Operation DOGE: How Musk used an unofficial team to influence the White House

Author｜Amelie  Editor｜Ivan

Musk is trying to manage the White House in the way of managing X.

As we all know, after Trump's election, Elon Musk is now the head of the famous Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE).

This highly powerful new identity allows Musk to access the computer systems of various agencies, especially those related to the human resources of US federal employees.

Image source: Getty Images

With only one month of work under the new leadership, DOGE has turned the US political and business circles upside down. Government departments have made large-scale layoffs and cuts, and rectified the social security system... Various unconventional operations have been carried out one after another.

Change? Disruption? What does DOGE do

Trump and Musk have made no secret of DOGE's purpose: streamlining redundant institutions and cutting federal spending.

Just two weeks after taking office, DOGE, led by Musk, has leapt from a seemingly mysterious organization to the focus of global media, because its first cut was the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), which has a history of more than 60 years.

On a calm Monday, about 600 employees of USAID received an email instructing them not to enter the headquarters building in Washington, DC.

In response, Musk calmly responded: USAID is rotten beyond repair!

In addition, DOGE also announced: canceling the diversity, equity and inclusion contract.

This expenditure alone saved the government more than $1 billion. The business that DOGE is engaged in is undoubtedly an offensive job - moving people's cheese and cutting off their financial resources.

As the most controversial department in the White House, DOGE has triggered several lawsuits since January 20. Because Democratic lawmakers and consumer rights advocates are worried that once DOGE gains access to the Treasury Department's payment system, it will lead to disastrous consequences because the system stores the personal data of most Americans.

Although many government employees are indignant, the president is particularly satisfied. He praised the DOGE department led by Musk for doing a "great job" in reducing the size of the federal government and expressed his hope to "see him become more proactive."

All signs indicate that Musk is trying to govern the White House in the way he manages X.

On February 22, Musk posted on the social media platform X, "According to the President's instructions, all federal employees will soon receive an email asking them to report on their work last week. Failure to respond will be considered an automatic resignation."

Subsequently, tens of thousands of federal employees received emails that day asking them to "reply to this email, list approximately 5 tasks completed last week, and copy your supervisor." The email was sent by the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, and the deadline for reply was midnight on the 24th.

Trump supports this approach very much. "What a smart idea to send this email. We are working hard to confirm whether people are performing their duties."

However, the method of asking federal employees to write weekly reports, which sounds very efficient, has not received a response from all departments. Several agencies under the Department of Defense, including the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and the National Security Agency (NSA), were notified to suspend their responses.

"He's a big businessman. He's a successful man. That's why we want him to do it," Trump said at a press conference on Tuesday, stressing that DOGE has "a lot of work, a lot of smart people involved."

Who are these "smart people"?

The department has brought together a group of young technology elites who have shown outstanding talents in their respective fields. Here is everything you need to know about the DOGE staff so far.

Inner Circle ——

▍Elon Musk（Elon Musk）

Role:DOGE leader, unpaid "special government employee"

Characteristics:Dignified, obsessed, ambitious, adventurer

The "Silicon Valley Iron Man" who founded SpaceX and Tesla and dreams of migrating to Mars is now the right-hand man of the US president.

According to documents filed 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 temporary government organization whose authority will expire in July 2026.

▍Steve Davis

Role:Musk's long-time confidant

Steve Davis is Musk's confidant for 20 years, and is known for cost-cutting and fast execution. He is also the president of the tunnel-digging company Boring Company. According to the Los Angeles Times, after receiving a master's degree in aerospace engineering from Stanford University, he has been working at SpaceX since 2003 and became one of the company's earliest employees.

In 2016, Musk appointed Davis to run his latest far-fetched idea at the time: 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's confidant is well versed in negotiation and has strong execution. Musk once 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's headquarters during this period. Now, Davis is helping Musk cut government redundancies.

▍Nicole Hollander

Role:X Employee

This George Washington University graduate and former employee of real estate developer JGB Smith was part of Twitter's polarizing transition team that upended Twitter and cut staff. She is also the wife of Musk's best ally Steve Davis mentioned above.

Hollander's relationship with Davis and her current job at X keep her in Musk's circle. Her role at DOGE does not have an official title, at least not a public one. However, Wired reported in late January that Hollander has high-level access to federal agencies and an official government email address.

Senior Management ——

▍Brian Bjelde

Role:Senior Advisor, Office of Personnel Management

Brian Bjelde has worked at Musk's SpaceX for 21 years, was the company's 14th employee, and is still working today. Bjelde started out as an avionics engineer, but has been responsible for managing the company's human resources department for the past decade.

