‘I was racist before it was cool’: DOGE worker who had access to Treasury pay systems resigns over racist posts
25-year-old DOGE worker Marko Elez, who was given access to sensitive Treasury pay systems, resigns after his racist social media posts resurface.
Elon Musk’s unofficial Department of Government Efficiency has raised concerns among Americans and Democratic politicians due to the access the White House under Donald Trump grants him. Even though he was not elected to any government position and is a private citizen, he has begun pushing his way into every government department and system. He put USAID security heads on administration leave so he and his team could gain access to classified government information. Musk also gained access to the U.S. Treasury, including sensitive pay systems that oversee the flow of trillions of dollars. However, it’s not just Musk who is gaining access to these systems but also his inexperienced and young DOGE workers.
Although Musk has tried to keep the identities of his DOGE workers secret, the media quickly confirmed several of the workers. He has a team of six baby-faced male “engineers” aged 19 – 26, most of whom worked for his other businesses before their DOGE hiring and have no government experience. They have access to the Treasury pay systems, USAID secure systems, and Department of Energy IT systems. Meanwhile, it’s unclear if these individuals have even had proper background checks. After all, the media, rather than White House officials, ultimately rang the alarm on Elez’s posts.
Marko Elez resigns over racist posts
Elez resigned from DOGE after The Wall Street Journal linked him to a deleted X account that advocated for racism and eugenics as recently as December of last year. Although all the posts were deleted, NPR also independently confirmed the Tweets through the Internet Archive’s Wayback Machine. A Tweet from December 2024 read, “I just want a eugenic immigration policy, is that too much to ask.” In September, he wrote, “You could not pay me to marry outside of my ethnicity” and “Normalize Indian hate.” In July, he bragged, “Just for the record, I was racist before it was cool.”
Elez has not publicly responded to the report, but White House officials confirmed his resignation. However, X users noted that his profile still had an X official badge, which suggests Musk’s social media platform may still employ him. Shortly before Elez’s racist posts surfaced, he made the news over reports that Musk gave him direct access to sensitive federal payment systems. DOGE insisted he had “read-only” access, which prevented him from changing the system. However, two inside sources told WIRED that his access went far beyond that. According to them, his access potentially gave him the power “to log in to servers through secure shell access, navigate the entire file system, change user permissions, and delete or modify critical files.”
The incident raises further concerns about what kind of access DOGE employees are getting and whether these individuals are being vetted before being instated in departments like the Treasury. Meanwhile, Musk’s flippant response to Elez’s controversy raised doubts that he cares about vetting his employees or preventing individuals with dangerous and extreme views from tapping into classified information. Following Elez’s resignation, Musk posted a poll to X questioning if he should rehire him. This doesn’t confirm his intention to rehire Elez, but it also doesn’t demonstrate the kind of concern or remorse a boss would typically have after learning they hired someone who openly promoted eugenics and racism.
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