Elon Musk's DOGE member who wanted to 'normalize Indian hate' resigns after racist posts resurface

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A staff member of the Department of Government Efficiency, led by Elon Musk, resigned after being linked to a social media platform supporting racist and eugenic views. The employee’s posts targeted Indian tech workers and advocated for a eugenic immigration policy. His resignation followed inquiries from the White House.

A staff member of the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), led by Elon Musk, resigned Thursday after the White House was questioned about his connection to a social media account that promoted racism and eugenics, The Wall Street Journal reported.

Marko Elez, a 25-year-old programmer, was one of two DOGE staffers with access to the US Treasury’s payment system. The Wall Street Journal reported that Elez had a profile on Musk’s social media platform, X, where he made posts supporting a “eugenic immigration policy” and calling for the repeal of the 1964 Civil Rights Act.

Musk’s 25-year-old DOGE staffer resigns after racist posts emerge: report

In a September post, Elez reportedly wrote, “You could not pay me to marry outside of my ethnicity.”

Another post the same month encouraged users to “normalize Indian hate,” referring to the large number of Indian workers in Silicon Valley’s technology sector.

“Just for the record, I was racist before it was cool,” the account posted in July, according to the Journal.

Elez studied computer science at Rutgers University. During his sophomore year, he co-founded Unimetrics.io, a company designed to connect high school students with mentors to improve their college applications, as per the WSJ report.

He later worked for Musk at SpaceX, contributing to Starlink satellite projects, and at X, where he focused on artificial intelligence, according to archived versions of his personal website.

After The Wall Street Journal contacted the White House about Elez’s posts, press secretary Karoline Leavitt confirmed that he had resigned, as per a report in The Independent.

The Journal found that archived posts from Elez’s X account (@nullllptr) repeatedly targeted Indian technology workers. In December 2024, he wrote that Indian workers in the US on H1B visas are “going back don’t worry guys.”

Another post from Elez expressed hostility toward both sides in the Israel-Gaza war. He wrote, “I would not mind at all if Gaza and Israel were both wiped off the face of the Earth.”

DOGE has gained significant power in President Donald Trump’s second term, largely due to the influence of Musk, who donated hundreds of millions of dollars to support Trump’s re-election.

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In an interview with Bloomberg published Thursday, US treasury secretary Scott Bessent said he had personally reviewed the background of one of the two Treasury employees from Musk’s DOGE team.

“These are highly trained professionals,” Bessent told Bloomberg. “This is not some roving band running around doing things.”

He added, “This is methodical, and it is going to yield big savings.”

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