Elon Musk launched a poll on his social media platform X Friday to ask followers if he should rehire Marko Elez, a 25-year-old software engineer who had been working on the DOGE project that’s currently ransacking the federal government. Elez resigned Thursday after he was linked to a since-deleted account on X with tweets like, “I would not mind at all if Gaza and Israel were both wiped off the face of the Earth.”
“Bring back @DOGE staffer who made inappropriate statements via a now deleted pseudonym?” Musk asked in an X poll around 9:15 a.m. ET.
The poll closed about two hours later with the final vote showing 78% voting yes and 22% voting no, which will come as no surprise to anyone who’s been on X in recent months. The social media site has become a cesspool of racist hate, MAGA extremism, and holocaust denial ever since Musk bought the company back when it was known as Twitter in late 2022.
It’s not clear yet whether Musk will attempt to rehire Elez, who was uncovered as being associated with an X account called @nullllptr by the Wall Street Journal. The account was deleted in December, but was filled with racist comments like, “You could not pay me to marry outside of my ethnicity,” “Normalize Indian hate,” and “I would not mind at all if Gaza and Israel were both wiped off the face of the Earth.”
The account seemed to revel in the extremism of Musk’s platform, writing “Just for the record, I was racist before it was cool.” Elez has not publicly commented on his resignation nor has he confirmed he was responsible for writing all the tweets on the account, with some on X trying to desperately suggest Thursday it might not belong to Elez.
Vice President JD Vance expressed support for rehiring Elez on Friday, calling the 25-year-old a “kid,” and suggesting he did nothing wrong.
“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,” Vance tweeted. “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.”
Vance’s wife Usha is Indian-American, which several people on X pointed out as the Vice President defended hiring back Elez. Jon Favreau, a co-host of the liberal podcast Pod Save America, noted that Vance has an enormous amount of power and could just bring Elez back into the fold, but didn’t know how anyone could look their family in the eye after that.
Then bring him back! You’re the big tough guy with all the power now, right? (or at least you work with those two guys)
You don’t get to play the victim anymore and hide behind the mean journalists and the cancel culture libs. You’re in charge now.
If you want to hire back…
— Jon Favreau (@jonfavs) February 7, 2025
Musk, an extremist who helped Donald Trump get elected in November, has been laying the groundwork for bringing back Elez all morning. And much like Vance, the billionaire oligarch seems content to blame the media. Musk has been attacking the Wall Street Journalist reporter who first broke the news, Katherine Long.
Ian Miles Cheong, a far-right influencer in Malaysia who seems to write mostly about American politics, falsely claimed that Long “is a USAID employee” in a tweet Friday. Long appears to have worked managing USAID projects in the past, according to conversations online, but there’s no indication she currently works for USAID.
What the hell?
Certainly improper, possibly criminal. https://t.co/8GDeinXG3C
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) February 7, 2025
Why would it matter if Long is associated with USAID? Musk has become obsessed with dismantling the agency and has been trying to discredit anyone associated with the foreign aid mission. The USAID website went offline last weekend and all available reporting suggests Trump and Musk are trying to kill the agency by unilaterally stopping funds from being released to vital programs around the world.
Shutting down a federal agency without going through Congress is illegal, of course, but both Musk and Trump don’t seem to have anything holding them back at this point. The guardrails are well and truly gone, as the two men seek to reshape the entire U.S. government into a fascist playground for their wealthy buddies.
As just one example of how bad things have gotten, Musk appeared to make two Nazi-style salutes at a rally the day Trump was inaugurated. And while Musk defenders have tried to suggest he was merely doing a gesture to communicate “my heart goes out to you,” anyone with eyes in their head could see that excuse simply doesn’t pass muster.
There have been some minor roadblocks put up against DOGE, which has no legal authority to actually stop payments at federal agencies and access highly sensitive data. A court ruled that DOGE access should be restricted at the U.S. Treasury to Elez and another member of Musk’s gang, Tom Krause.
The Washington Post
Major news outlets tried to claim earlier this week that DOGE goons like Elez only had “read-only” access to data at the Treasury, but Wired uncovered the reality. Wired’s sources say these guys had administrator privileges on highly sensitive systems and there’s no telling how much damage they could do with that kind of power. And now, with Krause officially taking the job overseeing the entire country’s payment systems, they’re in a position to do just about anything they want to dismantle the federal government.
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2025-02-07 18:45:12
