jakiro
Author｜Amelie Editor｜Yifan
Musk is trying to govern the White House in a way that manages X.
As we all know, Elon Musk is now famous after Trump was electedDepartment of Government Efficiency (DOGE)person in charge.
This extremely powerful new identity allows Musk to access computer systems at various agencies, especially those related to human resources for U.S. federal employees.
Source: Getty Images
With just one month of working in the new leadership team, DOGE has turned upside down the political and business circles in the United States, and government departments have laid off large-scale staff and reduced staffing and rectified the social security system… all unconventional operations have been one after another.
change?Disruption?What DOGE does
Trump and Musk did not hide the slightest of DOGE’s purpose: streamlining redundant institutions and reducing federal spending.
Just two weeks after taking office, this Musk-led DOGE has jumped from a seemingly mysterious organization to the focus of global media, because it hit the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), which has a history of more than 60 years.
On a calm Monday, about 600 USAID employees received an email directing them not to enter the headquarters building in Washington, D.C.
In response, Musk calmly responded: USAID is so rotten that it cannot be repaired!
In addition, DOGE also announced the cancellation of diversified, fair and inclusive contracts.
This expenditure alone saved the government more than $1 billion.The business that DOGE is engaged in is undoubtedly an offensive job – moving cheese and cutting off people’s wealth.
As the most controversial department of the White House, DOGE has sparked multiple lawsuits since January 20.Because Democratic lawmakers and consumer advocates worry that because the system stores personal data for most Americans, DOGE will have catastrophic consequences once it gains access to the Treasury payment system.
Although many government employees were indignant, the president was particularly satisfied.He praised Musk’s DOGE department for doing “awesome” in reducing the size of the federal government and said he hopes to “see him become more proactive.”
All signs indicate that Musk is trying to govern the White House in a way that manages X.
On February 22, Musk posted on social media platform X, “According to the president’s instructions,All federal employees will soon receive an email asking to report on their work last week.If you do not reply, it will be considered an automatic resignation.”
Tens of thousands of federal employees then received an email on the same day asking them to “reply this email, listing about 5 tasks completed last week, and cc to your supervisor.”The email was sent by the U.S. Personnel Administration, and the reply deadline was midnight on the 24th.
Trump is very supportive of this practice. “What a clever idea it is to send this email. We are working to confirm whether people are performing their duties.”
But asking federal employees to write weekly newspapers, which sounds very efficient, has not received any response from all departments.Several defense agencies, including the FBI and the National Security Agency (NSA), were notified to suspend their responses.
“He’s a big businessman. He’s a successful guy. That’s why we want him to do that,” Trump said in a press conference Tuesday, stressing that DOGE has “a lot of work, a lot of smart people involved.”
Who are these “smart people”
The department brings together a group of young tech elites who demonstrate outstanding talents in their respective fields.Here is all you need to know about DOGE staff so far.
Core Circle —
▍Elon Musk(Elon Musk)
Role:DOGE Leader, Unpaid “Special Government Employee”
feature:Solemn, obsessed, ambition, adventurer
The qualities of these adventurers are pointed out by Elon Musk’s waiters and followers.
The “Iron Man of Silicon Valley” who founded SpaceX, Tesla and dreamed of immigrating to Mars is now a right-hand man to the US president.
According to the document submitted on February 17, the Trump administration said Musk is a White House employee and a senior adviser to the president.According to the Trump administration’s executive order, DOGE is a provisional government organization whose authority will expire in July 2026.
▍Steve Davis
Role:Musk’s long-term confidant
Steve Davis, who has been with Musk for 20 years and is known for cost-cutting and rapid execution, is also the president of the tunnel excavation company Boring Company.After earning his master’s degree in aerospace engineering from Stanford University, he has been working at SpaceX since 2003, becoming one of the company’s earliest employees, according to the Los Angeles Times.
In 2016, Musk appointed Davis to run his latest out-of-reach idea: an underground transportation game called “The Boring Company.”Under his leadership, The Boring Company raised hundreds of millions of dollars and built several short so-called “Tesla Tunnels” in Las Vegas.
Musk, this confidant, is well versed in negotiations and has strong execution ability.Once, Musk invited him to join Twitter to help complete the acquisition and subsequent operations.Davis and his family reportedly slept in a temporary bedroom at the company headquarters during this period.Now, Davis is helping Musk lay off redundant government staff.
