Latest news with #Jancso
WIRED
02-05-2025
- Business
- WIRED
A DOGE Recruiter Is Staffing a Project to Deploy AI Agents Across the US Government
Caroline Haskins Vittoria Elliott May 2, 2025 12:19 PM A startup founder told a Palantir alumni Slack group that AI agents could do the work of tens of thousands of government employees. He was met with emojis of clowns and a man licking a boot. An aide sets up a poster depicting the logo for the DOGE Caucus before a news conference. Photograph:A young entrepreneur who was among the earliest known recruiters for Elon Musk's so-called Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) has a new, related gig—and he's hiring. Anthony Jancso, cofounder of AcclerateX, a government tech startup, is looking for technologists to work on a project that aims to have artificial intelligence perform tasks that are currently the responsibility of tens of thousands of federal workers. Jancso, a former Palantir employee, wrote in a Slack with about 2000 Palantir alumni in it that he's hiring for a 'DOGE orthogonal project to design benchmarks and deploy AI agents across live workflows in federal agencies,' according to an April 21 post reviewed by WIRED. Agents are programs that can perform work autonomously. 'We've identified over 300 roles with almost full process standardization, freeing up at least 70k FTEs for higher-impact work over the next year,' he continued, essentially claiming that tens of thousands of federal employees could see many aspects of their job automated and replaced by these AI agents. Workers for the project, he wrote, would be based on site in Washington, DC, and would not require a security clearance; it isn't clear for whom they would work. Palantir did not respond to requests for comment. The post was not well received. Eight people reacted with clown face emojis, three reacted with a custom emoji of a man licking a boot, two reacted with custom emoji of Joaquin Phoenix giving a thumbs down in the movie Gladiator , and three reacted with a custom emoji with the word 'Fascist.' Three responded with a heart emoji. 'DOGE does not seem interested in finding 'higher impact work' for federal employees,' one person said in a comment that received 11 heart reactions. 'You're complicit in firing 70k federal employees and replacing them with shitty autocorrect.' 'Tbf we're all going to be replaced with shitty autocorrect (written by chatgpt),' another person commented, which received one '+1' reaction. 'How 'DOGE orthogonal' is it? Like, does it still require Kremlin oversight?' another person said in a comment that received five reactions with a fire emoji. 'Or do they just use your credentials to log in later?' AccelerateX was originally called AccelerateSF, which VentureBeat reported in 2023 had received support from OpenAI and Anthropic. In its earliest incarnation, AccelerateSF hosted a hackathon for AI developers aimed at using the technology to solve San Francisco's social problems. According to a 2023 Mission Local story, for instance, Jancso proposed that using large language models to help businesses fill out permit forms to streamline the construction paperwork process might help drive down housing prices. (OpenAI did not respond to a request for comment. Anthropic spokesperson Danielle Ghiglieri tells WIRED that the company "never invested in AccelerateX/SF,' but did sponsor a hackathon AccelerateSF hosted in 2023 by providing free access to its API usage at a time when its Claude API 'was still in beta.') In 2024, the mission pivoted, with the venture becoming known as AccelerateX. In a post on X announcing the change, the company posted, 'Outdated tech is dragging down the US Government. Legacy vendors sell broken systems at increasingly steep prices. This hurts every American citizen.' AccelerateX did not respond to a request for comment. According to sources with direct knowledge, Jancso disclosed that AccelerateX had signed a partnership agreement with Palantir in 2024. According to the LinkedIn of someone described as one of AccelerateX's co-founders, Rachel Yee, the company looks to have received funding from OpenAI's Converge 2 Accelerator. Another of AccelerateSF's cofounders, Kay Sorin, now works for OpenAI, having joined the company several months after that hackathon. Sorin and Yee did not respond to requests for comment. Jancso's cofounder, Jordan Wick, a former Waymo engineer, has been an active member of DOGE, appearing at several agencies over the past few months, including the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, National Labor Relations Board, the Department of Labor, and the Department of Education. In 2023, Jancso attended a hackathon hosted by ScaleAI; WIRED found that another DOGE member, Ethan Shaotran, also attended the same hackathon. Since its creation in the first days of the second Trump administration, DOGE has pushed the use of AI across agencies, even as it has sought to cut tens of thousands of federal jobs. At the Department of Veterans Affairs, a DOGE associate suggested using AI to write code for the agency's website; at the General Services Administration, DOGE has rolled out the GSAi chatbot; the group has sought to automate the process of firing government employees with a tool called AutoRIF; and a DOGE operative at the Department of Housing and Urban Development is using AI tools to examine and propose changes to regulations. But experts say that deploying AI agents to do the work of 70,000 people would be tricky if not impossible. A federal employee with knowledge of government contracting, who spoke to WIRED on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to the press, says, 'A lot of agencies have procedures that can differ widely based on their own rules and regulations, and so deploying AI agents across agencies at scale would likely be very difficult.' Oren Etzioni, cofounder of the AI startup Vercept, says that while AI agents can be good at doing some things—like using an internet browser to conduct research—their outputs can still vary widely and be highly unreliable. For instance, customer service AI agents have invented nonexistent policies when trying to address user concerns. Even research, he says, requires a human to actually make sure what the AI is spitting out is correct. 'We want our government to be something that we can rely on, as opposed to something that is on the absolute bleeding edge,' says Etzioni. 