Before joining SpaceX, Brian Bjelde worked at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory for a year after graduating from the University of Southern California with a 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 become the core of a series of actions such as Musk's drastic cuts in redundant staff.

According to a memo from OPM, Amanda Scales does not work directly for DOGE, but currently serves as the chief of staff of the Office of Personnel Management, the main human resources department of the federal government.

According to her LinkedIn profile, Skiles worked in talent acquisition at Musk's company x.AI until January 2025. She also worked in human resources and talent at Human Capital, a venture capital firm in San Francisco, and at Uber. According to her LinkedIn information, Skiles graduated from the University of California, Davis in 2012 with a degree in psychology and economics.

▍Amy Gleason

Role:Acting DOGE Administrator

According to the White House, Amy Gleason is the acting administrator of DOGE, and although she is nominally the head of the Department of Government Efficiency, Gleason is actually the official head of the Department of Government Efficiency, and Musk basically gives orders.

According to her LinkedIn profile, Amy Gleason worked at American Digital Services (now DOGE) from October 2018 to December 2021, and previously served as chief product officer at Russell Street Ventures from December 2021 to November 2024.

According to the executive order establishing DOGE, Amy Gleason reports to White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles.

▍Jehn Balajadia

Role:Musk's long-term assistant

According to Jehn Balajadia's LinkedIn profile, she first joined Musk's business ecosystem in 2017, holding the title of operations coordinator at Musk's company The Boring Company. The company's main business is an American infrastructure, tunnel construction services and equipment company. It was spun off from SpaceX in 2018. In 2018, Balajadia took over the position of executive assistant in the company's CEO's office, a position that includes managing all of Musk's activities, often including those of his family.

Today, Jayne Balajadiya plays a prominent role in DOGE. She is listed in the Department of Education employee directory, according to the New York Times.

Breaking Twitter states that Balajadiya once told another Musk official that her job was to "look after" him, and she reportedly traveled with Musk frequently. When Musk took over Twitter, Balajadiya was named chief of staff, and she was the one who sent the termination letters to several Twitter executives.

Before joining Tesla, Balajadiya worked at Red Bull, NBC Universal, and Walt Disney.

▍Riccardo Biasini

Role: Senior Advisor to the Director of the Office of Personnel Management

Riccardo Biasini entered Musk's circle in 2011, and after earning a master's degree in automotive engineering from the University of Pisa in Italy last year, he joined Tesla as an engineer.

During his five years at Tesla, Biasini focused most of his attention on Autopilot, one of the company's advanced driver assistance systems, according to an article he published on Medium. Before taking charge of the system, he led the development of Autopilot's traffic-aware cruise control and other driver assistance features.

Biasini left Tesla in 2016 and joined Comma.ai, developing automatic lateral and longitudinal control systems for the startup's first self-driving car system. He later became vice president of quality and was named CEO of the company in 2018.

In 2019, Biasini returned to Musk as director of electrical and software engineering at The Boring Company. Currently, Biasini is a senior advisor to the director of DOGE's Office of Personnel Management.

▍Christopher Stanley

Role:Unspecified role in the White House

Christopher Stanley began working for Musk in October 2022 and became a member of Twitter's "core transition team" after Musk took over Twitter.

According to the New York Times, Stanley has since taken on an unspecified role in the White House. Stanley himself has hinted at working for the Trump administration through his X account.

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 chief information security officer of X Payments, a payment service Musk hopes to launch as part of his "everything app" aspirations for X.

Before entering Musk's circle, Stanley owned his own cybersecurity company, called "Stanley Network," and worked as a contractor in Kentucky. He also worked at Baptist Health, a Kentucky medical organization that includes hospitals and other facilities.

An xAI-powered chatbot named “Government Efficiency Department AI Assistant” found on a DOGE-related website subdomain on the “Stanley Network” says it is “designed to help government personnel like you identify and eliminate waste, improve efficiency, and streamline processes using a first principles approach.”

Grassroots (Worker Bees) ——

▍Akash Bobba

Role:Personnel Management Office Expert

According to Wired magazine, Boba was listed as an "expert" in OPM's internal letters and reported directly to OPM's Chief of Staff Amanda Skel.

▍Edward Coristine

Role:Special government employee

Edward Coristine is only 19 years old. He just graduated from high school in 2024 and was admitted to Northeastern University in Boston, USA, planning 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 in DOGE, and participates in government technology projects.

He has a broccoli perm and is 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 Management Agency, and the highest cybersecurity agency. He is the youngest of the six male engineers working for Musk and relies on pizza and Red Bull for three meals.

