happened to Black people.

When Vice President Vance visited Germany this past week, instead of meeting with that nation’s chancellor or his peer, he hung out with the leader of the Nazi-adjacent AfD party, while giving a speech in which he extensively quoted Putin’s sentiments. Proud to be known by the company he keeps…

And then there’s DOGE, the official title of the iron-fisted, massively rich oligarchs who ruled Venice for ten centuries that’s been reclaimed by billionaire Musk for himself and his work. The logo is arguably explicit, as Jim Stewartson points out at his excellent mind-war.com newsletter/website:

“On the DOGE logo there are 8 stars above the cartoon, and 8 stars on the flag inside the gear. This is another National Socialist signal. It means Heil Hitler. Musk has used this signal numerous times, in addition to quite literally doing two Hitler salutes at the inauguration.”

There are also 14 teeth on the gear that makes up the O in DOGE in the logo, a direct rip-off from Hitler’s Nazi labor movement of the 1930s, reflecting the famous “14 words” memorized by every white supremacist: “We must secure the existence of our people and a future for white children.” Check out this 30-second video, courtesy of Jim Stewartson at mind-war.com:

Following that theme, Trump, Vance, and multiple Republican politicians and media figures have, for years, promoted the Naziesque “Great Replacement Theory” that posits American Jews are paying their agents in business, government, and society to hire Black, brown, and queer people and women to replace white men.

Additionally, when Trump tweeted out his Anders Breivik quote about saving the country and thus violating no laws, Musk retweeted it with 14 American flag emojis. These guys aren’t subtle because they don’t have to be; they know any American media that calls them out will either be attacked as paranoid or they’ll simply say it was a joke or misunderstanding.

But their followers know exactly what they’re saying, and why. Just like they understood that Trump’s birther crap was really his way of saying, “Hey, white people, have you noticed that guy in the White House is Black? We can’t tolerate that!”

And they also clearly heard the dog whistle when he came down the escalator and attacked brown-skinned immigrants. Or when he claimed the Potomac crash was because the helicopter pilot was a woman hired “because of DEI.”

Or when Trump offered refugee status to white South Africans, but not to Black or Indian South Africans.

There’s so much evidence of Trump’s and Musk’s apartheid leanings, it’s pretty much impossible to deny any longer. Which raises the question: Is our media in with the Nazis, or just committed to Not-Seeing them?

NOW READ: Reckless firing of federal workers creating a crisis for this deep red state

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5.5 MIL LEFT ON CONTRACT

Busted: DOGE took credit for canceling $8 billion contract — but it was really $8 million

Utter incompetence': Federal agency rehires crucial workers after 'accidentally' firing them — again

AN 2 25

'Outrageous lies': Trump floats kicking millions off of Social Security

150 YO GET SS DO NOT GET COBOL 1875

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an 2 25

'DOGE in practice': Outrage follows 'boilerplate' MAGA firing of disabled veteran

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fail fired nuke security, does not have info to recall

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an 2 25

Trump’s Press Secretary, Karoline Leavitt, pushed a claim Monday on Fox News that there may be many dead people receiving Social Security payments. Experts have pushed back against that idea, which has come from Elon Musk and the Department of Government Efficiency, indicating that the numbers are off or misinterpreted.

“President Trump has directed Elon Musk and the DOGE team to identify fraud at the Social Security Administration. They haven’t dug into the books yet, but they suspect that there are tens of millions of deceased people who are receiving fraudulent Social Security payments,” she said.

“And so their goal in going into the Social Security Administration is to identify three things. Number one, to identify duplicate payments and to end them. Number two, to identify payments that are going to deceased people who are no longer living and should no longer be receiving that money, and number three, to protect the integrity of this system for hard working Americans who have been paying into it their entire lives.

“There are maybe hundreds of deceased people receiving fraudulent benefits, not tens of millions. There are about 70 million people TOTAL receiving Social Security — does anyone really think one third+ of them are dead???” Marc Goldwein, senior vice president and senior policy director for the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, posted on X.

