Who is Marko Elez, the Musk's DOGE staffer reinstated after alleged racist tweet ‘normalise Indian hate’?

With Donald Trump inaugurated as US president for a second time, his plan for Twitter/X owner Elon Musk to head up the Department of Government Efficiency (or DOGE) has become a reality – but one former staffer by the name of Marko Elez is making headlines after he resigned over alleged racist social media posts, including one which allegedly said “normalise Indian hate”.

All of this was sparked by a report from The Wall Street Journalon Friday (February 7), which reviewed a number of archived posts from Elez and found out via the White House he had resigned from his post on Thursday (February 6) following its enquiries.

What did Elez reportedly say in the social media posts?

Be warned, the comments reported by the WSJ are not pleasant.

Back in July, Elez is alleged to have wrote he “was racist before it was cool”, a month after he reportedly commented on the war in the Middle East and said he “would not mind at all if Gaza and Israel were both wiped off the face of the Earth”.

The WSJ says the aforementioned “normalise Indian hate” post came in September, the same month Elez is alleged to have posted that “you could not pay me to marry outside of my ethnicity”.

Who exactly is Marko Elez?

Elez, 25, is a computer science major who went to Rutgers University and then worked for Musk at SpaceX and X.

Indeed, his current account on Musk’s social media platform, @Marko_Elez, has a verified badge pointing to his employment at X, but does not show any tweets.

He also, per the WSJ, had access to the Treasury’s central payments system, as DOGE continues its government overhaul in the bid to cut waste and spending.

DOGE has already tried to access classified material in restricted areas of the US Agency for International Development (USAID), with leaders placed on leave after they refused to give inspectors access.

And signage has been ripped off USAID’s Washington D.C. headquarters, too, amid DOGE working its way into government departments.

Musk launches Twitter/X poll to decide Elez’s future

Ever the fan of a social media poll, Musk asked on Friday if he should “bring back [the] @DOGE staffer who made inappropriate statements via a now deleted pseudonym”.

More than 385,000 votes later, and 78 per cent voted ‘yes’, compared to 22 per cent who thought Elez should not be reinstated.

What have JD Vance and Donald Trump said about the situation?

Commenting on Musk’s Twitter/X poll, the US vice president wrote while he “obviously disagrees” with “some of Elez’s posts”, he doesn’t think “stupid social media activity should ruin a kid’s life”.

He continued: “We shouldn’t reward journalists who try to destroy people. Ever. So I say bring him back. If he’s a bad dude or a terrible member of the team, fire him for that.”

Trump, meanwhile, was asked about Vance’s comments on Friday, to which he said he didn’t know about “that particular thing” but that he was “with the vice president” on the issue.

Musk later responded to Vance’s tweet to confirm Elez would be “brought back”, adding “to err is human to forgive divine”.

Other DOGE employees have also made headlines in recent days

Reuters reports Gavin Kliger, a “special advisor to the director” at the Office of Personnel Management working with DOGE, reposted comments from white supremacist Nick Fuentes and self-proclaimed misogynist and political commentator Andrew Tate.

Elsewhere, Bloomberg writes 19-year-old DOGE employee Edward Coristine was fired from a cybersecurity internship after being accused of leaking information about the company – Path Network - to a competitor.

After being sacked, Coristine reportedly wrote on Discord that he had done “nothing contractually wrong” while at the firm.

And a federal judge has just temporarily restricted DOGE from having access to a vital Treasury payment system

The New York judge said early Saturday morning that allowing Musk’s department access to the Treasury’s crucial payment and data system could cause “irreparable harm”, and that a risk of leaks is heightened by Musk having access as a “special government employee”.

Sign up to our free Indy100 weekly newsletter

How to join the indy100's free WhatsApp channel

Have your say in our news democracy. Click the upvote icon at the top of the page to help raise this article through the indy100 rankings.