The Department of Government Efficiency (aka Department of Government Idiocy)
Move fast, break things, and then blame everyone else when you fail
Hey, I get it. Elon Musk’s DOGE experiment to “move fast and break things” could save the US government a lot of money. However, the question of at what cost will take decades to answer. In the meantime, hundreds of thousands of Americans are suffering under the cruel fear and uncertainty brought on by a mentally unstable billionaire who seems incapable of caring about anyone but himself.
Meanwhile, we can monitor DOGE’s progress (despite L Ron Musk’s efforts to conceal it behind a facade) and chuckle at the absurdity when Space Karen fails miserably and, like his Orange Messiah master, lashes out at everyone else when he looks like an idiot.
What is the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE)?
Unelected officials given extraordinary power
The Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), officially known as the U.S. DOGE Service Temporary Organization, is a temporary entity within the United States DOGE Service, formerly referred to as the United States Digital Service. Although it bears the title of ‘Department,’ DOGE is not a cabinet-level department of the U.S. government, which requires approval from the United States Congress.
The concept of DOGE arose during a conversation between Elon Musk and Donald Trump, in which Musk suggested creating a department to improve government efficiency. At a campaign event in August 2024, Trump indicated that he would consider appointing Musk to an advisory role if elected. Musk replied with a post on X, saying, “I am willing to serve,” and shared an AI-generated image of himself at a lectern labeled “Department of Government Efficiency.” On November 12, 2024, Trump and Musk’s bromance blossomed when Trump appointed Musk to lead the newly formed DOGE.
The DOGE scam
Almost immediately, concerns were raised about the potential conflict of interest resulting from Musk’s and Ramaswamy’s companies serving as federal contractors while they pursue work related to DOGE. In February 2025, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt brilliantly proposed that it would be up to Musk to assess whether his involvement with DOGE poses a conflict interest.
As Musk pledged to continue his fascist destruction of American lives, worries intensified. At a news conference at the Capitol on February 3, Senator Patty Murray, vice chair of the Senate Appropriations Committee, claimed that Musk and his associates were violating the law. She described Musk as an “unelected, unaccountable billionaire with significant conflicts of interest and close ties to China,” and accused him of undermining the nation’s financial systems and its ability to pay.
Democratic Representative Zoe Lofgren criticized DOGE, labeling it as “unconstitutional and illegal” in connection to its proposals regarding the impoundment of appropriated funds by Congress. Representative Greg Landsman described the commission as “a way for the wealthiest person alive, who gets billions in federal money, to manipulate the federal government data and payment system at the expense of the American people.”
Seth Masket, a political science professor at the University of Denver, referred to the “freeze of government function” as a “coup” in the San Francisco Chronicle. He argues that “Musk is a private citizen taking control of established government offices.” Masket also points out that Musk has no official role in government and questions the legitimacy of the Department of Government Efficiency, which is not recognized as a federal executive department, yet assumes authority over established government agencies.
Don Moynihan, a public policy professor at the University of Michigan, described Musk and DOGE’s actions as “concerning” and “unprecedented.” He raised alarm over the fact that Musk and his team, who are “not really public officials,” had access to sensitive government data and that Congress had very little ability to oversee or respond to this situation.
The internal organization of DOGE
No reason for secrecy if you have nothing to hide
On February 2, Wired reported that the hires included several engineers aged 19 to 24 with little to no experience in government, including Akash Bobba, Edward Coristine, Luke Farritor, Marko Elez, Gautier Cole Killian, Gavin Kliger, and Ethan Shaotran. They, along with approximately 40 others working for DOGE under Musk, have aggressively questioned federal employees, refusing to disclose their last names and referring to discussions as “one-way interviews.” Many are working at various agencies and using multiple anonymous email addresses. The team has been called “Doge Kids” by some reporters.
Steve Davis
The DOGE team reports to Steve Davis, a long-time advisor to Musk and CEO of Musk’s The Boring Company, who played a key role in reducing costs at X and SpaceX. The New York Times reported that Davis “has himself amassed extraordinary power across federal agencies.” Musk has been present with his team as well.
Katie Miller
On December 22, Trump announced that Katie Miller, the wife of then-incoming Deputy Chief of Staff for Policy Stephen Miller, would be joining DOGE.