Over the weekend, Musk posted a table supposedly showing that the Social Security database has millions of people in it over the age of 140.

“What's especially frustrating about Musk making it seem as if millions of Social Security checks might be going out to people aged 100+ is that we know how many Social Security checks went out in December to people aged 99+: 89,106,” journalist James Surowiecki posted on X. He added: “89,106 is, as it happens, fewer than the number of centenarians in the U.S., as estimated by the Census. So we are, again, not sending out billions in SS checks to people aged 130.”

Ninety-eight percent of social security number holders who are age 100 or older do not receive benefits, Justin Wolfers, professor of public policy and economics at the University of Michigan, explained on X. “Why are there dead people on (this one table of) the social security database? They died before the use of electronic death records,” he added.

“Should government databases be cleaner? It's a cost-benefit question. Cost: $5-10m to clean out the old records Benefit: Only "limited benefit" because "almost none" of these records are receiving payments. This hardly feels like big potatoes, either way,” he explained.

At Wired, David Gilbert wrote: “Computer programmers quickly claimed that the 150 figure,” or the idea that 150-year-olds were collecting Social Security, “was not evidence of fraud, but rather the result of a weird quirk of the Social Security Administration’s benefits system, which was largely written inCOBOL, a 60-year-old programming language that undergirds SSA’s databases as well as systems from many other US government agencies.” He added: “COBOL is rarely used today, and as such, Musk’s cadre of young engineers may well be unfamiliar with it.”

“Musk could also have simply looked up the SSA’s own website, which explains that since September 2015 the agency has automatically stopped benefit paymentswhen anyone reaches the age of 115,” Gilbert wrote.

“When everything they say is designed to mislead, you're left to wonder why,” Wolfers wrote.READ MORE:Lawmaker vows 'strong resistance' if Musk agency recommends Social Security or Medicare cuts

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an 2 25

DOGE and Elon Musk, who may or may not be leading the arm of the White House, has drawn concern for trying to access Americans’ personal data at the IRS. Rep. Tim Burchett (R-Tenn.), who is on the DOGE subcommittee, and CNN’s Pamela Brown had a heated discussion about his role cutting the federal government Tuesday morning. During this conversation Burchett compared young staffers at DOGE to World War II soldiers.

“Congress better get some guts and start backing [DOGE] up, or the next president could undo everything that's done. And that is really my biggest fear. I don't care what title you give Elon Musk,” Burchett said.

The conversation continued.

“Hey, hold on for a second,” Burchett said.

“Okay,” Brown said.

“How many people at the IRS are elected?” Burchett asked.

“Okay,” Brown said.

“You’re proving my point. All these people are there. This is a very porous agency,”

“There's a difference between civil service and checks and balances, in place of a small group and politicals who are going in, many of them young staffers who we know nothing about, really.”

Burchett compared the young staffers at DOGE to U.S. soldiers.

“Those are Japanese rifles,” he said, referring to rifles on his wall. “Guess what? My dad was 20, 21, years old when he killed the people that carried that you all don't question the fact that, you know we've with these 20, 22, year old people, the ones that fight our daggum wars.”

“There's a difference between members of the greatest generation… risking their life to serve our country, and young staffers going in with their computers and trying to get access to personal data. There is a big difference.”

The conversation continued, and eventually Brown cut him off.

“All right, we’re going to leave it there,” Brown said.

Watch the video below or at this link:

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FAIL?

AN 2 25

The website for Elon Musk’s Department for Government Accountability, doge.gov — which tracks their cuts to the federal government — is not secure, 404 Media reported Friday. Musk has been leading a Trump-sanctioned push to slash agencies, freeze funding and lay off government workers.

The site “pulls from a database that can be edited by anyone,” writes 404 Media co-founder Jason Koebler. A website database stores and manages a site’s information.

Two database entries visible on the live site say: “this is a joke of a .gov site” and “THESE ‘EXPERTS’ LEFT THEIR DATABASE OPEN -roro.”

