Doxxed by Rolling Stone, Utah's ‘DataRepublican' tells us what she's discovered

Yahoo

12-03-2025

The Utah software engineer who is drawing nationwide attention from the White House, the media and the world's richest man will tell you the potential of artificial intelligence is best summed up by 1 Samuel Chapter 17.
By her reading, AI is not an uncontrollable threat to humanity, it's the slingshot in the hands of David that defeats a government Goliath — and it's the gift that will save America.
'AI gives us the ability to take on massive, entrenched systems that would otherwise be impossible to untangle,' Jennica Pounds told the Deseret News. 'Without it, we'd be fighting blind.'
Pounds, a Utah resident who up until two weeks ago was known only by her X account, 'DataRepublican,' burst onto the scene this year as the most viral pioneer of Elon Musk's AI-driven takeover of Washington, D.C.
With the creation of a powerful government-spending database, and a pithy online personality, Pounds has taken conservative social media by storm and attracted her own fair share of critics in the process.
As some have accused Pounds of copying Musk's unorthodox auditing practices — which recently yielded an 83% reduction of USAID, thousands of federal layoffs and a disputed $105 billion in savings — Musk, in turn, appears to have occasionally taken cues from Pounds.
On Jan. 21, Pounds flagged Musk's Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, with 'a quick billion for you to cut!' that included $229 million to Global Refuge, a faith-based immigrant charity, that is 97% taxpayer funded. Musk, who has the world's largest following on X, of nearly 220 million, responded to her message with one word: 'Noted.'
Less than two weeks later — after he encouraged users to follow DataRepublican — Musk announced that the DOGE team was 'rapidly shutting down' federal payments to Global Refuge.
Pounds told the Deseret News that while Musk has not reached out privately, DOGE representatives have messaged her multiple times over the past two months.
But since a Rolling Stone article revealed her identity, and other personal information, to the world on Feb. 26, Pounds' life as a Salt Lake City business owner, wife and mother of two has been turned on its head.
The couple's local distillery has been targeted with bad reviews and the family has been forced to take their elementary-age sons out of school to stay in Florida until things calm down, Pound said.
In her first official news interview since her identity became public, Pounds told the Deseret News that despite the stress of public life, she has redoubled her commitment to apply her big tech background to mapping out the web of government connections that she believes has led to unresponsive leadership and wasted taxpayer dollars.
For someone who describes herself as deaf and nonverbal, Pounds says AI technology has transformed her relationship with her children by increasing their ability to communicate. Pounds also believes AI has the power to revolutionize the relationship between citizens and their government.
'AI has fundamentally changed the balance of power when it comes to government transparency and accountability,' Pounds wrote via email because she said her autism makes real-time sign language difficult in interviews.
For too long, technology has been used by government authorities to surveil and regulate the public, according to Pounds. But with unregulated AI tools in public hands, she predicts that dynamic is about to flip 180 degrees.
'Now, everyday citizens can use AI to analyze government spending, track decisions, and uncover waste and corruption on a scale that was previously impossible,' Pounds said.
And Pounds has exactly the skill set to pave the way.
As a child without the ability to hear, Pounds felt like most career paths were 'cut off' from her until she discovered programming. From there, her career path became clear: she earned a graduate degree in computer science focused on 'big data' and quickly secured high profile positions at Amazon, eBay and Snap Inc. and Upstart, specializing in massive datasets and machine-learning optimization.
These jobs kept Pounds in the Seattle area while her husband, Brent, served in the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration's (NOAA) Corps. But after discovering hypodermic needles used for drug injection scattered around the playground with her toddler, Pounds said she knew 'we needed a different environment.'
The Pounds moved to Utah in 2019, looking for a more welcoming place to raise a family. Within a few years, Pounds found a remote job dealing directly with AI software, while she and her husband opened Spirits of the Wasatch Distillery and she began blending her knowledge of technology with her deepening interest in politics.
What started in 2020 as election analysis, creating block-by-block voting breakdowns, quickly morphed into AI 'toolmaking,' creating interactive dashboards to track how political donations are made and who are the recipients.
When President Donald Trump signed DOGE into existence in 2025, Pounds decided to switch directions yet again.
Pounds learned that to cancel large portions of federal spending, DOGE would need specific ID numbers for grants awarded to nonprofit, nongovernmental organizations, or NGOs.
But while the data was all ostensibly public information, Pounds found there was no effective way to search for it.
