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Elon Musk says he plans to rehire a staffer in his so-called Department of Government Efficiency who quit after his openly racist social media posts were exposed.
Vice President J.D. Vance encouraged Musk to “bring back” Marko Elez, a 25-year-old programmer who posted his support for a “eugenic immigration policy” and called to “normalize Indian hate,” among other racist statements uncovered by The Wall Street Journal on Thursday.
President Donald Trump, asked about Vance’s support on Friday, said he didn’t know about “that particular thing” but agrees with the vice president.
“But if the vice president said that — did you say that? I’m with the vice president,” Trump told reporters Friday.
Moments later, Musk wrote: “He will be brought back. To err is human, to forgive divine.”
Also on Friday, it was revealed that yet another member of Musk’s DOGE team, Gavin Kliger, had boosted white supremacist content on social media, including posts from Nick Fuentes. Another member of Musk’s team — 19-year-old Edward Coristine — was reportedly fired from an internship after he was accused of sharing information with a competitor.
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In the WSJ’s review of archived posts from Elez’s account, which appears to have been deleted last year, he wrote “you could not pay me to marry outside of my ethnicity” and repeatedly targeted Indian software engineers, who have been at the center of racist hate in a vitriolic debate over visa programs for foreign workers, particularly among tech workers in Silicon Valley.
“Just for the record, I was racist before it was cool,” Elez posted on his X account in July.
Musk and his allies have also demanded that the WSJ fire the reporter who discovered his posts and spread baseless accusations that she “doxxed” Elez — or published personal information without permission — by reporting on his social media presence.
“Here’s my view: I obviously disagree with some of Elez’s posts, but I don’t think stupid social media activity should ruin a kid’s life,” said Vance, whose own social media diet has included accounts with white nationalist views, according to an analysis by The Independent.
“We shouldn’t reward journalists who try to destroy people. Ever. So I say bring him back,” Vance wrote on X. “If he’s a bad dude or a terrible member of the team, fire him for that.”
When asked whether he wants Elez to apologize for his racism, Vance told a member of Congress to “grow up” and accused him of committing “emotional blackmail.”
“Racist trolls on the internet, while offensive, don’t threaten my kids. You know what does? A culture that denies grace to people who make mistakes. A culture that encourages congressmen to act like whiny children,” Vance wrote.
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Musk said the journalist should be “fired immediately.” He also posted a poll asking his followers whether to “bring back” Elez after he made “inappropriate statements via a now deleted pseudonym.”
Musk and his DOGE cohort — most of whom appear to be between the ages of 19 and 25 with virtually no experience working in government — are seeking to dismantle entire government agencies and have commandeered the Office of Personnel Management and demanded access to payment systems, including the Department of Treasury, as part of the Trump administration’s threats to make visceral funding cuts across the government.
Elez is believed to have had direct access to Treasury Department systems responsible for nearly all payments made by the U.S. government, and was capable of both reading and writing code on two payment systems that process trillion dollars every year.
The world’s wealthiest man controlling the levers of government is facing significant legal pushback and protests across Washington, D.C., and from members of Congress.
Two unions representing federal employees are suing the Treasury Department, which is accused of violating federal privacy laws by handing over access to Musk’s team.