Since arriving in Washington, DC, Christian has been actively involved in accessing federal systems in multiple government departments. Before joining DOGE, he ran several companies under his own name from his home in New York, including network service companies DiamondCDN and Packetware, both of which provide DDoS protection. (DDoS refers to the malicious behavior of flooding the target server or its surrounding infrastructure with large-scale Internet traffic to disrupt the normal traffic of the target server, service or network).

Around May 2024, Christian began working for Musk's company Neuralink.

▍Marko Elez

Role: U.S. Treasury Department Special Government Employee

Since joining DOGE, 25-year-old Marko Elez has become a central figure in the legal battle over DOGE's access to some of the federal government's most sensitive systems. As a senior employee at the Treasury Department, Marko Elez has access to the U.S. Treasury's payment system, which is responsible for paying about $6 trillion in federal funds to Americans, such as Social Security checks and federal tax refunds. According to a legal document filed against DOGE for access, Elez is the only DOGE employee with access to the payment system.

Before entering government, Marco Elez worked at SpaceX, focusing on vehicle telemetry, Starship, and satellite software. Elez later worked on search artificial intelligence at Musk's social media company X, according to an archived copy of Musk's website.

On February 6, Elez briefly resigned from DOGE after the Wall Street Journal exposed racist posts on his social media accounts. Elez may return to government after Musk posted a poll on X asking if he should be rehired. A Washington Post reporter broke the news on February 18 that he had resumed his position at DOGE.

▍Luke Farritor

Role: Senior Advisor to DOGE

23-year-old Luke Farritor is listed as a senior advisor in multiple U.S. government employee directories, including the State Department, USAID, and the Department of Energy.

Before joining the government, Farritor was a student at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, famous for deciphering the text on an ancient Roman scroll, for which he won a $700,000 prize. Later, Farritor was selected for the 2024 Thiel Fellowship, an annual award given by billionaire Peter Thiel. An archived copy of Luke Farito's website says he worked for investors Nat Friedman, who was once the CEO of GitHub, and Daniel Gross, who once led Apple's AI project and served as a partner at YC. Luke Farito helped them "invest in a large multi-stage venture capital fund and helped run 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.

▍Gautier Cole Killian

Role:DOGE "Volunteer", Federal Detailer

Gautier Cole Killian is described as a DOGE "volunteer" and was designated as a "federal detailer" for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency in early February. A federal detailer is a federal employee who is usually seconded from another government agency. Mainly assisting the team in obtaining security access to the Treasury Department in order to enter the government payment network.

Killian was a 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 Advisor to the Director of the Office of Personnel Management

The 22-year-old Gavin Kliger is an alumnus of the University of California, Berkeley, with a degree in electrical and computer engineering and a CPA of 3.95. He joined the DOGE team in early 2025.

A former software engineer at Twitter and California startup Databrinks, he also uses his Substack platform to publish controversial articles - such as "The Curious Case of Matt Gates," in which he criticized the so-called "deep state" for its role in the impeachment of political opponents.

Gavin Krieger has clear political stances: He has taken photos wearing a "Make America Great Again" hat and supports figures like Pete Hegseth, whom he describes as "the warrior that Washington is afraid of."

On Monday, the New York Times named Krieger as sending an all-staff email to USAID staff, ordering them to work from home as the agency came under scrutiny from DOGE and the Trump administration.

▍Tom Krause

Role:U.S. Treasury Department Special Government Employee; CEO of Cloud Software Group

Tom Krause is a special government employee and DOGE senior staffer at the U.S. Treasury Department. He also serves as CEO of Cloud Software Group, a private company that owns several technology companies, including remote access giant Citrix (a once-public company that was taken private through a series of transactions).

According to Bloomberg, Krause eliminated some positions at Citrix, which employees said were critical to the security of the company's products, according to multiple anonymous and unnamed employees.

Klaus, 47, was a senior executive at Broadcom before becoming CEO of Cloud Software; before that, he ran a consulting firm. Since taking on the role of one of Musk's frontline DOGE employees at the Treasury Department, Kraus has worked closely with another senior Treasury employee, Marko Elez.

▍Jeremy Lewin

Role:DOGE Staff

According to Bloomberg, Jeremy Lewin is a DOGE staff member at the General Services Administration, responsible for 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 at the same law firm as Usha Vance, the second lady of the United States. He is also a lawyer who co-authored an article with Harvard Law School professor Laurence H. Tribe titled "$100 billion: How the United States should use Russia's wealth to fight Putin" published in the New York Times on April 15, 2022. Nikhil Rajpal, 27, studied computer science and history at UC Berkeley and served as president of the libertarian-leaning student political group Students for Freedom. According to archived snapshots of its website, Rajpal worked at Twitter from 2016 until some time before it was acquired by Musk. He may have first entered Musk's orbit before then, reportedly working on a redesign of Tesla's console. Nikhil Rajpal works for NOAA on behalf of DOGE and has a DOGE email address. ▍ Kyle Schutt Kyle Schutt 24-year-old is a technologist with long-standing ties to Republican politics and, more recently, Elon Musk’s political operation. Schutt reportedly had access to FEMA’s systems.