▍Nicole Hollander
Role:X Employees
The George Washington University graduate and former employee of real estate developer JGB Smith, who was a former employee of Twitter’s polarized transition team, had her transition team that upended Twitter and cut staff.At the same time, she is also the wife of Steve Davis, the best ally of Musk.
Holland’s relationship with Davis and her current work at X kept her in Musk’s circle.Her role in DOGE does not have a formal title, at least not a public title.However, Wired reported in late January that Holland had high-level access to federal agencies and an official government email address.
Senior executives —
▍Brian Bjelde
Role:Senior Consultant, Office of Personnel Management
Brian Bied worked at SpaceX in Musk for 21 years, and was the company’s No. 14 employee and is still working today.Beyed initially worked as an avionics engineer, but has been in charge of managing the company’s human resources department for the past decade.
Before joining SpaceX, Brian Beard worked at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory for a year after graduating from the University of Southern California and earning his master’s degree in aerospace engineering.
▍Amanda Scales
Role:Director of the Office of Personnel Management
The Federal Office of Personnel Management, referred to as OPM, is essentially the human resources department of the federal government and has also become the core of a series of actions such as Musk’s drastic layoffs and other actions.
According to an OPM memo, Amanda Skele does not work directly for DOGE but currently serves as chief of staff in the Office of Personnel Management in the main human resources department of the federal government.
According to her LinkedIn profile, Skeles worked in recruitment at Musk’s company x.AI until January 2025.She has also worked in human resources and talent at San Francisco-based venture capital firm Human Capital and Uber.According to her LinkedIn information, Skyles graduated from UC Davis in 2012 with a degree in psychology and economics.
▍Amy Gleason
Role:Agent DOGE Administrator
According to the White House, Amy Gleason is the acting administrator of DOGE. Although he is nominally the head of the government efficiency department, Gleason is actually the official head of the government efficiency department, and Musk basically gives orders.
According to its LinkedIn profile, Amy Gleason worked at Digital Services in the United States (now DOGE) from October 2018 to December 2021, and previously served as Chief Product Officer of Russell Street Ventures from December 2021 to November 2024.
Under the executive order to establish DOGE, Amy Gleason reported to White House chief of staff Susie Wiles.
▍Jehn Balajadia
Role:Musk’s long-term assistant
According to Jayne Barajadia’s LinkedIn profile, she first joined Musk’s business ecosystem in 2017, serving as the title of Operations Coordinator at Musk’s company The Boring Company.The company’s main business is the United States infrastructure, tunnel construction services and equipment companies.Split out of SpaceX in 2018.In 2018, Barajadia took over as executive assistant in the company’s CEO’s office, which includes managing all Musk’s activities, often with his family’s activities.
Today, Jayne Barajadia plays a major role in DOGE.According to the New York Times, she was listed on the Department of Education’s staff list.
The book Breaking Twitter says Barajadia had told another Musk official that her job was to “care” him, and she reportedly traveled with Musk frequently.When Musk took over Twitter, Barajadia was appointed chief of staff, the one who sent a letter of dismissal to several Twitter executives.
Prior to joining Tesla, Barajadia worked for Red Bull, NBC Universal and Walt Disney.
▍Riccardo Biasini
Role:Senior Consultant, Director of the Office of Personnel Management
Ricardo Biasini entered Musk’s circle in 2011 and joined Tesla as an engineer after earning his master’s degree in automotive engineering from the University of Pisa, Italy last year.
During his five years at Tesla, Biasini has focused most of his attention on Autopilot, an advanced driver assistance system for the company, according to an article published on Medium.Prior to taking charge of the system, he led the development of traffic-aware cruise control and other driver assistance features for the autopilot.
Biasini left Tesla in 2016 and joined Comma.ai to develop automatic horizontal and vertical control systems for the startup’s first self-driving car system.Later, he became Vice President of Quality and was appointed CEO of the company in 2018.
In 2019, Biazini returned to Musk as Director of Electrical and Software Engineering at The Boring Company.Currently, Biasini is a senior consultant to the Director of the DOGE Office of Personnel Management.
▍Christopher Stanley)
Role:Unspecified roles in the White House
Christopher Stanley started working for Musk in October 2022 and became part of Twitter’s “core transition team” after Musk took over Twitter.