Akash Bobba
Akash Bobba was mentioned in the Wired report on February 2, 2025, as a member of DOGE. He studied management at UC Berkeley. This baby-faced assassin is of Indian heritage and interned as an associate engineer at Bridgewater Associates before joining DOGE as an “expert.”
Edward Coristine
Edward Coristine, reported by Wired on February 2, 2025, is a 19-year-old DOGE member with no previous government experience. He recently graduated from Rye Country Day High School and was set to enroll at Northeastern University. Additionally, he spent three months at Neuralink, Elon Musk’s brain-computer interface company.
On February 3, 2025, Coristine held a call with staff from the federal Small Business Administration, detailing the level of access wanted by DOGE, which included human resources, contracts, and payment systems. He reportedly signed into the call using a non-government email address. Questions have been raised regarding his ability to pass a federal background check. According to The Daily Dot, Coristine went by the moniker “bigballs” on LinkedIn and @Edwardbigballer on Twitter.
Luke Farritor
Luke Farritor was mentioned in a Wired article on February 2, 2025, as a member of DOGE. He reportedly interned at SpaceX and withdrew from the University of Nebraska. Currently, Farritor holds a General Services Administration (GSA) email and A-suite level clearance, which grants him access to all GSA physical facilities and IT systems.
Mark Elez
Mark Elez was identified as one of the DOGE members reported by Wired on February 2, 2025. At 25 years old, he has faced public criticism after receiving administrator-level access to essential U.S. Treasury payment systems through Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE). Notably, he lacks prior experience in government roles. Elez’s appointment to DOGE led to him being granted administrator access to both the Payment Automation Manager and Secure Payment System at the Bureau of the Fiscal Service (BFS). These permissions allowed him to alter crucial financial infrastructures, despite concerns from Treasury officials and lawmakers.
Gautier Cole Killian
Gautier Cole Killian, a member of DOGE mentioned by Wired on February 2, 2025, is referred to as a “volunteer.” His resume (now deleted) indicated that he was a student at McGill University. Additionally, his deleted personal website revealed that he held a position as an engineer at Jump Trading.
Gavin Kliger
Gavin Kliger was featured among the DOGE members mentioned in a Wired article published on February 2, 2025. It is reported that he attended UC Berkeley and worked at Databricks. On his Substack, he wrote a post titled “The Curious Case of Matt Gaetz: How the Deep State Destroys Its Enemies”.
Before 1:00 AM on February 3, 2025, Kliger sent an email from a USAID email address to all USAID employees instructing them to work from home and not to come into the office. Kliger has no prior experience with the agency or in government roles.
Ethan Shaotran
Ethan Shaotran was one of the DOGE members that Wired reported about on February 2, 2025. Residing in Palo Alto, California, he participated in the Research Science Institute at MIT in 2019. He graduated from Gunn High School in 2020 and is currently a senior at Harvard University.
Failures
Marko Elez linked to accounts advocating racism and eugenics.
It should come as no surprise that one of Space Karen’s associates has been accused of being a radical racist. The Wall Street Journal reported that in July, an account linked to Elez posted, “Just for the record, I was racist before it was cool.” In September, the account claimed, “You couldn’t pay me to marry outside of my ethnicity.” That same month, they wrote, “Normalize Indian hate,” referring to a post about the significant presence of Indians in Silicon Valley. In December, they posted, “99% of Indian H1Bs will be replaced by slightly smarter LLMs; they’re going back, don’t worry guys,” the user noted in December, referring to large language models like OpenAI’s ChatGPT.
The day after Elez’s resignation, Musk conducted a poll on X, asking whether his followers thought DOGE should rehire the “staff member who made inappropriate remarks using a now-deleted pseudonym.” Within just a few hours, the poll received over 200,000 votes, with 80% supporting Elez’s return.
A day after Marko Elez resigned due to a Wall Street Journal report that revealed his racist social media activity, the Trump administration vowed to reinstate him. Musk, the billionaire CEO of Tesla and X, who leads the newly created Department of Government Efficiency, announced on X on Friday, “He will be brought back.” Vice President JD Vance voiced support for the employee, too.”
