Elon Musk’s Demolition Crew

Duarte worked until recently as a human resources specialist at SpaceX, his LinkedIn page said. He is listed as an “expert” at OPM — a title similarly used to classify a group of young software engineers brought in by Musk to analyze vast quantities of data at various agencies. Duarte appears to have worked in the same HR division as one of DOGE’s most senior officials, Brian Bjelde. He is part of a group of at least four HR experts brought in from SpaceX.

Added Feb. 19, 2025

Ehikian previously worked in the Silicon Valley technology industry, including spending time at Salesforce and founding an AI startup named Airkit.ai. He oversees the GSA’s expansive real estate portfolio, which includes more than $100 billion in federal contracts. A GSA press release said Ehikian will “work closely with the DOGE team.”

Added Feb. 19, 2025

Fulcher is a former entrepreneur currently acting as an adviser at the Department of Veterans Affairs. He founded the health care startup RingMD, which sells a telemedicine platform. The company’s platform was used by several foreign governments to assist with patient care early in the COVID-19 pandemic, according to a presentation posted online. Fulcher has been provided wide access to the department’s HR systems, said a person familiar with the matter.

Added Feb. 19, 2025

Hanna worked until recently as a senior manager for human resources at SpaceX, her LinkedIn page said. She is listed as an “expert” at OPM.

Added Feb. 19, 2025

Hogan’s name came to light as part of a lawsuit filed by a group of federal workers over OPM’s creation of a new email system that they claim is insecure and that can directly message employees across government. OPM has moved to dismiss the lawsuit. Hogan leads the agency’s work concerning technology strategy and cybersecurity, media reports say. An agency spokesperson said Hogan was serving as its chief information officer. He is at least the third new government CIO with ties to Musk.

Added Feb. 19, 2025

Lewin is a Harvard-trained lawyer who is one of a handful of agency leads at DOGE, a more senior role inside the initiative. Before DOGE, he worked at the white-shoe law firm Munger Tolles and Olson. As a law student, he worked closely with prominent legal scholar and professor Laurence Tribe.

Added Feb. 19, 2025

Loving is an “entrepreneurial scientist” with experience at multiple biotechnology firms. According to a profile page for the startup incubator Y Combinator, she’s spent more than a decade building software for biotech and pharma companies. Loving’s membership on the DOGE team was first reported by E&E News, which found she was part of Musk’s team assigned to the EPA, looking for contracts that counter Trump’s agenda. Loving is the sister of Brian Armstrong, who leads Coinbase, a firm with documented financial links to Musk companies.

Added Feb. 19, 2025

Mlodzianowski worked until recently as human resources director at SpaceX, her LinkedIn page said. She is listed as an “expert” at OPM.

Added Feb. 19, 2025

Morgan is a technology entrepreneur from Austin, Texas, who has been seen at the Department of Education. His involvement in DOGE was first reported by The New York Times. Until recently, he was the CEO of an education-focused startup named Podium Education, which produces an online training program for tech skills, and worked at a venture capital firm.

Added Feb. 19, 2025

Peters is an attorney with reported ties to The Heritage Foundation, the conservative think tank that crafted the Project 2025 policy plan. According to two internal government directories reviewed by ProPublica, Peters has an Executive Office of the President DOGE email address and is also listed as a senior adviser to the director at OPM. Peters’ name came to light shortly after the inauguration when he was tied to the creation of a governmentwide memo regarding the termination of work-from-home policies. Peters previously represented Jared Taylor, a self-described “white advocate” and “race realist,” in a lawsuit concerning alleged censorship on Twitter, now called X.

Added Feb. 19, 2025

Raynor is an experienced lawyer with DOGE who previously clerked for Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas. He was a member of the conservative Federalist Society and worked on the Virginia Law Review. He has publicly declared that Trump has the legal authority to challenge the concept of birthright citizenship. In agency directories, Raynor is listed as a senior adviser to the director of OPM.

Added Feb. 19, 2025

Young’s association with DOGE came to light after a union group representing workers of the shuttered CFPB noticed him in an internal staff directory. Young is a former lobbyist for the pharmaceutical industry and past staffer for Louisiana Republican Gov. Bobby Jindal. Musk reportedly hired Young in 2024 to help establish a grassroots political organization focused on voter turnout. A directory reviewed by ProPublica showed he has a DOGE Executive Office of the President email address.

Added Feb. 19, 2025

Balajadia, who also goes by “Jehn,” is an official member of the DOGE team, according to federal records viewed by ProPublica. She worked as an operations coordinator at The Boring Company for seven years, according to her LinkedIn page. Recent media reports have described her as Musk’s assistant and close confidant, traveling with him and assisting with scheduling and daily tasks.

