 "Who is Marko Elez, top Doge staffer who resigned after racist posts on Indians resurfaced?")
One of Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (Doge) staffers has resigned after some racist social media posts came to light.
Marko Elez, a software engineer, resigned after questions from The Wall Street Journal to the White House about incendiary posts on a social media account linked to him pushed racism and eugenics.
US President Donald Trump has tasked Doge, headed by billionaire Elon Musk, to get rid of ‘wasteful federal spending.’
But what happened? What do we know about Elez?
Let’s take a closer look:
Who is Elez?
As per Newsweek, Elez graduated from Rutgers University in 2021.
He has a degree in computer science.
During his sophomore year, he cofounded a company that connects high schoolers with mentors to help out on their college applications.
Elez is said to have worked on search AI at X.
As per The Wall Street Journal, Elez, 25, previously worked for Musk ’s X and SpaceX.
Elez was a temporary Doge appointee at the US treasury.
As per LinkedIn, Elez had been given access to systems that control $5.45 trillion in federal funding.
This includes Social Security checks, tax returns and Medicare payments.
As per NPR, Elez had been given the status of a special government employee.
The position allowed Elez to perform “limited services.”
Wired Magazine wrote that Elez had been granted administrator-level privileges to the treasury back end.
The magazine also reported that Elez visited the treasury department’s office in Kansas City – where its servers are kept.
As per The Hill, a federal judge had on Thursday restricted Elez’s access to the systems.
The access “to payment records will be ‘read only,’” the order said.
What happened?
The Wall Street Journal reported about several racist posts in 2024 on an X account linked to Elez.
The account in December called for the landmark Civil Rights Act to be repealed.
“I just want a eugenic immigration policy, is that too much to ask,” the account wrote.
“You could not pay me to marry outside of my ethnicity,” the account posted in September.
“Normalise Indian hate,” it added.
“99% of Indian H1Bs will be replaced by slightly smarter LLMs, they’re going back don’t worry guys,” the account wrote as per Daily Beast.
In July of last year, the account posted: “Just for the record, I was racist before it was cool,” the account posted in July.
“I would not mind at all if Gaza and Israel were both wiped off the face of the Earth," the account wrote in June.
As per Newsweek, the account was previously named @marko_elez.
Its owner described themselves as an employee at SpaceX and Starlink.
Elez’s current X account is @marko_elez.
It has zero posts since joining X in February 2024.
As per The Daily Beast, Elez has scrubbed out most of his online presence – including his LinkedIn page.
So have other Doge staffers who were identified by the media.
Elez and his former colleagues are all been reportedly under age 26.
One staffer is as young as 19.
As per The Guardian, three federal employee unions have sued the Trump administration for what they claim is government records being illegally given to Doge.
Democrats have slammed Doge and Musk .
“Whatever Doge is doing, it’s not democracy,” Chuck Schumer, the Democratic Senate Minority leader, was quoted as saying by Newsweek. “You don’t have a small group of select people who have little experience of the branches of government, have access to these records and ability to cut funding.”
“Donald Trump gave DOGE access to America’s personal refund data. He gave DOGE access to people’s Medicare and Medicaid benefits, disability data, veteran benefit data. Worst of all, we don’t know what DOGE intends to do with this information,” Schumer added.
Representative Hakeem Jeffries said, “It’s unfortunate that many of our Republican colleagues are willing to stand up a shadow government of the billionaires, by the billionaires and for the billionaires.”
Ex-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton slammed news that Doge would help upgrade America’s air traffic control system.
“Most of them aren’t old enough to rent a car,” she wrote on X.
But treasury secretary Scott Bessent has defended Doge.
Bessent told Bloomberg, “These are highly trained professionals. This is not some roving band running around doing things.”
“This is methodical and it is going to yield big savings,” the treasury chief added.
With inputs from agencies
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