One of Elon Musk’s trusted DOGE staffers has resigned from his position after his links to racist social media posts promoting eugenics were unearthed.
Marko Elez was one of two employees at the Department of Government Efficiency granted access to $5trillion in the Treasury payment systems following an 11th hour court hearing on Thursday.
But by Thursday afternoon, the 25-year-old trusted Musk ally had resigned after The Wall Street Journal probed his links to the since-deleted social media account.
According to the publication, the X account ‘advocated repealing the Civil Rights Act and backed a ‘eugenic immigration policy’.’
Other posts allegedly included one which read ‘You could not pay me to marry outside of my ethnicity’, and ‘normalize Indian hate.’
Finally, one allegedly read: ‘Just for the record, I was racist before it was cool.’
White House spokesperson Karoline Leavitt said that Elez had resigned from his role.
Elez graduated with a computer science degree from Rutgers University and went on to work for Musk’s SpaceX, Starlink, and X, with a focus predominately in AI.
Marko Elez was one of two employees at the Department of Government Efficiency granted access to $5trillion in the Treasury payment systems following an 11th hour court hearing on Thursday
It comes after a last-ditch court request to limit DOGE’s access to Treasury’s $5trillion system – the first hiccup for the nascent agency after weeks of ruthlessly purging federal institutions to eliminate waste and overspending.
Over the coming days and weeks, the court’s decision on privacy concerns about DOGE’s access to the data will be a monumental test of their power to infiltrate and wipe out government spending.
Lawyers with the Justice Department agreed to a motion that allows only two people associated with Musk ‘read-only’ access to the system – including tax returns and social security numbers – on the condition that they do not share what they find with colleagues.
Those two employees are Musk disciples Tom Krause and Elez.
Musk has faced criticism for his decision to hire a hand-picked team of young, college aged men to help him purge federal agencies and eliminate waste.
This week, six men aged between 19 and 25 were publicly identified as DOGE employees.
At just 19, Edward Coristine is the youngest of the fresh-faced bunch taking on corporate America and longstanding government institutions.
According to WIRED, he’s been dubbed an ‘expert’ in his field, and specifics about his role aren’t yet clear.
Elez graduated with a computer science degree from Rutgers University and went on to work for Musk’s SpaceX, Starlink, and X, with a focus predominately in AI
Akash Bobba, 21, Ethan Shaotran, 22, and Luke Farritor, 23, along with Coristine, have reportedly been granted A-suite level clearance for their work, meaning they can work out of the agency’s top floor with access to all physical spaces and IT systems.
Musk’s DOGE has been rapidly growing in power and expanding its remit, most recently securing clearance to access to restricted parts of the General Services Administration buildings and IT systems.
The oldest of the bunch is 25-year-old Berkeley graduate Gavin Kliger, who while not identified as having top level clearance has already proven he wields significant power.
Finally, Gautier Cole Killian has been named for his role with DOGE, which is reportedly on a ‘volunteer’ basis at this stage.
After widespread criticism about the men’s youth, Musk released a statement about the appointments.
‘Time to confess: Media reports saying that DOGE has some of world’s best software engineers are in fact true,’ Musk wrote on X.