According to the New York Times, Stanley has since held an unspecified role in the White House.Stanley himself has hinted through his X account to work in the Trump administration.
Stanley is also the head of security engineering at X and the chief security engineer at SpaceX.Stanley said on LinkedIn that he is also the CIS for X Payments, a payment service that Musk hopes to launch as part of his desire for X’s “everything apps”.
Before entering Musk’s circle, Stanley owned his own cybersecurity company called “Stanley Network” and worked as a contractor in Kentucky.He has also worked for Baptist Health, a Kentucky healthcare facility, which includes hospitals and other facilities.
A xAI-powered chatbot was found in a website subdomain associated with DOGE on the Stanley Network called the AI Assistant for Government Efficiency, which said it “is designed to help government personnel like you identify and eliminate waste, improve efficiency, and simplify the process using first-principle methods.”
Grassroots (worker bee) ——
▍Akash Bobba
Role:Experts at the Office of Personnel Management
According to Wired, 21-year-old Akash Boba is an engineer at DOGE and is involved in the optimization and development of government systems. Compared with other people in DOGE, Boba and Musk do not have much intersection.But he has had some interactions with the technology industry. He has interned in technology companies such as Meta (formerly Facebook) and has accumulated rich technical experience.According to a now-deleted podcast by software engineer Aman Manazir, Poba said he had interned at Meta and Palantir, and he also worked at Bridgewater Fund.
According to Wired, Poba was listed as an “expert” in OPM’s internal letters and reported directly to OPM’s chief of staff Amanda Skele.
▍Edward Corristine (Edward Coristine)
Role:Special Government Employees
Edward Corristin is only 19 years old. He just graduated from high school in 2024 and was admitted to Northeastern University in Boston, USA, and plans to study mechanical engineering and physics.He is one of the core members of the DOGE team, Musk’s youngest assistant, listed as an expert at DOGE and participates in government technical projects.
He has a broccoli perm hair, nicknamed “Big Ball”.At the end of his first month in office, he has served in the State Department and the Department of Homeland Security, the Small Business Administration, the Federal Emergency Administration and the Supreme Cybersecurity Agency.He is the youngest of six male engineers working for Musk, making three meals on pizza and Red Bull.
Since arriving in Washington, D.C., Corristin has been actively involved in accessing federal systems across multiple government departments. Before joining DOGE, he ran several companies in his own name at home in New York, including network services companies DiamondCDN and Packetware, both of which provide DDoS protection (DDoS refers to malicious behavior that floods target servers or their surrounding infrastructure through massive internet traffic to undermine normal traffic from target servers, services, or network traffic).
Around May 2024, Koristin began working for Musk’s company, Neuralink.
▍Marko Elez
Role:Special Government Employee of the U.S. Treasury Department
Since joining DOGE, 25-year-old Marco Elez has become a central figure in the legal battle over DOGE’s visit to some of the federal government’s most sensitive systems.As a senior Treasury employee, Marco Elize can use the U.S. Treasury Department’s payment system, which pays Americans about $6 trillion in federal funds, such as Social Security checks and federal tax refunds.According to a legal document on DOGE access, Ellez is the only DOGE employee with access to the payment system.
Prior to entering the government, Marco Elez worked at SpaceX, focusing on vehicle telemetry, starships and satellite software.According to an archived copy of Musk’s website, Elez later worked on searching for artificial intelligence at Musk’s social media company X.
He briefly resigned from his position as DOGE on February 6 after the Wall Street Journal exposed racist posts on Ellez’s social media accounts.Ellez may return to the government after Musk posted a poll on X asking if Ellez should be rehired.A reporter from the Washington Post announced on February 18 that he has resumed his post at DOGE.
▍Luke Farritor
Role:DOGE Senior Consultant
Luke Farito, 23, is listed as a senior consultant on a number of U.S. government department staff directory, including the State Department, the U.S. Agency for International Development and the Department of Energy.
Before joining the government, Farito was a student at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, known for deciphering the text on the ancient Roman scrolls and earning $700,000 for it.Later, Farito was selected for the 2024 Thiel Scholarship, the award of the year given by billionaire Peter Thiel.An archived copy of Luke Farito’s website says he worked for investors Nat Friedman and Daniel Gross, who was once the CEO of GitHub and who led Apple’s AI projects and worked as a partner at YC.Luke Farito helped them “invest a large multi-stage venture capital fund and help operate the accelerator AI Grant.”