Added Feb. 10, 2025

Beynon is an official member of the DOGE team, according to federal records viewed by ProPublica and media reports. According to her LinkedIn page, she most recently worked as the head of engineering at her husband’s startup, Mindbloom, which provides “guided at-home ketamine therapy.” She previously worked as a software developer at investment banking company Goldman Sachs. When reached by ProPublica and asked about her involvement in the new administration and DOGE, she said, “I have no idea what you are talking about.” She did not respond to additional requests for comment.

Added Feb. 10, 2025

Hollander is working at the GSA. She most recently worked at X, where she handled the company's real estate. She is married to longtime Musk lieutenant Steve Davis, according to media reports.

Added Feb. 10, 2025

Lindemann is an official member of the DOGE team, according to federal records viewed by ProPublica. According to her LinkedIn page, she most recently worked as an associate at Russell Street Ventures, a health care firm founded by fellow DOGE associate Brad Smith. She also previously worked as a business analyst at McKinsey & Company.

Added Feb. 10, 2025

Ramada is an official member of the DOGE team, according to federal records viewed by ProPublica. He previously worked for Spring Tide Capital, a venture capital company. Spring Tide Capital previously invested in Impulse Space, an aerospace company founded in 2021 by Tom Mueller, a founding member of SpaceX. Ramada has reportedly appeared at the Energy Department and General Services Administration, according to E&E News.

Added Feb. 10, 2025

Riedel emerged in early February as the new chief information officer at the Department of Energy. His position was confirmed in a LinkedIn post by the former CIO, Ann Dunkin, who wrote, “Handing the keys over to you, virtually.” Riedel, who now lists himself online as the department's CIO, has worked at SpaceX since 2020. He previously served in the U.S. Army Cyber Command.

Added Feb. 10, 2025

Schutt is a DOGE software engineer working at the GSA. He was previously the chief technology officer at Revv, an online fundraising platform that’s a frequent vendor for the Republican Party. According to his recently deleted LinkedIn profile, Schutt led the development and launch of WinRed, the GOP’s major online fundraising platform, which helped raise $1.8 billion for Republicans in the 2024 election cycle.

Added Feb. 10, 2025

Shaotran is part of the DOGE team. He recently attended Harvard University and studied computer science. He founded Spark, a scheduling assistant startup, for which he said he received a $100,000 grant from OpenAI. He was a member of a team that was a finalist in a hackathon organized by xAI, Musk’s artificial intelligence company. Shaotran’s name first came to light in an article by Wired magazine about a group of young software engineers recruited by Musk to analyze internal government data and technology programs.

Added Feb. 10, 2025

Wick is an official member of the DOGE team, according to federal records viewed by ProPublica. According to his personal website, which has recently been taken offline, he graduated from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and recently worked at autonomous car company Waymo as a software engineer. Before joining the government, Wick was listed as the co-founder of an e-commerce startup named Intercept, which is affiliated with the California-based tech incubator Y Combinator. The incubator has featured speaker events with Musk and other AI leaders.

Added Feb. 10, 2025

Altik is a 2021 graduate of the University of Michigan Law School. He clerked for D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals Judge Neomi Rao, a Trump appointee known for critiquing the administrative state. For the last year and a half, he worked as a corporate litigation associate at Weil, where he co-authored a detailed legal analysis on administrative law jurisprudence at the Supreme Court. Last year, he was selected to begin a clerkship for Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch in the 2025 term, which is set to begin this summer.

Added Feb. 6, 2025

Burnham is a former litigation partner at Jones Day and a high-ranking Justice Department and White House official from the first Trump administration. The New York Times first reported his involvement with DOGE as a lawyer in January. His title at DOGE is listed internally as general counsel, according to records reviewed by ProPublica. Burnham previously served as a clerk to Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch. On a website for one of his past companies, Burnham is described as having played a “central role” in the selection and confirmation processes for Gorsuch, Justice Brett Kavanaugh and then-Judge Amy Coney Barrett.

Added Feb. 6, 2025

Keenan Kmiec’s career veered from elite law to, more recently, crypto. After clerking for then-Judge Samuel Alito on a federal circuit court, he clerked on the Supreme Court for Chief Justice John Roberts in the 2006-2007 term, according to his LinkedIn. He did a stint at a corporate law firm and had his own firm focused on insider-trading litigation. In 2021, Kmiec began working for a Swiss foundation that promotes a blockchain called Tezos, according to his LinkedIn. He then served for nine months as CEO of a now-defunct startup called InterPop, which described itself as “forging the future of digital fandom with comic, game, and collectible NFTs minted responsibly on the Tezos blockchain.”

Added Feb. 6, 2025

Armstrong is a technology banker at Morgan Stanley who worked on Musk’s $44 billion acquisition of Twitter — since rebranded as X — in 2022. He has been given an influential role at OPM, which handles personnel issues across the federal government. Since Trump took office, OPM has spearheaded the new administration’s efforts to dramatically reduce the federal workforce and roll back telework and remote work policies.

