{"id":22095,"date":"2025-02-18T20:34:21","date_gmt":"2025-02-18T20:34:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/usdailys.com\/?p=22095"},"modified":"2025-02-18T20:34:21","modified_gmt":"2025-02-18T20:34:21","slug":"whos-who-inside-elon-musks-army-of-doge-cost-cutters-stripping-fed-waste-away","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/usdailys.com\/?p=22095","title":{"rendered":"Who\u2019s who inside Elon Musk\u2019s army of DOGE cost cutters stripping fed waste away"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Elon Musk and his now\u00a0100 person strong<\/a>\u00a0gang of Department of Government Efficiency cost-cutters are\u00a0stripping the federal government of waste<\/a>.<\/p>\n

While some Americans are up in arms at the sudden upheaval, others express gratitude for Musk and his crew getting under the hood to cut through federal bureaucracy and bring the way it runs into the 21st century.<\/p>\n

Solidly in the latter camp: Steve Daines, a Republican senator from Montana, who stated on CNBC, \u201cI\u00a0thank God everyday<\/a>\u00a0for President Trump\u2019s leadership, what Elon Musk is doing and his team.\u201d<\/p>\n

Recently announced to be in the DOGE line of fire: a converted former limestone mine where thousands of pages of retirement paperwork are still sorted by hand. Musk trashed it for\u00a0being a \u201ctime warp.\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n

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\"Elon10<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/a><\/div>
Elon Musk accused a too-slow payroll processing plant of \u201cbeing in a time warp\u201dGetty Images<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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While Musk functions as the head of the operation \u2013 proceeding in a manner that echoes the early days of the tech billionaire\u2019s\u00a0employee-axing $14 billion Twitter takeover\u00a0<\/a>\u2013 his right-hand people do much of the heavy lifting in crushing government funded organizations and departments viewed as unnecessary and wasteful.<\/p>\n

The DOGE-bros \u2013 the first 12 were\u00a0referred to by President Trump as \u201cgeniuses\u201d<\/a>\u00a0\u00a0\u2013 are a corps comprised largely of twentysomething techies, some of whom dropped out of college, who see themselves on a mission to make America\u2019s finances great again \u2013 even though federal government mass firing victims wish they\u00a0would all go back to Silicon Valley. However, Musk shows no interest in leaving or slowing things down.<\/p>\n

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\"President10<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/a><\/div>
President Trump described the first 12 of Musk\u2019s DOGE-bros as \u201cgeniuses.\u201dBloomberg via Getty Images<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Here are key members of the Musk posse:<\/p>\n

Kendall Lindemann<\/strong><\/h2>\n

Though the twentysomething Lindemann did not make the cut as an Olympic swimmer (the University of Tennessee grad competed in Olympic Trials), she did get recruited from a previous job at Russell Street Ventures to join DOGE. She was presumably brought on Brad Smith, head of Russell Street who is also high up in the DOGE echelon and previously worked on Operation Warp Speed, the federal government\u2019s coronavirus vaccine development program under the last Trump government.<\/p>\n

Lindemann is public about her religious beliefs and married to University of Texas alumni Reid Lindemann, who works as a software engineer.<\/p>\n

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\"Kendall10<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/a><\/div>
Pre-DOGE, Kendall Lindemann competed in Olympic Trials for swimming.Kendall Lindemann\/LinkedIn<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Luke Farritor<\/strong><\/h2>\n

Wired reported that Farritor, 23, is one of four DOGE staffers operating out of the General Services Administration\u2019s top floor with\u00a0free run of the place\u00a0<\/a>and access to its computer systems.<\/p>\n

He has previously worked as a SpaceX intern and\u00a0snagged a fellowship with billionaire Peter Thiel<\/a>, who wrote him a $100,000 check to drop out of school and pursue his own studies. Though Farritor did not stay at University of Nebraska-Lincoln long enough to graduate, he is not a garden variety dropout.<\/p>\n

While there, he was part of a Grand Prize-winning team in the Vesuvius Challenge, in which they used computer technology to virtually unravel a 2,000 year old ancient Roman scroll. The scroll was a scrap of Herculaneum papyrus which had been frozen in time \u2013 burned into lava when Mount Vesuvius erupted in 79 AD.<\/p>\n

Farritor and two other students were able to scan the scroll, segment it out and then search for ink, uncovering its words.<\/p>\n

The team\u2019s prize was $700,000, and Farritor used his portion to buy a vintage Talking Heads concert poster for his brother and wanted to take his mother to Paris, according to the Wall Street Journal.<\/p>\n

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\"Luke10<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/a><\/div>
Luke Farritor helped win a $700,000 prize when he and two partners deciphered a passage from a seared ancient Greek scroll.University of Nebraska\u00e2Lincoln<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The biggest financial backer of the Vesuvius Challenge? The Musk Foundation.<\/p>\n

Adam Ramada<\/strong><\/h2>\n

No stranger to the ways of Elon Musk, Ramada is a 35-year-old venture capitalist from Miami, who put money into a company which invested in Musk\u2019s SpaceX rocket and satellite launching project.<\/p>\n

Playing on the President\u2019s side, he made a $1,000-plus\u00a0donation to Republican entities, public records show.<\/p>\n