Luke Farito interned at Musk’s satellite internet company Starlink in mid-2022 and worked at SpaceX from May 2022 to July 2023.
▍Gottier Cole Killian(Gautier Cole Killian)
Role:DOGE “Volunteer”, federal details staff
Gortier Cole Killian was described as a “volunteer” for DOGE and was designated as a “federal details staff” for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency in early February.Federal Detailers are federal employees who are usually seconded from another government agency.Mainly assists the team to obtain secure access to the Ministry of Finance to access the government payment network.
Killian was a former student at McGill University in Canada where he studied mathematics and computer science and served as a member of McGill University’s artificial intelligence team from 2021 to 2022.
▍Gavin Kliger
Role:Special Adviser, Director of Personnel Management Office
Gavin Krieger, 22, is an alumnus of the University of California, Berkeley. He graduated from electrical and computer engineering with a CPA of up to 3.95. He joined the DOGE team in early 2025.
He was a software engineer at Twitter and California startup Databrinks, and he also used his Substack platform to publish controversial articles—such as The Strange Things of Matt Gates, in which he criticized the role of so-called “deep government” in impeachment of political opponents.
Gavin Krieger has a clear political stance: he takes pictures in a hat that “make America great again”, supporting figures like Pete Heggs, who he describes as “the warrior that Washington fears.”
On Monday, the New York Times named Krieger to send a full-time email to U.S. Agency staff members ordering them to work from home as the agency is under scrutiny by DOGE and the Trump administration.
▍Tom Krause
Role:Special Government Employee of the U.S. Department of Treasury; CEO of Cloud Software Group
Tom Kraus is a special government employee and a senior DOGE employee in the U.S. Treasury Department.He also serves as CEO of Cloud Software Group, a private company with multiple tech companies, including remote access giant Citrix, a former publicly traded company that privatizes through a series of transactions.
According to several anonymous and anonymous employees, Klaus laid off some positions on Citrix, which employees said were crucial to the safety of the company’s products.
Klaus, 47, worked as an executive of Broadcom before becoming CEO of Cloud Software; before that, he ran a consulting firm.Since serving as one of Musk’s frontline employees at the Treasury, Klaus has worked closely with Marko Elez, another senior Treasury employee.
▍Jeremy Lewin
Role:DOGE Staff
According to Bloomberg, Jeremy Levin is a DOGE staff member of the General Services Administration, overseeing the federal government’s large-scale procurement and logistics operations.
Jeremy Levin is a 27-year-old Harvard Law School graduate who recently worked in the same law firm as Usha Vance, the second wife of the United States.He is also a lawyer and has co-written an article titled “Dollar 100 billion: How the United States should use Russian wealth to fight Putin” with Harvard Law School professor Laurence H. Tribe, published in the New York Times on April 15, 2022.
▍Nikhil Rajpal
Role:DOGE Staff
Nikil Rajpal, 27, studied computer science and history at UC Berkeley and served as chairman of the liberal-oriented student political group Student Fight for Freedom.
According to archived snapshots of his website, Rajpal started working on Twitter in 2016 until a while before being acquired by Musk.He may have reportedly entered Musk’s track for the first time before that, working on redesigning the Tesla console.
Nikir Rajpal works for DOGE for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and has a DOGE email address.
▍凯尔·舒特(Kyle Schutt)
Role:DOGE 技术专家
Kyle Schutt, 24, is a technologist with a long-term connection to Republican politics and recently to Elon Musk’s political operations.据报道，舒特可以访问 FEMA 的系统。
Kyle Schutt’s GitHub profile seen by TechCrunch shows that he works for a company called Outburst Data.According to security researchers, Outburst Data hosts a portion of the DOGE website and several other Musk-related sites, including his U.S. Legislative Council (PAC) political fundraising campaign.
Schutt also serves as chief technology officer for Revv, a widely used online fundraising platform for Republicans, and co-founder of KAMM, a Virginia software company.
▍Ethan Shaotran
Role:DOGE Staff
Ethan Shotland, 22, is a Californian, a DOGE staff member and a 2025 student at Harvard University, focusing on research on autonomous driving.Shortland first publicly contacted Musk in September 2024 when he finished second in a hackathon held by the billionaire’s artificial intelligence company xAI.
