A member of Elon Musk’s Division of Authorities Effectivity who was granted entry to the Treasury Division’s extremely delicate funds system resigned after a sequence of racist posts have been uncovered.
“Just for the record, I was racist before it was cool,” 25-year-old Marko Elez wrote on his social media account final July, the Wall Road Journal reported. Elez additionally wrote different racist materials like “normalize Indian hate” and “you could not pay me to marry outside of my ethnicity.”
Elez resigned after the outlet uncovered his postings, however your complete episode raises critical questions in regards to the form of those that Musk and President Donald Trump have put in place at their unaccountable fake company.
Earlier than he was allowed to root round within the Treasury Division’s methods, with entry to over $3 trillion in taxpayer funds, Elez labored for Musk at SpaceX. Extremely, just lately put in Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent instructed the Journal that Musk’s group on the Treasury consists of “highly trained professionals” and are “not some roving band running around doing things.”
The alarming breach comes as many have expressed issues in regards to the large safety and potential monetary threat posed by Musk’s DOGE acolytes and their unaccountable actions at the moment underway at a number of authorities companies.
On the identical day that Elez’s posts have been being uncovered, Democratic Sen. Chris Coons stated in a CNN interview, “They’ve burrowed into the private information of every American, something we should all be alarmed about and should be blocked in federal courts.”
And there may very well be extra issues down the road. CBS Information’ Jennifer Jacobs stories that federal workers (together with some inside the Treasury division) have stated that after the DOGE incursion they discovered software program on their methods “that could be used to sift through their team chats to search for key words.” Staffers instructed Jacobs “they think Musk’s team is looking for signs of progressive thinking or disloyalty to Trump.”
Current polling has proven that the general public at giant is much extra skeptical of Musk’s actions than Trump and congressional Republicans. However the GOP doesn’t look like fazed. Democrats on the Home Oversight and Authorities Reform Committee tried to subpoena Musk to seem and testify about his actions, however Republicans blocked the movement.
Democrats just lately launched laws, the Taxpayer Information Safety Act, which might safeguard authorities methods from Musk-style assaults sooner or later.
In the meantime on X, the social media platform that Musk bought in 2022, the multibillionaire has been quizzing his diehard followers on which federal company he ought to goal subsequent. Musk’s takeover of Twitter led to an incursion of Nazis, racists, and misogynists—so these are the sorts of people who find themselves shaping the agenda for DOGE and have been empowered by Trump.
Doable subsequent targets embody the IRS, the air visitors management system (nonetheless reeling from the latest crash at Nationwide Airport), and the Social Safety Administration.
Hundreds of thousands of People depend on Social Safety, one of the crucial fashionable issues the U.S. authorities has ever performed in additional than 250 years of the nation’s existence
Which bigoted twentysomething can be granted entry to America’s retirement accounts subsequent?
On Friday morning, Musk polled his devoted followers about whether or not he ought to rehire Elez.
”Convey again @DOGE staffer who made inappropriate statements through a now deleted pseudonym?” the billionaire requested in an X publish. Seventy-eight % of the over 385,000 votes supported Elez’s return.
Editor’s notice: This story has been up to date to incorporate Elon Musk’s X ballot.