During his time as a managing partner of Spring Tide Capital, Ramada championed the raising of $12 million to help fund ZBiotics, a company\u00a0which makes a probiotic drink for partyers to ingest before alcohol, designed to help stem the effects of hangovers.<\/p>\n

As Ramada said at the time, speaking to foodbev.com, \u201cWe are\u00a0thrilled to support the team<\/a>\u00a0as they continue to expand their revolutionary probiotic platform across many more exciting use cases that address everyday consumer pain points.\u201d<\/p>\n

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\"ZBiotics10<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/a><\/div>
This is a product that Spring Tide Capital, where Adam Ramada was a managing partner, helped to raise money for.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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\"Elon10<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/a><\/div>
Elon Musk, his young son X and President Donald Trump pictured in the Oval office on Feb. 11.Getty Images<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Kyle Schutt<\/strong><\/h2>\n

If technology can be used to replace some of the people being sacked by DOGE mandates, Schutt, 37, may come in handy. Believed to be based out of Arlington, Virginia, his past job history had him working as the chief technology officer for a company called Kerplunk (a startup that focuses on interviewing-software, which streamlines the process of screening new hires).<\/p>\n

He has a Ph.D. from Virginia Tech and worked on AI for Kerplunk, which may have made him the perfect candidate for gaining access to the core management system of FEMA, where,\u00a0according to a report<\/a>, he had \u201cbeen embedded for days.\u201d\u00a0According to Newsweek<\/a>, he helped launch fundraising platform WinRed, which played a role in raising $1.8 billion for the Republican party.<\/p>\n

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\"Kyle10<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/a><\/div>
Kyle Schutt was chief technology officer for a company that streamlined job interviewing.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Gavin Kliger<\/strong><\/h2>\n

Though only 25, Kliger already appears to be in charge of some big decisions when it comes to personnel. According to reports, it was his email account which sent a mass email to all USAid workers telling them their Washington DC office was closed on Feb. 3, and they were all put on administrative leave. USAid has now been taken off the lease of the building and its signage taken down, although the fate of many of its staff will play out in the courts.<\/p>\n

Now, perhaps, consultants of the Internal Revenue Service\u00a0should be concerned<\/a>. On Thursday, Kliger was reported to be speaking with top IRS executives to single out contracts which should be canceled.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile Kliger has been accused of\u00a0trolling fans by requesting $1,000 payments<\/a>\u00a0from those who want to read about why he joined DOGE, however the link he sent back only led to a blank page.<\/p>\n

Kliger was as student at University of California Berkely until 2022. According to Wired, he\u00a0previously worked for the AI company Databricks<\/a>, which helps clients to develop artificial intelligence.<\/p>\n

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\"Gavin10<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/a><\/div>
Gavin Kliger, at the time of this writing, had begun to investigate contracts associated with the IRS.X<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Marko Elez<\/strong><\/h2>\n

At the tender age of 25, Rutgers University graduate Elez already has an impressive resume, working for Musk\u2019s X platform and SpaceX.<\/p>\n

Now he has been granted access to highly sensitive systems within the Treasury Department involved with facilitating government payments worth trillions of dollars per year.<\/p>\n

As a member of the DOGE team, he was granted access to systems within the Treasury Department that are involved with facilitating government payments.\u00a0According to Wired<\/a>\u00a0Elez was supped to have \u201cread only\u201d access and somehow wound up with the ability to write code on sensitive\u00a0systems.<\/p>\n

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent defended the DOGE team\u2019s work saying: \u201cThis is not some roving band \u2026 This is methodical and it is going to yield big savings,\u201d on Bloomberg TV last week.<\/p>\n

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\"Marko10<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/a><\/div>
Marko Elez\u2019s racist social media comments surfaced, resulting in his resigning from DOGE \u2014 before being reinstated.@SeeRacists\/X<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

If that did not make large enough waves, there were his deleted social media accounts with allegedly racist comments. In one, the\u00a0account\u00a0allegedly posted,\u00a0\u201cJust for the record, I was racist before it was cool,\u201d\u00a0according to the Wall Street Journal<\/a>.<\/p>\n

He voluntarily resigned in the wake of controversy stirred up by the comments. However, after Vice President JD Vance said \u201cstupid social media activity\u201d should not \u201cruin a kid\u2019s life,\u201d Musk confirmed he was to be reinstated.<\/p>\n

Edward Coristine<\/strong><\/h2>\n

Coristine,\u00a0known by the online handle Big Balls<\/a>, graduated high school and may or may be attending Northeastern University. At the tender age of 19, and ranking among the youngest members of Musk\u2019s crew, he already put in three months on staff at Neuralink.<\/p>\n

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\"Edward10<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/a><\/div>
Edward Coristine is known online by the handle \u2018Big Balls\u2019.Reddit<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

That is Elon Musk\u2019s neurotechnology company, which is devising ways to monitor and enhance brain activity. According to Wired, Musk views Coristine as being\u00a0sharp enough to judge computer code<\/a>\u00a0written by employees of the General Services Administration.<\/p>\n

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As per the Washington Post,\u00a0Big Balls is also functioning<\/a>\u00a0as a senior advisor to the State Department and the Department of Homeland Security. However, he does have a worrying incident in his past, where a cybersecurity company he worked for said it fired him in 2022 for leaking sensitive data,\u00a0according to Bloomberg News<\/a>, a charge he has denied.<\/p>\n

<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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