gotchanewsdaily.com 
CNN
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One is a 23-year-old software engineer from Nebraska who helped decipher an ancient scroll buried for centuries. Another was the runner-up in a “hackathon” contest last year as a Harvard senior. A third is the CEO of a multibillion-dollar start-up.
These are among the operatives linked to Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) whose work to slash public spending and reshape the federal bureaucracy have sent shockwaves through government agencies.
For the past couple of weeks, DOGE staffers have appeared without warning throughout the nation’s bureaucracy, seeking access to sensitive files, databases and computer systems. Their movements inside offices from Washington, DC, to Kansas City have been detailed by a frightened federal workforce and chronicled by media outlets seeking answers about their specific activities and intentions.
Some of the most pointed concerns were summed up in a letter this week from Democratic senators to the White House: “No information has been provided to Congress or the public as to who has been formally hired under DOGE, under what authority or regulations DOGE is operating, or how DOGE is vetting and monitoring its staff and representatives before providing them seemingly unfettered access to classified materials and Americans’ personal information.”
Although the slate of software engineers in their early 20s working under DOGE appear to lack government experience, their resumes detail impressive accomplishments in the tech field.
Meanwhile, on X, Musk’s social media platform, DOGE itself has been boasting of alleged accomplishments: “DOGE is saving the Federal Government approx. $1 billion/day,” the account claimed in a post last week. “A good start, though this number needs to increase to > $3 billion/day.”
The group has highlighted what it has dubbed wasteful spending, such as millions in “DEI related” contracts and dozens of leases for “underutilized” buildings.
Yet some warn DOGE’s approach risks undermining federal offices that provide vital public services.
“If you don’t understand the system you’re trying to change, you don’t understand how to prevent bad consequences,” said Max Stier, the president and CEO of the Partnership for Public Service, a nonprofit that works towards building better government and a stronger democracy. He described DOGE’s actions as “an embodiment of the Silicon Valley world, ‘break it and then fix it.’ We should worry that government is not a tech start up. Breaking it to fix it is a horrifying model in the public sector, because people get hurt.”
As DOGE continues its unprecedented overhaul of agencies ranging in everything from international aid to aviation to commerce, the architect behind its agenda has likened the current moment to the country’s founding.
In response to a post on X calling the effort “The Second American Revolution,” Musk replied: “Yes. And much needed.”
DOGE plugs in to agencies
When two DOGE staffers showed up last week to the US Agency for International Development headquarters demanding access to sensitive security files and personnel information, they were initially refused entry by security officials.
Following threats to call law enforcement by the DOGE staffers, they were ultimately able to access the headquarters, multiple sources familiar with the situation told CNN. Katie Miller – the wife of President Donald Trump’s deputy chief of staff for policy who was named to DOGE in December – appeared to confirm the DOGE personnel gained access to classified information at USAID.
“No classified material was accessed without proper security clearances,” she said in a post on X.
The showdown raised concerns about the extent to which DOGE and its staffers would go on to access additional sensitive databases and information as they barrel through federal agencies across the government, without clear answers to the legality of the moves or the security measures taken to mitigate risk.
In addition to USAID, the DOGE operation has continued to move from agency to agency requesting and successfully accessing internal systems.
At least one DOGE representative gained access to IT systems at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association this week, according to three people familiar with the situation, with the goal of sniffing out activity and employees connected to diversity, equity and inclusion efforts.
A DOGE employee has also been reviewing operations and contracts at the Department of Veterans Affairs, the agency that includes the nation’s largest integrated health care system, according to a VA spokesperson who said the employee “will not have access” to veterans’ data.
Over at the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS), the agency said in a statement Wednesday that two senior agency officials are leading the “collaboration” with DOGE “including ensuring appropriate access to CMS systems and technology.”
In response to the initial reporting on the development at CMS by the Wall Street Journal, Musk posted on X, “this is where the big money fraud is happening.”
Some agencies are preparing for their turn to work with DOGE. In the wake of the country’s deadliest airliner crash in over two decades, Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy eagerly announced the incoming DOGE partnership.