Shotland was the founder of Energize.ai, but its website is no longer loadable.He has also developed several iPhone apps, including a Donald Trump-themed running game called “Donald Dash”.
Shotland reportedly has a valid GSA email address and requests access to 10 years of GSA data.Shotland also has access to the Department of Education’s email system and the department’s backend website.
▍乔丹·威克（Jordan Wick）
Role:DOGE Staff
28岁的乔丹·WickWaymo’s former software engineer, Wayke is one of the teams with access to the Consumer Financial Protection Agency system.Wick graduated from MIT and received his Master of Engineering.
According to the YC website,Jordan·WickHe is also the co-founder of YC startup Intercept.
▍克里斯托弗·杨（Christopher Young）
Role:DOGE Staff
据彭博社报道，Christopher Youngis a DOGE staff member who has the email address of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.The address was reportedly copied in an email involving four other DOGE staff members who were required to be onboard and gain access to the CFPB building.
According to the New York Times, Young is a “top Republican field agent.”In 2024, Elon Musk hired him to help build a grassroots political organization focused on increasing voter turnout.Currently, he serves as a senior adviser in DOGE and has an email address to the President’s Executive Office.According to Young’s LinkedIn profile, he has been working in Republican politics since at least 2007.
Auxiliary —
▍Marc Andreessen
Role:DOGE Unofficial Consultant
据《华盛顿邮报》报道，硅谷风险投资公司 Andreesen Horowitz 的联合创始人马克·安德森并未正式为 DOGE 工作，但在该机构担任“人才招聘的关键网络人员”。Anderson also joked that he was a “unpaid intern” at DOGE.
▍George Cooper
Role:DOGE Recruitment
According to Wired, Cooper is a Palantir engineer who participated in DOGE’s recruitment work at the end of 2024.According to his LinkedIn profile, he graduated from Lehigh University in Pennsylvania with a bachelor’s degree in computer science and business.
Cooper wrote in a message seen by Wired that he worked hard to hire other Palantians to join DOGE because they were “the most outstanding people I know.”
▍Vinay Hiremath
Role:DOGE Recruitment
32 years oldVinay Hiremasis the co-founder of video recording startup Loom, which sold to Atlassian in 2023 for $975 million.根据希雷马斯网站上题为“我很富有，但不知道该做什么”的博客文章，希雷马斯 于 2024 年底在 DOGE 工作了大约一个月，拨打了数百个招聘电话。He wrote that he was added to the signal group associated with DOGE and “got to work immediately.”
While Shiremas praised DOGE’s work as “extremely important”, he said he resigned because he needed to focus on himself and canceled plans to move to Washington, D.C. and travel to Hawaii.
▍Anthony Jancso
Role:DOGE Recruitment
Anthony JanssoHe is a former Palantir software engineer who also participated in DOGE’s recruitment work at the end of 2024.In 2023, Janso co-founded Accelerate SF, a program that uses engineers to solve urban problems using artificial intelligence.
Janso’s exact age is not disclosed, but the LinkedIn profile seen by TechCrunch shows that he graduated from University College London in 2021 with a bachelor’s degree in economics.Janso was recruited to DOGE by Boring Company President Steve Davis.
▍Michael Kratsios
Role:DOGE Recruitment
According to Bloomberg, Cracios helped lead DOGE’s recruitment efforts at the end of 2024, interviewing future employees.Clasios previously served as managing director of Scale AI and served as chief technology officer of the United States during his first term as President Trump.According to his LinkedIn information, from 2014 to 2017, he also served as the head of Thiel Capital, a venture capital firm founded by Peter Thiel.
▍Katie Miller
Role:DOGE Consultant and Spokesperson
Miller is a Trump-appointed DOGE adviser and serves as his spokesperson.Miller, who served in Trump’s first administration, was the spouse of Trump’s deputy chief of staff, Stephen Miller.Miller also serves as a member of the Presidential Advisory Board related to intelligence affairs.
Reference link:
1.The people in Elon Musk’s DOGE universe. (TechCrunch)
2.La jeune équipe « inexpérimentée » de Musk prend les rênes de la DOGE. (Le Courrier des Stratèges)
3.The People Carrying Out Musk’s Plans at DOGE. (The New York Times)
