Musk Slammed for Claiming It's Unlawful to Publicly Identify DOGE Personnel

Self-described " free speech absolutist" Elon Musk—the billionaire leading U.S. President Donald Trump's new Department of Government Efficiency—claimed this week that revealing the names of people working for DOGE is somehow illegal, provoking swift backlash from journalists and experts.

Responding to Musk's Tuesday morning post on X, the social media platform the billionaire bought in 2022, Washington Post reporter Jeff Stein challenged the claim that identifying individuals working for the government is unlawful and highlighted his hypocrisy.

"It's illegal to publish the names of government workers?" Stein wrote in part. "What???"

Trump announced DOGE and its leadership shortly after he won the November election, boosted by over a quarter-billion dollars from Musk, the richest person on Earth. After the president returned to the White House for a second term last month, the Musk-led presidential advisory commission quickly got to work on its agenda of cutting spending and regulations, amid a flurry of lawsuits.

The legal battles continue. On Monday, the Alliance for Retired Americans, the American Federation of Government Employees, and the Service Employees International Union sued to revoke Musk and DOGE's access to a key government payment system, provided by Trump's treasury secretary. Wired reported Tuesday that two federal employees "are seeking a temporary restraining order as part of a class action lawsuit accusing a group of Elon Musk's associates of allegedly operating an illegally connected server from the fifth floor of the U.S. Office of Personnel Management's (OPM) headquarters."

Wired on Sunday also "identified six young men—all apparently between the ages of 19 and 24, according to public databases, their online presences, and other records—who have little to no government experience and are now playing critical roles" in DOGE. The reporting named the following individuals: Akash Bobba, Edward Coristine, Luke Farritor, Gautier Cole Killian, Gavin Kliger, and Ethan Shaotran.

"The six men are one part of the broader project of Musk allies assuming key government positions," the outlet continued, explaining that "Musk's lackeys—including more senior staff from xAI, Tesla, and the Boring Company—have taken control of" the General Services Administration (GSA), OPM, and the Treasury payment system.

After a now-suspended X user shared those six names on the platform—describing them as "techies on the ground helping Musk gaining and using access to the U.S. Treasury payment system," and suggesting that fired FBI agents may want to "dox them and maybe pay them a visit"—Musk responded early Monday, saying, "You have committed a crime."

Cliff Lampe, professor of information and associate dean for the School of Information at the University of Michigan, told Forbes on Tuesday that "doxxing has a broad definition, but is typically described as releasing private details about an individual into the public, specifically with the purpose of harming that person, where harm can range from embarrassment to promoting violent action against the individual."

"Typically, government employees have less privacy protections than do private citizens. Listing individuals who are working on behalf of the government would not fall into previous definitions of doxxing, though of course definitions can always change over time," Lampe said. "Whether doxxing is a crime has traditionally been related to the type of information that has been released and how that information was acquired."

Late Monday morning, Ed Martin, U.S. attorney in the District of Columbia, posted on X a letter to Musk that says in part: "I ask that you utilize me and my staff to assist in protecting the DOGE work and the DOGE workers. Any threats, confrontations, or other actions in any way that impact their work may break numerous laws."

Forbes noted that one legal expert said he couldn't understand "what on Earth Musk or the U.S. attorney" thinks was violated.

Less than 10 minutes after Martin's post, Musk said on X Monday morning: "Time to confess: Media reports saying that DOGE has some of world's best software engineers are in fact true."

However, as the Daily Beast detailed Monday, "he was wrong—not all the group are even 'software engineers.' Three do not even have degrees. And one who does is trying to cash in on his new job by charging people to read his Substack entry which boasts, 'Why DOGE: Why I gave up a seven-figure salary to save America.'"

In a Monday evening statement on the official X account for Martin's office, the U.S. attorney signaled that legal action may be coming.

"Our initial review of the evidence presented to us indicates that certain individuals and/or groups have committed acts that appear to violate the law in targeting DOGE employees," Martin said. "We are in contact with the FBI and other law enforcement partners to proceed rapidly. We also have our prosecutors preparing."

Musk then returned to his claim of illegal behavior. After businessman and software engineer Marc Andreessen said on X late Monday, "I'm so old, I remember when doxxing and threatening federal employees was considered bad," the DOGE leader replied Tuesday, "It is against the law."

Stein wasn't alone in calling out Musk's Tuesday morning post. White House speechwriter-turned-podcaster Jon Favreau said: "Threatening anyone: very bad, possibly against the law depending on the threat. Knowing the names of the people who work for us, the American taxpayers, is an entirely legal and appropriate expectation. This isn't one of your companies. This is our government. Understand?"

Chris Anderson, chair of the Democratic Party in Ohio's Mahoning County, responded: "Imagine being in charge of auditing the government and knowing so little about the government that you don't know that salaries of federal employees, what department they work for, and yes, their names, are all public record. And not only that, THERE'S AN ENTIRE WEBSITE FOR IT."

In fact, there are multiple: the Library of Congress has a webpage that details sources for federal employee data and there are some nongovernment sites that compile it, such as FederalPay.org, GovSalaries.com, and OpenPayrolls.com.