“Big News – Talked to the DOGE team. They are going to plug in to help upgrade our aviation system,” Duffy posted on X Wednesday. It’s unclear how DOGE will improve the aviation system, and the Department of Transportation has not released specific details of the plans.
But not every attempt by DOGE to access agency systems has gone smoothly, with legal actions taken by unions and other departments to prevent DOGE from gathering information.
The AFL-CIO, the nation’s largest labor federation, filed an emergency lawsuit this week against DOGE amid anticipation that it would be heading for the Department of Labor, an attempt to stop Musk’s team “from unlawfully accessing the DOL’s systems and information.”
“The labor movement considers it a top priority to protect the integrity of union members’ personal data and assure all workers who interact with the Labor Department that our information won’t be turned over to an unelected CEO whose companies have been the subject of numerous DOL investigations over the years,” the AFL-CIO said in a press release.
At the heart of much of the controversy surrounding DOGE’s review and access to much of the federal government’s financial payment data was the unique, short-lived pairing of Tom Krause, a long-time software CEO, and Marko Elez, a 25-year-old recent employee at Musk’s company SpaceX.
Elez, according to the Wall Street Journal, has since resigned from his role at DOGE following the newspaper’s reporting that linked him to a social media account with posts supporting racism and eugenics.
The two men – designated as “special government employees” by the executive branch – obtained access to the computer system that’s used by the Treasury Department’s Bureau of the Fiscal Service to cut more than $5 trillion in checks for the federal government each year, according to lawyers for the Justice Department at a court hearing on Wednesday that arose out of privacy concerns over their access.
Government attorneys had few definitive answers for a DC District Court judge Wednesday on what has been done with the financial records accessed by the two DOGE representatives.
“I don’t know if I can say nothing has been done” with records in the system, DOJ attorney Brad Humphreys said in court, adding that the Justice Department doesn’t believe Americans’ privacy has been breached at this time.
In a letter to lawmakers from a Treasury Department official, the department confirmed Krause has joined Treasury as a “special government employee” – the same designation that applies to Musk – which means he can only work for the government for 130 days or fewer over the next year.
“This role involves a hiring process that includes a review of a candidate’s credentials and background, and demands the same ethical standards of privacy, confidentiality, conflicts of interest assessment, and professionalism of other government employees. These assessments are conducted by career legal and ethics officials,” the letter states. “Mr. Krause is subject to the same security obligations and ethical requirements, including a Top Secret security clearance.”
Krause and Elez’s access did not include the ability to make changes to the Treasury payments system, nor does the Justice Department believe the employees have shared it or discussed it with anyone outside of the Treasury Department, DOJ lawyers told the judge.
In addition to his role at DOGE, Krause’s LinkedIn lists him as the current CEO of Cloud Software Group, with a history of leading software companies.
Elez’s work experience appears to be less extensive, with public records showing he graduated from Rutgers University in 2021 and shortly thereafter began working at Elon Musk’s SpaceX company. A cached Google result for an Instagram post states that he was the co-founder and Chief Technology Officer of a company called Unimetrics while in college.
Neither Krause nor Elez appear to have any experience working in the federal government prior to accepting their roles at DOGE.
‘Disposable numbers on a balance sheet’
Federal workers experiencing rapid overhauls of their agencies have expressed shock and concern over the lack of transparency and chaotic nature of the developments. As details trickle out from workers undergoing the changes, the team at DOGE and its allied agencies have come under increased scrutiny for their qualifications.
“My colleagues are getting 15-minute one-on-one check-ins with 19, 20, 21-year-old college graduates asking to justify their existence,” one speaker at a recent town hall in northern Virginia said without identifying himself or his agency due to fear of retaliation.
“We got word that supervisors must now fill out a justification form and that there’s going to be just a 30% rank and yank with all staff of our agency,” he added.
Under the DOGE umbrella, some of Musk’s top lieutenants have been working directly at the Office of Personnel Management or advising at the agency since the inauguration. They include Steve Davis, the CEO of the Boring Company who helped Musk during the purge of Twitter staffers in 2022, as well as now OPM senior adviser Brian Bjelde, who had been vice president of people operations at SpaceX and Amanda Scales, now OPM’s chief of staff who until January worked in talent at Musk’s AI company.