Added Feb. 5, 2025

Biasini is an engineer and former executive who has worked at two of Musk’s companies, the Boring Company and Tesla. He has also taken a high-ranking role at OPM. Biasini was listed as the contact person for the government-wide email system put in place by the Trump administration and used to send messages directly from OPM to millions of federal workers across the government, according to a recent court filing.

Added Feb. 5, 2025

Bjelde is a longtime SpaceX employee who’s spent more than 20 years at the company, according to his LinkedIn profile, where he’s had a variety of jobs, including as managing director of the “food services group.” He previously worked for NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory. He’s been referred to in press reports as a “top DOGE Lieutenant,” working at OPM to slash head count. CNN previously revealed that Bjelde had informed OPM staff of a plan to cut 70% of the agency’s workforce. The New York Times reported that Bjelde helped Musk cut staff at Twitter following its takeover.

Added Feb. 5, 2025

Bobba was named by Wired magazine as part of a team of six young engineers picked by Musk for his DOGE team. A recent graduate of the University of California, Berkeley, Bobba worked as an intern at Meta, the social media company, and at Palantir, the software and data analytics firm that is a major defense contractor. Bobba is listed in personnel records as an “expert” at OPM, where he has reportedly been able to access internal databases. He graduated from high school in 2021; in his graduation speech, featured in the Spotlight New Jersey newspaper, he told his fellow graduates that, in life, the “answers we deserve demand discomfort.”

Added Feb. 5, 2025

Cavanaugh is an entrepreneur who has founded companies focused on intellectual property management and small-business finance. He has been interviewing staffers at the GSA as part of the DOGE team, according to those who have spoken with him. GSA procures technology tools, real estate, and other services for federal government agencies. In published interviews, Cavanaugh has expressed an admiration for tech luminaries, including Peter Thiel, Elon Musk, and Mark Zuckerberg, and has said he is “very interested in crypto.”

Added Feb. 5, 2025

Coristine is a recent undergraduate student at Northeastern University and part of the group of young DOGE staffers detailed to OPM, the government’s human resources office. Wired reported that Coristine interned at Neuralink, Musk’s brain-computer interface company. Friends of Coristine told Northeastern University’s independent student newspaper that Musk was one of Coristine’s idols and that while he finished the fall 2024 semester, he did not return to school for the spring term. According to CBS News, Coristine has been seeking access to the Small Business Administration’s internal records on behalf of DOGE.

Added Feb. 5, 2025

Davis has been a senior executive and close associate of Musk’s for over two decades, working with him at SpaceX, X and the Boring Company. He was one of the first people to be associated with the DOGE effort last year. The New York Times reported he was on early calls with Musk as they conceived of the DOGE effort and explored ways to cut federal programs. Bloomberg reported that Davis has helped recruit staffers for DOGE.

Added Feb. 5, 2025

Elez works at the Treasury Department, a staffer at the office of the Secretary of Treasury confirmed in a call with a ProPublica reporter. Wired reported Feb. 4 that Elez, who graduated from Rutgers in 2021 and studied computer science, has gained access to the highly sensitive payment systems of the U.S. Treasury Department. According to Elez’s LinkedIn bio, which was recently deleted, he was most recently an engineer at X in New York for roughly a year and an engineer at SpaceX in the Los Angeles area for around three years before that. Elez reportedly resigned Feb. 6 after The Wall Street Journal reported that he has links to a social media account that posted racist comments online. Musk said publicly he planned to rehire the engineer, saying that “to err is human, to forgive divine.”

Added Feb. 5, 2025

Farritor works as an executive engineer at the HHS, according to agency data. He studied computer science at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln and interned at SpaceX, working on its Starlink Wi-Fi team and Starship launchpad software, according to his Linkedin profile. In March 2024, he received a Thiel fellowship, a two-year program founded by billionaire tech entrepreneur Peter Thiel that awards a $100,000 startup grant to students who drop out of college.

Added Feb. 5, 2025

Holmes is running human resources at DOGE, according to government workers who have been in meetings with her. A former lawyer with Jones Day, a firm that frequently represents Trump, she was previously the chief people officer at Oklo, a nuclear energy company chaired by OpenAI CEO Sam Altman. She also ran her own HR consulting firm, BrighterSideHR, which advised companies to pursue “non-woke” approaches to diversity and inclusion in the workplace.

Added Feb. 5, 2025

Killian works at the EPA, according to agency data. His position is a federal detail, which typically allows government employees to transfer between agencies for temporary roles. He studied math and computer science at McGill University, where he conducted blockchain-related research. He recently worked as an engineer at Jump Trading, an algorithmic financial trading company, and is a member of the DOGE team, according to recent media reports.