When asked about the calls to reinstate Elez during a press conference on Friday, Trump stated that he supported Vance’s position to forgive and reinstate the former Treasury Department employee. Earlier that day, Musk conducted a poll on X, asking whether Elez should be reinstated, with 78% of participants in favor of his return to the Department of Government Efficiency.
Edward Coristine
The biggest question is how Edward Coristine obtained access to sensitive US government systems, considering his previous ties to cybercrime communities that should have barred him from securing the necessary clearances. Reports from various news sources indicate that this Musk Minion previously belonged to ‘The Com,’ a network of Discord and Telegram channels serving as a decentralized hub for cybercriminals to communicate.
One of the companies that Coristine founded, Tesla.Sexy LLC, was established in 2021, when he would have been about 16 years old. It was reported:
“Tesla.Sexy LLC controls dozens of web domains, including at least two Russian-registered domains,” Wired reported. “One of those domains, which is still active, offers a service called Helfie, which is an AI bot for Discord servers targeting the Russian market. While the operation of a Russian website would not violate US sanctions preventing Americans doing business with Russian companies, it could potentially be a factor in a security clearance review.”
This week, Wired published a follow-up story revealing that an individual connected to the Telegram handle associated with Coristine attempted to hire a DDoS service in 2022. He also had a brief stint at a company that specializes in DDoS attack protection. Coristine’s LinkedIn profile indicated that in 2022 he worked at an anti-DDoS company called Path Networks, which Wired generously described as a “network monitoring firm known for hiring reformed blackhat hackers.”
Wired pointed out that Coristine was at Path for only a few months in 2022, yet it didn’t explain the reason for his brief tenure. A screenshot on pathtruths.com features excerpts from conversations in June 2022 among Path employees that mention Coristine’s dismissal. This record states that Path’s founder, Marshal Webb, let Coristine go for leaking internal documents to a competitor. Soon after Coristine was terminated, a large number of internal Path documents were leaked.
Experts say it is extremely difficult for former members of violent street gangs to obtain the necessary security clearance required to access sensitive or classified U.S. government information. This challenge arises from the fact that these individuals are often susceptible to extortion and coercion by current gang members, creating an unacceptable security risk for intelligence agencies.
When Coristine’s name appeared in this week’s Wired report, members of The Com immediately took notice. In a discussion from a Com-affiliated hosting provider on February 5, 2025, members criticized Rivage’s capabilities and discussed harassing his family, as well as notifying authorities about potentially false incriminating allegations.
2025-02-05 16:29:44 UTC vperked#0 they got this nigga on indiatimes man
2025-02-05 16:29:46 UTC alexaloo#0 Their cropping is worse than AI could have done
2025-02-05 16:29:48 UTC hebeatsme#0 bro who is that
2025-02-05 16:29:53 UTC hebeatsme#0 yalla re talking about
2025-02-05 16:29:56 UTC xewdy#0 edward
2025-02-05 16:29:56 UTC .yarrb#0 rivagew
2025-02-05 16:29:57 UTC vperked#0 Rivarge
2025-02-05 16:29:57 UTC xewdy#0 diamondcdm
2025-02-05 16:29:59 UTC vperked#0 i cant spell it
2025-02-05 16:30:00 UTC hebeatsme#0 rivage
2025-02-05 16:30:08 UTC .yarrb#0 yes
2025-02-05 16:30:14 UTC hebeatsme#0 i have him added
2025-02-05 16:30:20 UTC hebeatsme#0 hes on discord still
2025-02-05 16:30:47 UTC .yarrb#0 hes focused on stroking zaddy elon
2025-02-05 16:30:47 UTC vperked#0 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Coristine
2025-02-05 16:30:50 UTC vperked#0 no fucking way
2025-02-05 16:30:53 UTC vperked#0 they even made a wiki for him
2025-02-05 16:30:55 UTC vperked#0 LOOOL
2025-02-05 16:31:05 UTC hebeatsme#0 no way
2025-02-05 16:31:08 UTC hebeatsme#0 hes not a good dev either
2025-02-05 16:31:14 UTC hebeatsme#0 like????