Last month, tech entrepreneur Stephen Ehikian became acting director of the General Services Administration (GSA) – which oversees federal real estate and procurement. Former Tesla engineer Thomas Shedd was appointed director of Technology Transformation Services group within the agency.
Two GSA employees, who spoke to CNN on the condition of anonymity for fear of retribution, recalled recently meeting with young DOGE employees and said DOGE appears only interested in cutting costs, no matter the consequences.
One of those GSA employees said the DOGE staffers refused to disclose their identities but wanted insights into sensitive government data. “We don’t care about the policy work you do, show us technical work so we keep you,” the civil servant recalled being told.
“Their obsessions with running our agency ‘like a business’ is nothing more than a reckless corporate takeover that disregards the critical role we play in serving the public,” the employee said.
The Trump administration is treating civil servants “like disposable numbers on a balance sheet,” he said.
DOGE’s senior leadership have largely private sector backgrounds and little or no government experience. Its staff, too, appears to include a slate of software engineers in their early 20s, some with connections to Musk’s companies, as first reported by WIRED. The exact responsibilities for of many of the younger staffers remains unclear.
Other young staffers identified by agency sources to CNN as having titles in internal systems include Luke Farritor, a 23-year-old software engineer from Nebraska who gained acclaim for his impressive use of AI to decode Greek passages from an unopened ancient scroll, earning his team a $700,000 grand prize at the Vesuvius Challenge. Last year, Farritor was named among the 2024 Thiel Fellowship class, created by the billionaire tech founder and Musk associate Peter Thiel.
Farritor was granted access to the Energy Department’s IT system on Wednesday by Energy Secretary Chris Wright, even over objections from members of the department’s general counsel and chief information offices, two people with knowledge of the situation told CNN.
Another is Akash Bobba, a recent graduate from the University of California, Berkeley who held two prior internships at Meta and Palantir. A former classmate sung Bobba’s praises on X recently, recounting a group project where Bobba saved the day by restoring an accidentally deleted codebase. “I trust him with everything I own,” the classmate wrote.
Edward Coristine graduated high school last year and appears to have been enrolled at Northeastern University. Last summer, Coristine interned at Musk’s brain chip company, Neuralink, according to a resume obtained by WIRED.
Ethan Shaotran is a student at Harvard who has worked on AI projects and filed four patents, according to a university webpage. In an essay published by Business Insider last September, Shaotran wrote about his AI scheduling assistant startup, funded by a $100,000 OpenAI grant.
“I spend about 85 hours a week working on the startup, most of which is spent writing code,” he wrote. Shaotran was part of a team that was a runner-up in an xAI “hackathon” competition last year, the same Musk company that OPM chief of staff Scales worked for prior to joining the administration.
Gavin Kliger, 25, who attended UC Berkeley until 2020, studying electrical engineering and computer science, is listed on his LinkedIn as a senior advisor at OPM.
A Substack page for Kliger which contains a profile photo that matches the individual on Kliger’s LinkedIn page describes him as a software engineer writing about politics and technology.
Kliger’s previous blog posts concerned two of Trump’s cabinet picks, with essays titled “The Curious Case of Matt Gaetz: How the Deep State Destroys Its Enemies” and “Pete Hegseth as Secretary of Defense: The Warrior Washington Fears.”
Kliger’s most recent post for paid subscribers was titled “Why DOGE” with a description of the piece reading “Why I gave up a seven-figure salary to save America.” The subscriber-only piece, which appears to have been published after his identity was publicized, was available for a $1,000-per-month fee but has since been taken down.
The rigor of DOGE’s hiring process remains unclear, but the department’s job application page is brief. In addition to asking for a full name, contact information, and a resume, the page asks applicants to “provide 2-3 bullet points showcasing exceptional ability.”
CNN’s Bob Ortega, Blake Ellis, Melanie Hicken, Phil Mattingly, Hadas Gold, Winter Hawk, Kyung Lah, Anna-Maja Rappard, Casey Tolan, Ella Nilsen, Alex Marquardt, Jennifer Hansler, Kevin Liptak, and Lauren Kent contributed to this report.
