Musk’s DOGE Cult: Genius Move or Wild Gamble?
Musk spent almost his entire life establishing a universe of companies that have stood as a nursery for aspiring engineers and a testing ground for his innermost circle.
That universe-an ecosystem built around Silicon Valley tech titans, veterans from his companies such as Tesla and SpaceX, and the next generation of fresh-faced hackers and software engineers-now hits up against the U.S. federal government.
The many dozens of people who either work for or advise Musk – the Trump-created Department of Government Efficiency – are representative of something more than just the billionaire’s love of harvesting talent. These are real-life examples of Musk’s spider-web reach through the tech industry.
As TechCrunch noted, those data sets from several of the many individuals serving as Musk’s representatives in the U.S. government have reflected numerous sources that TechCrunch has identified or confirmed independently-for example, either from internal files or toward public records.
We have set out to report or confirm the individuals representing Musk in the U.S. government. Importantly, we have sought to show the connections between them, and how and when they entered Musk’s orbit. Along the way, TechCrunch has made some new discoveries, including new details about DOGE and its workers and an xAI-powered chatbot on a DOGE-related site subdomain that is hosted on a Musk acolyte’s website.
This is how we’ve come to this point. TechCrunch has spoken with people who have worked both with Musk and the DOGE staffers. We confirmed portions of our reporting by public and open source data, such as historical internet records and chat logs.
We have also depended on the services of the Internet Archive’s Wayback Machine, which provides access to archived copies of websites that are no longer online. Additionally used were public sources like court records, payments transactions, other media reports, and previous TechCrunch reports.
TechCrunch worked its way through all of those named to give an opportunity for comments. For those about whom there are not contact details, contact was made through known representatives-including the Trump administration.
When contacted, a White House spokesperson had this to say for TechCrunch: “On background”, as the spokesperson termed it, was how the email was sent, but we are publishing in full as we were given no opportunity to decline the terms.
“DOGE is fulfilling President Trump’s promise to make the government more accountable, efficient, and restoring, indeed, the proper stewardship of the taxpayer’s hard-earned dollars. Those leading this mission with Elon Musk are doing so in full compliance with federal law, appropriate security clearances, and as employees of the relevant agencies, not as outside advisors or entities.
The ongoing operations of DOGE may be seen as disruptive by those entrenched in the federal bureaucracy, who resist change. While change can be uncomfortable, it is necessary and aligns with the mandate supported by more than 77 million American voters,” continues the statement.
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