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marko elez
Report Exposes Musk Operatives Who Have Infiltrated Social Security Agency
"This team appears to be among the largest DOGE units deployed to any government agency."
Mar 14, 2025
Despite his pledge of "maximum transparency," Elon Musk has gone to great lengths to obscure the names and activities of staffers working for his Department of Government Efficiency—even claiming at one point that it is illegal to publicly identify members of the advisory commission.
That didn't stop Wired from publishing a story on Thursday that names 10 DOGE operatives who have infiltrated the Social Security Administration, which is facing deep staffing cuts that advocates warn could impact the delivery of benefits.
The staffers, according to Wired, are Akash Bobba, Scott Coulter, Marko Elez, Luke Farritor, Antonio Gracias, Gautier Cole Killian, Jon Koval, Nikhil Rajpal, Payton Rehling, and Ethan Shaotran. The list "includes a number of young engineers whose presence at the SSA has not been reported."
"This team appears to be among the largest DOGE units deployed to any government agency," the outlet noted. "Many of them have worked or interned at Musk companies such as Tesla and SpaceX, and the majority of them have also appeared at other government agencies in recent weeks, as part of DOGE's incursion into the government."
Three of the DOGE staffers—Gracias, Koval, and Rehling—don't seem to have any prior government experience," Wired observed, "but Gracias does have a long history with Musk—he worked at Tesla for 14 years as a company director and helped Musk take the company public."
The details came amid widespread alarm and legal action over DOGE staffers' access to highly sensitive information at SSA, which administers benefits to tens of millions of Americans.
Bloomberg reported Thursday that "at least seven DOGE staffers have been granted access to a database known as the Master File of Social Security Number Holders and SSN Applications, also known as Numident."
"They currently have read-only access as they try to connect the dots between Social Security numbers and possible fraudulent benefits," Bloomberg added.
Both Musk and President Donald Trump have falsely claimed in recent weeks that tens of millions of dead people are receiving Social Security benefits.
SCOOP: Elon Musk has installed 10 of his DOGE operatives at the Social Security Administration. We got their names w/ @makenakelly.bsky.social www.wired.com/story/doge-o...
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— David Gilbert (@davidgilbert.bsky.social) March 13, 2025 at 8:03 PM
Wired reported that "one of the tasks the DOGE cohort will be assigned is how people identify themselves to access their benefit payments."
"Experts with decades of experience at the agency are now worried that DOGE operatives working across multiple agencies increases the risk of SSA data being shared outside of the agency, or that their inexperience will lead to them breaking systems entirely," the outlet added.
Leland Dudek, whom Trump installed as acting SSA commissioner last month, has acknowledged to senior agency staff that Musk's lieutenants are now effectively in the driver's seat at the department, making key decisions despite their lack of knowledge of SSA systems.
"Are we going to break something?" Dudek asked during a recent closed-door meeting with SSA staffers and advocates. "I don't know."
The new reporting on DOGE staffers' presence at SSA comes as Democratic lawmakers are demanding an investigation into Musk's activities at the agency amid mounting concerns that he wants to privatize Social Security.
In a letter to the Republican chair of the Senate Finance Committee earlier this week, Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) and other Democratic senators warned that DOGE staffers' "unfettered access" to SSA data raises "a profound risk of causing irreparable harm to the agency's systems and Americans' financial security."
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Top Democrat Demands Answers on Treasury 'Cover-Up' of Musk Team's Access to Key System
"If Wired's reporting is accurate, the Treasury Department deliberately misled or outright lied to Congress to cover up DOGE's handling of the nation's most sensitive financial system," wrote Sen. Ron Wyden.
Feb 07, 2025
U.S. Sen. Ron Wyden on Friday demanded answers from Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent after reporting contradicted the department's narrative about the level of payment system access granted to lieutenants of unelected billionaire Elon Musk.
In a letter to Bessent, Wyden (D-Ore.) pointed to a Thursday Wired story revealing that a Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) operative had "write access" to critical Treasury payment systems, despite the Treasury Department and Trump White House's insistence to the contrary.
According to Wired, 25-year-old Marko Elez—who resigned from his position Thursday after The Wall Street Journal inquired into his racist social media posts—"was granted privileges including the ability to not just read but write code on two of the most sensitive systems in the U.S. government: the Payment Automation Manager (PAM) and Secure Payment System (SPS) at the Bureau of the Fiscal Service (BFS)."
"Reporting from Talking Points Memo confirmed that Treasury employees were concerned that Elez had already made 'extensive changes' to code within the Treasury system," Wired added. "The payments processed by BFS include federal tax returns, Social Security benefits, Supplemental Security Income benefits, and veterans' pay."
"These mission-critical systems are not to be manipulated or subject to the whims of unelected billionaires or software engineers with fantasies of destroying the federal government from within."
Wyden, the top Democrat on the Senate Finance Committee, wrote Friday that "if Wired's reporting is accurate, the Treasury Department deliberately misled or outright lied to Congress to cover up DOGE's handling of the nation's most sensitive financial system."
"Treasury's refusal to provide straight answers about DOGE's actions, as well as its refusal to provide a briefing requested by several Senate committees, only heightens my suspicions," Wyden added. "It now appears Mr. Elez has resigned his position, not due to the flimsy and transparent cover-up of his ability to alter Treasury Department payment system code, but due to his links to a social media account that advocated racism and eugenics."
In a February 4 letter to Wyden, the Treasury Department claimed that DOGE staffers would "have read-only access to the coded data of the Fiscal Service's payment systems in order to continue this operational efficiency assessment."
Wyden demanded Friday that the Treasury Department identify any officials other than Elez who were given "read-write" access to the Treasury payment system. The senator also specifically demanded to know whether Musk himself has been granted access to the system's data.
"Reports make clear that Musk and his DOGE functionaries have sought access to the payments system not for an audit, but instead to manipulate the system in order to enact a political agenda," Wyden wrote. "The Treasury Department's payment systems facilitate nearly 90% of all federal payments and more than $6 trillion annually. These mission-critical systems are not to be manipulated or subject to the whims of unelected billionaires or software engineers with fantasies of destroying the federal government from within."
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DOGE Goon Given Access to Treasury Payment System Resigns After Racist Eugenics Remarks Revealed
One observer wrote: "Skull. Measuring. Freaks."
Feb 06, 2025
Marko Elez, a 25-year-old staffer with Elon Musk's so-called Department of Government Efficiency, has resigned from his role after The Wall Street Journal inquired over his ties to a social media account that advocated for a "eugenic immigration policy," among other racist views, the outlet reported Thursday.
Elez was stationed at the Treasury Department, where he reportedly had direct access to Treasury Department systems responsible for nearly all payments made by the U.S. government. Earlier Thursday a district court judge placed limits on Elez's and a fellow DOGE staffer's ability to share the sensitive Treasury data.
Elez also worked for Musk at SpaceX, Starlink, and X, according to the Journal.
The X account, which was deleted in December, used the handle @nullllptr—a misspelling of a keyword in the C++ programming language, the Journal reported. However, the account previously went by the username @marko_elez, according archived posts the outlet reviewed. The person using the @nullllptr account also described themselves as an employee at SpaceX and Starlink.
"Just for the record, I was racist before it was cool," @nullllptr posted over the summer, and in September: "You could not pay me to marry outside of my ethnicity." The account also called for a rollback of the Civil Rights Act.
In response to the Journal's reporting, journalist Edward Ongweso Jr. wrote on X: "Skull. Measuring. Freaks."
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