DOGE is “trying to be as transparent as possible. In fact, our actions—we post our actions to the DOGE handle on X, and to the DOGE website,” Musk told reporters Tuesday. The website, built out Wednesday and Thursday, has a feed that includes DOGE X posts and images of government contracts.

Koebler writes, “Two different web development experts who asked to remain anonymous because they were probing a federal website told 404 Media that doge.gov is seemingly built on a Cloudflare Pages site that is not currently hosted on government servers. The database it is pulling from can be and has been written to by third parties, and will show up on the live website.”

“Feels like it was completely slapped together,” one source said. “Tons of errors and details leaked in the page source code.”

Musk said Thursday that he could be cutting entire agencies.

"It's kind of like leaving a weed: If you don't remove the roots of the weed, then it's easy for the weed to grow back," he said at the 2025 World Governments Summit in Dubai. "But if you remove the roots of the weed it doesn't stop weeds from ever growing back, but it makes it harder."

404 Media reported Wednesday that another site, waste.gov, “was sitting live with a placeholder Wordpress default template page and sample text.” Now a password is needed to access the site.

DOGE did not reply to 404 Media’s request for comment.

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AOR 2

Nate Cavanaugh dropped out of IU in 2015.

Now, he’s in charge of a federally funded institution meant to promote peace. And on top of that, he’s a staffer in billionaire Elon Musk’s so-called Department of Government Efficiency, an initiative of President Donald Trump’s second administration that's slashed federal agencies and thousands of jobs.

Lawyers representing the U.S. Institute of Peace, a Congress-funded nonpartisan organization intended to prevent violence abroad, asked a U.S. district court judge Monday to halt the transfer of its property to the General Services Administration. That judge, Beryl Howell, denied the motion Tuesday.

Documents show Cavanaugh was installed by top cabinet officials as president of USIP, as of March 25.

According to reports, Cavanaugh is 28 years old. He was featured in Forbes’ 2021 “30 Under 30” for enterprise technology. Cavanaugh’s profile on that list states he founded the company Brainbase from his IU dormitory before dropping out. He wrote on LinkedIn he attended IU from 2014-15.

A 2017 Medium article from Cavanaugh describes Brainbase as an intellectual property and trademark licensing management tool. The 2021 Forbes profile claimed the company had raised $12 million. Now, the original Brainbase website has gone dark, and the company seems to have been bought out. A different site, usebrainbase.com, promotes artificial intelligence workers for companies.

According to his LinkedIn, Cavanaugh left Brainbase in November 2022, but he is also the co-founder of FlowFi, which connects businesses with financial experts, according to its website. But photos of what it claims are experts appear to be AI-generated images. These images have a “glossy” look characteristic of AI photos, and reverse image searches for several yielded no results online. One reverse image search found one photo is an Adobe stock AI image.

Cavanaugh joined DOGE at some point following Trump’s executive order establishing it in January. WIRED reported last month he’d taken a role interviewing U.S. General Service Administration employees and earning a salary of $120,500 per year. That’s just shy of what DOGE says is the average annual salary of workers at GSA, $128,000.

The motion filed Monday includes a photo that shows an undated resolution signed by U.S. Secretaries of Defense and State Pete Hegseth and Marco Rubio removing the U.S. Institute for Peace’s acting president Kenneth Jackson and replacing him with Cavanaugh. Jackson himself is part of DOGE. Last month, he and other DOGE members were part of a standoff with USIP staff outside the building, ultimately gaining entry with the help of police.

Hegseth and Rubio are both on USIP’s board of directors. It also directed Cavanaugh to transfer all of the institute’s assets, including its building, to GSA. Cavanaugh wrote in a letter to the GSA administrator, also attached to the motion, that the building has an estimated fair market value of $500 million.

Russell Vought, U.S. Office of Management and Budget director and Project 2025 co-author, approved the building transfer at no cost in a March 29 letter.

The move comes amid DOGE firing nearly all of USIP’s staff in recent days. The institute promotes research, policy analysis and education on conflict resolution, according to the Federal Register.