'Government spending data exists, but without tools to analyze and connect the dots, it's nearly impossible to see the full picture,' said Pounds, who has the motto, 'Data does not equal transparency.'
So, Pounds created Datarepublican.com centered around a 'reverse index' tool that lets users search for organizations and easily find how much federal money they are receiving. It also has features that allow users to track PAC donations, NGO officer salaries and connections between influential policymakers.
As the website went viral, Pounds said she realized there was a pattern of overlapping conflicts of interest between elected lawmakers and the private NGO boards they sit on, which she estimates are funded by upwards of $100 billion in taxpayer dollars.
'That's when the mission evolved from simply cutting waste to taking on something much larger: restoring accountability and transparency in our democracy,' Pounds said.
In February, Pounds announced she had resigned from her job in order to devote herself 'full time' to 'DOGE-adjacent efforts,' while still remaining independent from the DOGE's White House office.
But Pounds told the Deseret News that since media reports have made a return to big tech 'no longer an option," she has decided that 'working within the system is the right path' for her.
Pounds said she is unable to 'discuss details about potential employers,' but she hinted at a future 'working within the government,' and previously said she is waiting on a federal 'background check.'
While she doesn't always agree with Musk — and feels that pushback from Congress and the courts are necessary checks on executive power — Pounds said that Musk may be the only person who can take on the bloated bureaucracy because of his reputation of successfully disrupting the status quo in the fields of electric vehicles, space travel and neurotechnology.
But the 'uncomfortable reality' behind DOGE, according to Pounds, is that as it seeks to trim down unnecessary spending, it will likely find a much deeper problem of ruling establishment misconduct that could be much more difficult to root out.
'It's not just about cutting government waste — it's about confronting the system that enables corruption and unchecked power,' Pounds told the Deseret News. 'If we want real, lasting change — if we want a government that's financially sustainable and accountable to the people — we have to take on the entire system that's choking progress. That's what makes DOGE's work so important."
Pounds' ability to pull out datapoints that appear to support claims about a conspiracy among elites has made her a hero among some on the right — Musk, and one of his closest social media allies, Utah Sen. Mike Lee, have both shared or responded to her posts dozens of times over the past several weeks.
Lee has repeatedly praised 'DataRepublican' on X, calling her a 'gift to America,' telling his followers to follow her to be 'enlightened' and coming to her defense after news outlets repeated the claims made in the Rolling Stone article.
'The concerned citizen known as Data Republican, whose research has helped root out waste, fraud, and abuse of taxpayer dollars, is experiencing the sad truth that leftist organizations will go after the families and livelihoods of Americans who dare to challenge the corrupt status quo,' Lee told the Deseret News. 'But, unlike the liberal media, she has millions of grateful Americans on her side — myself included.'
The Rolling Stone article in question alleges that Pounds, acting under her social media moniker, DataRepublican, sometimes accuses political actors of malfeasance on shaky grounds.
For example, last month, Pounds said that Bill Kristol, an anti-Trump conservative commentator, preferred 'the deep state,' because his advocacy organization, Defending Democracy Together, received money from a nonprofit, that had received money from another nonprofit that ultimately received funds from USAID.
While Pounds has put her partisan leanings on display by arguing that 'MAGA voters' need to show up in primary elections to oust incumbents in Congress, and by lobbing attacks at Democratic mega donor George Soros, she says the 'Republican' in her social media handle is with a 'small r' because she carries no party loyalty.
In fact, one of the biggest revelations from her deep dive into the federal bureaucracy has been just how bipartisan the conflicts of interest are, Pounds said. 'Yet, instead of equal outrage from both sides, the attacks on me have been overwhelmingly one-sided.'
Pounds expressed frustration with the Rolling Stone article because it suggested she advised Musk directly and it insinuated that she was influenced by her prior company's pushback against federal regulation and the company's connection to Peter Thiel, a billionaire Republican donor.
But Pounds readily admits that her newfound-fame has come as a result of the recently reelected president who has empowered DOGE in an unprecedented way.
'The sheer scale of government spending and federal programs is too vast for any person, or even a team of people, to fully grasp,' Pounds said. 'Now, with the right people in place and a renewed focus on accountability, we can finally expose what's been hidden for so long.
As to whether her career will remain focused on government transparency beyond DOGE's 18-month lifespan, Pounds said her future 'is ultimately in the Lord God's hands.'
For now, at least, Pounds hopes her family can return home to Utah to enjoy its 'strong sense of community,' 'emphasis on family,' 'high standards' — and 'widely available energy drinks' — in peace.