Added Feb. 5, 2025

Kliger is a senior adviser at OPM, according to his LinkedIn profile. He spent nearly five years as a software engineer at Databricks, a cloud-based AI company. He is widely reported to be part of Musk’s DOGE team. On his personal Substack, he wrote an essay titled “Why I gave up a seven-figure salary to save America,” according to press reports, and described failed U.S. attorney general nominee Matt Gaetz, who withdrew from Congress amid allegations of sexual misconduct, as a “victim” of the deep state. On Feb. 3, workers at USAID received an email announcing that their Washington offices would be closed that day. Replies to the email were directed to Kliger at a USAID email address.

Added Feb. 5, 2025

Krause is a part of DOGE’s efforts to gain access to sensitive federal payment systems as part of Musk’s larger effort to root out spending perceived as wasteful. According to the Treasury Department, Krause leads a team of people who have been granted “read-only” access to the code for the agency’s Fiscal Service payment system, which processes payments for major programs such as Social Security and Medicare. The department has clarified he is designated as a “special government employee.” The New York Times reported that Krause is affiliated with Musk’s DOGE team.

Added Feb. 5, 2025

In December, during the transition, Trump named Miller, who served in the first administration as a press secretary to Vice President Mike Pence, as one of the first members of DOGE. She is the wife of White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller. After reports that DOGE personnel accessed internal USAID data, Katie Miller defended the group, saying that “no classified material was accessed without proper security clearances.”

Added Feb. 5, 2025

Monroe is working as an adviser within the office of the director of the FBI, according to three people familiar with the matter. NBC News previously reported that an unnamed SpaceX employee has been placed in the FBI director’s office but said it could not confirm the individual’s identity. Monroe is a seasoned information security professional who previously served in the U.S. Navy as an information warfare officer.

Added Feb. 5, 2025

Rajpal is listed as an “expert” now working for OPM. An archived version of his personal website from 2018 lists his job title as an engineer at Twitter. Rajpal has extensive access to sensitive personnel data used by OPM, according to a source familiar with his role. Wired reported Feb. 5 that Rajpal also sought and was later granted access to data at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Wired magazine reported that he is part of the DOGE team.

Added Feb. 5, 2025

Riley works as a senior adviser at HHS, according to agency data. She previously worked for consultancy firm McKinsey & Company for about eight years, most recently as a partner leading teams advising the company’s state and federal government clients. She has been working closely with Brad Smith, a former health official in Trump’s first administration who ran DOGE during the transition period, according to media reports.

Added Feb. 5, 2025

Russo is a top-ranking technology official at the SSA, which disburses over $1.5 trillion in benefits annually. Russo spent over seven years as an executive and senior adviser with Shift4 Payments, a payment processing company that is both an investor in SpaceX and a payment processor for StarLink, according to his Linkedin. The CEO of Shift4 Payments, Jared Isaacman, has been nominated by Trump to lead NASA and is a friend of Musk’s who has purchased multiple spacewalks with Musk’s SpaceX company. Russo’s office will oversee the SSA’s over $2 billion IT budget.

Added Feb. 5, 2025

Scales’ name came to light in the first week of the Trump administration as federal employees received a memo putting them on notice that diversity, equity, inclusion and accessibility initiatives in the federal government were now barred through an executive order — and to report efforts to conceal them. The message listed Scales as the point of contact for questions. Scales worked in the human resources department at xAI, Musk’s artificial intelligence company, prior to OPM. Before that, she worked in recruiting at ridesharing company Uber. She is reportedly an integral part of OPM’s sweeping efforts to restructure the federal workforce.

Added Feb. 5, 2025

Shedd’s work at Tesla focused on building software that operates vehicle and battery factories, according to a GSA press release. The office Shedd runs, known as TTS, helps federal agencies improve their tech practices. GSA leaders have told employees they plan to cut 50% of the budget. Shedd has told colleagues he plans to run TTS like a “startup software company,” according to Wired magazine, which will reportedly involve the use of artificial intelligence to analyze government contracts.

Added Feb. 5, 2025

Smith was among the earliest names associated with DOGE outside of its founder. The New York Times reported he was helping lead the group. He served in a series of health-related policy roles during the first Trump administration, including being part of the board of Operation Warp Speed, the historic COVID-19 vaccine development program. According to The New York Times, which first reported Smith’s involvement in DOGE, he is a friend of Jared Kushner, Trump’s son-in-law.

Added Feb. 5, 2025

Stanley is an experienced information security professional who has worked at multiple Musk-related companies. He is reportedly an aide to Musk at DOGE, according to The New York Times, and has a role at the White House. He was part of the initial transition team after Musk purchased Twitter in 2022, according to his LinkedIn profile. On inauguration day, Stanley assisted in the release of individuals associated with the Jan. 6 riots, he wrote on X.

Added Feb. 5, 2025