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DOGEBAG 5 25

Newsweek

https://www.newsweek.com › doge-list-staff-revealed-2029965

Who Is Helping DOGE? List of Staff Revealed - Newsweek

Feb 12, 2025Nate Cavanaugh, 28 Cavanaugh is an entrepreneur who interviewed staffers at the General Services Administration as part of the DOGE team, according to ProPublica. Akash Bobba, 21

idsnews.com

Indiana Daily Student

https://www.idsnews.com › article › 2025 › 04 › iu-dropout-doge-leads-federal-institute

IU dropout, DOGE worker now leads federally funded institute

Apr 2, 2025Nate Cavanaugh, a 28-year-old entrepreneur and DOGE staffer, was installed as president of the U.S. Institute of Peace by top cabinet officials. He dropped out of IU in 2015 and founded Brainbase and FlowFi, two companies with questionable claims and images.

yahoo.com

Yahoo

https://www.yahoo.com › news › lawsuit-says-doge-put-28-093852297.html

Lawsuit says DOGE put a 28-year-old in charge of USIP, an ... - Yahoo

Apr 1, 2025DOGE named Nate Cavanaugh, a tech entrepreneur and college dropout, as the USIP's acting president. Lawyers for the USIP said nearly all of the institute's staff in the US have been fired.

politico.com

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POLITICO

https://www.politico.com › news › 2025 › 04 › 28 › doge-us-foreign-aid-agency-first-trump-administration-00314510

DOGE targets US foreign aid agency created under first Trump ...

4 days agoA team of DOGE personnel, led by Nate Cavanaugh, went to DFC headquarters in Washington on Monday to begin assessing the agency's effectiveness and alignment with the president's agenda ...

wionews.com

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WION

https://www.wionews.com › world › who-is-nate-cavanaugh-elon-musks-doge-goon-staffer-appointed-to-head-us-institute-of-peace-8913921

Who is Nate Cavanaugh? DOGE 'goon' staffer appointed to head US ... - WION

Apr 1, 2025Nate Cavanaugh is a 28-year-old tech entrepreneur and co-founder of Flowfi and Brainbase. He was appointed by Elon Musk's Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) to lead the US Institute of Peace, a White House official confirmed.

rollingstone.com

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Rolling Stone

https://www.rollingstone.com › politics › politics-news › doge-us-institute-of-peace-nate-cavanaugh-1235307495

DOGE Staffer Seizing U.S. Institute of Peace Sells 'AI Workers'

Apr 11, 2025Nate Cavanaugh, a 28-year-old college dropout and Silicon Valley zealot, is appointed acting president of the U.S. Institute of Peace by DOGE, a Trump agency that aims to reduce foreign assistance. Cavanaugh, who admires Peter Thiel and Javier Milei, is part of a plan to dismantle the nonprofit and seize its property.

wired.com

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WIRED

https://www.wired.com › story › doge-takes-control-usip-office-building

DOGE Is Trying to Gift Itself a $500 Million Building, Court Filings ...

Mar 31, 2025As of March 25, DOGE staffer Nate Cavanaugh—formerly installed at GSA—has replaced Jackson as the institute's acting president, the documents show. They further state that Cavanaugh has been ...

thedailybeast.com

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Daily Beast

https://www.thedailybeast.com › 28-year-old-installed-as-head-of-the-us-institute-of-peace-which-defied-doge

28-Year-Old DOGE Goon Installed as Head of U.S. Institute of Peace ...

Mar 31, 2025Nate Cavanaugh, 28, is now in charge of USIP, a White House official confirmed to the Daily Beast. ... Prior to Cavanaugh, Kenneth Jackson, another DOGE employee, was its acting president—at the ...

inc.com

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Inc.com

https://www.inc.com › melissa-angell › the-high-profile-founders-behind-doge › 91155754

The High-Profile Founders Behind DOGE - Inc.com

Mar 5, 2025There's Nate Cavanaugh, who co-founded FlowFi, an invite-only accounting platform geared toward small businesses that, according to his LinkedIn page, nabbed $10 million from VC firms.

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