Kyle Schutt's deleted GitHub profile, seen by TechCrunch, shows that he works for a company called Outburst Data. According to security researchers, Outburst Data hosts part of the DOGE website and several other Musk-related websites, including his US Legislative Assembly (PAC) political fundraiser.

Schutt also serves as the chief technology officer of Revv, an online fundraising platform widely used by the Republican Party, and co-founder of Virginia software company KAMM.

▍Ethan Shaotran

Role:DOGE Staff

22-year-old Ethan Shaotran, a California native, is a DOGE staff member and a Harvard 2025 student focusing on autonomous driving research. Shaotran first publicly contacted Musk in September 2024 when he won the runner-up in a hackathon held by the billionaire's artificial intelligence company xAI.

Shaotran was the founder of Energize.ai, but its website can no longer be loaded. He also developed multiple iPhone apps, including a Donald Trump-themed running game called "Donald Dash."

Shortland reportedly had a valid GSA email address and requested access to 10 years of GSA data. Shortland also had access to the Department of Education's email system and the department's back-end website.

▍Jordan Wick

Role: DOGE Staff

Jordan Wick, 28, is a former Waymo software engineer. Wick was one of the team with access to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau's systems. Wick graduated from MIT with a master's degree in engineering.

Jordan Wick is also a co-founder of YC startup Intercept, according to the YC website.

▍Christopher Young

Role:DOGE Staff

According to Bloomberg, Christopher Young is a DOGE staff member who has a Consumer Financial Protection Bureau email address. The address was reportedly copied in an email regarding four additional DOGE staff members who needed to be onboarded and given access to the CFPB building.

According to The New York Times, Yang is a "top Republican field operative." In 2024, Elon Musk hired him to help build a grassroots political organization focused on increasing voter turnout. He currently serves as a senior adviser at DOGE and has an email address from the President's Executive Office. According to Yang's LinkedIn profile, he has been working in Republican politics since at least 2007.

Assistance ——

▍Marc Andreessen

Role:DOGE unofficial consultant

According to The Washington Post, Marc Andreessen, co-founder of Silicon Valley venture capital firm Andreesen Horowitz, does not officially work for DOGE, but serves as a "key network person for talent recruitment" at the agency. Andreessen also jokingly called himself DOGE's "unpaid intern."

▍George Cooper

Role:DOGE Recruiter

According to Wired, Cooper is a Palantir engineer who was involved in DOGE's recruitment in late 2024. According to his LinkedIn profile, he graduated from Lehigh University in Pennsylvania in 2019 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 Palantirians to join DOGE because they were "the most outstanding people I know."

▍Vinay Hiremath

Role:DOGE Recruiter

Vinay Hiremath, 32, is the co-founder of video recording startup Loom, which was sold to Atlassian for $975 million in 2023. According to a blog post on Hiremath's website titled "I'm Rich, But I Don't Know What to Do," Hiremath worked on DOGE for about a month in late 2024, making hundreds of recruiting calls. He wrote that he was added to a DOGE-related signal group and "hit the ground running."

While Hiremas 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 head to Hawaii.

▍Anthony Jancso

Role:DOGE Recruiter

Anthony Jancso is a former Palantir software engineer who also helped recruit DOGE in late 2024. In 2023, Jancso co-founded Accelerate SF, an initiative that uses engineers to solve urban problems using artificial intelligence.

Yancso’s exact age is not publicly available, but his LinkedIn profile seen by TechCrunch shows that he graduated from University College London in 2021 with a bachelor’s degree in economics. Jansou was recruited to DOGE by Boring Company President Steve Davis.

▍Michael Kratsios

Role:DOGE Recruiter

Kratsios helped lead DOGE's recruiting efforts in late 2024, interviewing future employees, according to Bloomberg. Kratsios previously served as managing director of Scale AI and as U.S. chief technology officer during President Trump's first term. He also headed Thiel Capital, the venture capital firm founded by Peter Thiel, from 2014 to 2017, according to his LinkedIn information.

▍Katie Miller

Role:DOGE Advisor and Spokesperson

Miller is a DOGE advisor appointed by Trump and serves as its spokesperson. Miller served in Trump's first administration and is the spouse of Trump's deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller. Miller also serves on the President's Advisory Committee related to intelligence matters. (TechCrunch) Courrier des Stratèges)

3.The People Carrying Out Musk’s Plans at DOGE. (The New York Times)