2025-02-05 16:31:22 UTC hebeatsme#0 has to be fake
2025-02-05 16:31:24 UTC xewdy#0 and theyre saying ts
2025-02-05 16:31:29 UTC xewdy#0 like ok bro
2025-02-05 16:31:51 UTC .yarrb#0 now i wanna know what all the other devs are like…
2025-02-05 16:32:00 UTC vperked#0 “Coristine used the moniker “bigballs” on LinkedIn and @Edwardbigballer on Twitter, according to The Daily Dot.[“
2025-02-05 16:32:05 UTC vperked#0 LOL
2025-02-05 16:32:06 UTC hebeatsme#0 lmfaooo
2025-02-05 16:32:07 UTC vperked#0 bro
2025-02-05 16:32:10 UTC hebeatsme#0 bro
2025-02-05 16:32:17 UTC hebeatsme#0 has to be fake right
2025-02-05 16:32:22 UTC .yarrb#0 does it mention Rivage?
2025-02-05 16:32:23 UTC xewdy#0 He previously worked for NeuraLink, a brain computer interface company led by Elon Musk
2025-02-05 16:32:26 UTC xewdy#0 bro what
2025-02-05 16:32:27 UTC alexaloo#0 I think your current occupation gives you a good insight of what probably goes on
2025-02-05 16:32:29 UTC hebeatsme#0 bullshit man
2025-02-05 16:32:33 UTC xewdy#0 this nigga got hella secrets
2025-02-05 16:32:37 UTC hebeatsme#0 rivage couldnt print hello world
2025-02-05 16:32:42 UTC hebeatsme#0 if his life was on the line
2025-02-05 16:32:50 UTC xewdy#0 nigga worked for neuralink
2025-02-05 16:32:54 UTC hebeatsme#0 bullshit
2025-02-05 16:33:06 UTC Nashville Dispatch ##0000 ||@PD Ping||
2025-02-05 16:33:07 UTC hebeatsme#0 must have killed all those test pigs with some bugs
2025-02-05 16:33:24 UTC hebeatsme#0 ur telling me the rivage who failed to start a company
2025-02-05 16:33:28 UTC hebeatsme#0 https://cdn.camp
2025-02-05 16:33:32 UTC hebeatsme#0 who didnt pay for servers
2025-02-05 16:33:34 UTC hebeatsme#0 ?
2025-02-05 16:33:42 UTC hebeatsme#0 was too cheap
2025-02-05 16:33:44 UTC vperked#0 yes
2025-02-05 16:33:50 UTC hebeatsme#0 like??
2025-02-05 16:33:53 UTC hebeatsme#0 it aint adding up
2025-02-05 16:33:56 UTC alexaloo#0 He just needed to find his calling idiot.
2025-02-05 16:33:58 UTC alexaloo#0 He found it.
2025-02-05 16:33:59 UTC hebeatsme#0 bro
2025-02-05 16:34:01 UTC alexaloo#0 Cope in a river dude
2025-02-05 16:34:04 UTC hebeatsme#0 he cant make good money right
2025-02-05 16:34:08 UTC hebeatsme#0 doge is about efficiency
2025-02-05 16:34:11 UTC hebeatsme#0 he should make $1/he
2025-02-05 16:34:15 UTC hebeatsme#0 $1/hr
2025-02-05 16:34:25 UTC hebeatsme#0 and be whipped for better code
2025-02-05 16:34:26 UTC vperked#0 prolly makes more than us
2025-02-05 16:34:35 UTC vperked#0 with his dad too
2025-02-05 16:34:52 UTC hebeatsme#0 time to report him for fraud
2025-02-05 16:34:54 UTC hebeatsme#0 to donald trump
2025-02-05 16:35:04 UTC hebeatsme#0 rivage participated in sim swap hacks in 2018
2025-02-05 16:35:08 UTC hebeatsme#0 put that on his wiki
2025-02-05 16:35:10 UTC hebeatsme#0 thanks
2025-02-05 16:35:15 UTC hebeatsme#0 and in 2021
2025-02-05 16:35:17 UTC hebeatsme#0 thanks
2025-02-05 16:35:19 UTC chainofcommand#0 i dont think they’ll care tbh
