Elon Musk is using his tech and leadership playbook in a crusade against the federal bureaucracy as he and his allies attempt to gain access to sensitive information and use emerging tech to speed up the process.
Musk and his allies in the “Department of Government Efficiency” (DOGE) are harnessing tech — from artificial intelligence (AI) to mysterious servers — while taking a sledgehammer to federal spending and introduce modernized systems.
The “move things fast and break things” approach is reminiscent of Musk’s leadership at his other companies, notably X, where the billionaire, surrounded by a group of loyal deputies, slashed the employees and programs he deemed unnecessary.
Musk’s leadership style, described at times as reckless or intense, is central to his polarizing influence in the tech world.
Now, he’s bringing that attitude to Washington as Trump tasks him with leading efforts to reduce the federal workforce.
“Because there’s such energy behind different initiatives, it seems like they’re willing not just to go fast and break things, but to shake things up and go until you’re told, ‘No,'” Sarah Kreps, director of the Tech Policy Institute at Cornell University, said.
The tech leader’s execution of the DOGE task force mimics many of the steps he took after purchasing the social media platform X, then known as Twitter, in 2022.
The chaotic takeover was marked by the quick firings of top executives, a reduction in at least half of the company’s workforce and a rollback of some policies, often regardless of how the shift could impact the company.
In an email in 2022, Musk encouraged company employees to leave or commit to being “extremely hardcore.” The subject line was “A Fork in the Road.”
Nearly two years later, hundreds of thousands of federal employees received emails this week with the same “Fork in the Road” subject line that offered a deferred resignation, promising staffers would retain their full salary and benefits without working through Sept. 30.
“The subject title…he didn’t even bother to change it at all, and it was on purpose too, like a f— you,” one federal employee who received the email told The Hill on the condition of anonymity.
The employee pointed to the legal battles former Twitter employees have since brought against Musk over the severance packages he promised them during layoffs.
Employees who take the buyouts “can’t say they were wrongfully terminated because you volunteered to do it,” the employee said.
“And then guess what? If they decide to change our minds and change the rules of the game afterward, well it will be a big f— you [to feds] or ‘fork you’,” they quipped. “And that’s what happened at Twitter.”
Like with his X takeover, Musk has installed a tight-knit team of allies to orchestrate DOGE’s campaign. Many of these staffers are young adults with ties to his other companies, but little to no prior government work.
Thomas Shedd, a former Tesla engineer, was tapped to lead technology efforts at the General Services Administration (GSA), while Amanda Scales, a previous employee of Musk’s AI firm, xAI, is now the chief of staff for the Office of Personnel Management (OPM).
While Shedd and Scales’ links to Musk are more public, the exact roles of some of his other deputies are a bit murky.
Among those include Edward Coristine a 19-year-old working as a “DOGE engineer” with the Small Business Administration (SBA), according to a picture of his sba.gov email address obtained by The Hill.
At OPM, Coristine has the title of “expert” with an opm.gov email, according to a different screenshot obtained by The Hill.
Coristine previously interned at Musk’s brain-computer interface Neuralink and told Northeastern University’s student newspaper Musk was one of his idols and he did not plan to return to school this spring, ProPublica reported.
Bloomberg reported that Coristine was fired from an internship after he was accused of sharing information with a competitor.
Tech observers have mixed reactions when it comes to Musk’s recruitment of some young workers, though they note it is nothing new for his playbook.
“SpaceX did not become this hugely successful company … by just going after mid-career people who’ve been doing this for decades,” said Kreps. “They did it by going after precocious people who might, in some cases, not even have a college degree.”
Meanwhile, Musk, who now describes himself as “White House Tech Support” has taken on DOGE with just as much intensity as his other ventures. He claimed to be sleeping in DOGE’s office, Wired reported this week, quickly drawing comparisons to when he said he used to sleep on the factory floor of Tesla.
With a group of tech-oriented staffers running the show, it is no surprise the integration of emerging technology is playing a key role in DOGE’s efforts.
The executive order for DOGE reinforces the task force will pursue its agenda “by modernizing Federal technology and software to maximize government efficiency and productivity.”
DOGE is reportedly using AI in various ways to slash costs and identify areas that need cutting.
The New York Times reported earlier this week that Shedd informed GSA staffers that AI will be a central part of their efforts to reduce costs. GSA employees were informed leaders have discussed eliminating 50 percent of the agency’s budget.
WIRED later reported DOGE is seeking to develop “GSAi,” a custom generative AI chatbot for the GSA, while The Washington Post reported the DOGE team is putting sensitive federal data into AI to determine potential spending cuts.
The integration of AI into the federal government marks a major shift for the U.S. government, which has typically hosted outdated technology.
Trump has pushed for American leadership in AI, and his administration is currently seeking input on an AI “action plan.”
It is not immediately clear if Musk will try to implement X’s own AI model, Grok, at federal agencies, or if Grok has been deployed to assist DOGE’s efforts.
DOGE did not respond to The Hill’s request for comment on these reports.
Elizabeth Laird, the Center for Democracy and Technology (CDT)’s director for equity in civic technology, noted there is a great deal of uncertainty about this emerging tech as most of these media reports have relied on anonymous accounts.
“It raises serious questions about not just whether this is something the federal government should be doing, but whether it’s even complying with long-standing privacy protections,” she told The Hill. “We are talking about the most sensitive information that people provide in order to receive a government service.”
“AI is still rapidly developing and maturing,” she continued. “We know that AI has issues with just flat out being inaccurate and in this case, where you’re talking about using AI to make life-impacting decisions about what continues to get funded, I think there are also serious questions about whether this tool can even responsibly do what we’re hearing it’s being used to do.”
Some employees are concerned about the integration of Google’s AI chatbot Gemini.
One U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) employee, who was granted anonymity to speak freely without fear of retaliation, said it was an “open secret” to not put anything “remotely critical” in emails or chat messages about the American First policy agenda and that the Gemini installation “instilled this almost McCarthy-like panic.”
The large language model was installed on January 15, prior to Trump’s inauguration, according to Google spokesperson José Castañeda. Google’s workplace contract with USAID was also put in place prior to the Trump administration.
Another USAID employee theorized that Gemini was installed “to be able to use AI to query all communications around USAID to either look for people who weren’t loyal to the Administration above everything else, or to find people still talking about things like DEIA, gender, etc., and use that as a reason to terminate them.”
“That’s just my intuition,” they added.
Castañeda emphasized that the data employees put into Google Workspace services like emails and documents stays in the Workspace and is not used to train or improve generative AI.
USAID has since been slashed from more than 10,000 employees to fewer than 300 as part of DOGE’s campaign.