'We don't need it to be bureaucratic and slow, but if corporations haven't adopted this yet, is the government really where we want to be experimenting with the cutting edge AI?' Etzioni says that AI agents are also not great 1-1 fits for job replacements. Rather, AI is able to do certain tasks or make others more efficient, but the idea that the technology could do the jobs of 70,000 employees would not be possible. 'Unless you're using funny math,' he says, 'no way.' Jancso, first identified by WIRED in February, was one of the earliest recruiters for DOGE in the months before Donald Trump was inaugurated. In December, Jancso, who sources told WIRED said he had been recruited by Steve Davis, president of the Musk-founded Boring Company and a current member of DOGE, used the Palantir alumni group to recruit DOGE members. On December 2nd, 2024, he wrote, 'I'm helping Elon's team find tech talent for the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) in the new admin. This is a historic opportunity to build an efficient government, and to cut the federal budget by 1/3. If you're interested in playing a role in this mission, please reach out in the next few days.' According to one source at SpaceX, who asked to remain anonymous as they are not authorized to speak to the press, Jancso appeared to be one of the DOGE members who worked out of the company's DC office in the days before inauguration along with several other people who would constitute some of DOGE's earliest members. SpaceX did not respond to a request for comment. Palantir was cofounded by Peter Thiel, a billionaire and long-time Trump supporter with close ties to Musk. Palantir, which provides data analytics tools to several government agencies including the Department of Defense and the Department of Homeland Security , has received billions of dollars in government contracts. During the second Trump administration, the company has been involved in helping to build a 'mega API' to connect data from the Internal Revenue Service to other government agencies, and is working with Immigration and Customs Enforcement to create a massive surveillance platform to identify immigrants to target for deportation.
WIRED
09-02-2025
- Business
- WIRED
The Recruitment Effort That Helped Build Elon Musk's DOGE Army
Vittoria Elliott Tim Marchman Feb 8, 2025 8:01 PM At least three individuals associated with Palantir or its cofounder Peter Thiel were involved in an online recruiting effort for DOGE late last year, WIRED has learned. Photograph:The establishment of Elon Musk's so-called Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) relied on a recruitment campaign carried out, in part, by young software engineers fanning out across online chat groups and Discord servers, according to three sources and chat logs reviewed by WIRED. Some of the engineers are associated with data analytics firm Palantir or its cofounder and board of directors chair—and Musk ally—Peter Thiel. As DOGE staffers—many of them young and with little or no government experience—continue to gain access to sensitive data across about a dozen government agencies, this is the first look at some of the networks from which the agency has recruited, and who they relied on to enlist talent. In online chat groups linked to Palantir alumni and SpaceX interns, Musk's space company, as well as in a Discord server associated with a military artificial intelligence program, the engineers said they were looking for people willing to spend six months in Washington, DC cutting federal spending—which accounts for around a quarter of the US gross domestic product—by a third. Anthony Jancso, one of three engineers associated with the recruitment effort, is a former Palantir employee. According to sources, Jancso said he was recruited to DOGE by Steve Davis, the Boring Company president and Musk lieutenant whom Bloomberg reported in December was leading recruitment for DOGE. Palantir, Jancso, and Davis did not immediately respond to requests for comment. The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Jancso's resume lists him as a 2021 graduate of University College London and as having been a 'forward deployed' software engineer at Palantir between December 2021 and May 2023. Jancso is best known for leading a project called Accelerate SF, which aims to leverage AI in the public sector. In a 2023 story about a then-upcoming hackathon, VentureBeat reported that Accelerate had received support from companies including OpenAI and Anthropic. In 2024, the venture became known as AccelerateX. Purporting to offer 'a modern OS for government,' AccelerateX claims it 'transforms government infrastructure with AI-powered automation and software, delivered in days.' On November 26, 2024, in a message reviewed by WIRED, a person using a screen name including the name Anthony and the same handle that Jancso uses on his X account posted in a Discord server associated with the Space Force Generative AI Challenge—an 'eight-week combination of AI crash course and problem-solving hack-a-thon that engaged 350-plus participants,' according to its website. 'Helping the Dept. of Government Efficiency team find hardcore engineers,' the message reads. 'Send your GitHub/LinkedIn to @DOGE on X and your X handle to me in DM if you're interested or know someone who is, could help get them into the pipeline.' In early December, in another message reviewed by WIRED, a person using the same handle posted to a chat group for Palantir alumni. 'Hey all,' the message read. 'I'm helping Elon's team find tech talent for the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) in the new admin. This is a historic opportunity to build an efficient government, and to cut the federal budget by 1/3. If you're interested in playing a role in this mission, please reach out in the next few days.' A person using the handle George Cooper followed on. 'Similar to Anthony's post,' the message read, 'I'm also looking to refer people to DOGE. Efficiency will always be an exceptionally hard, complex problem and I personally believe we need the brightest people in the world to wrestle with that problem. I've always found Palantirians & ex-Palantirians to be the most exceptional people I know, so who better to confront that challenge. Shoot me a DM (or @Anthony ofc) if you're interested.' (Reaction to these messages was, a source tells WIRED, 'mixed.') According to an online resume, George Cooper graduated from Lehigh University in 2019 and has been employed at Palantir as a 'forward deployed' engineer since May 2024, following another stint at the company in a similar role from 2019 to 2023. He did not immediately reply to a request for comment. It's unclear what role, if any, Jancso currently has within DOGE. But one of Accelerate SF's cofounders, as reported by VentureBeat, is former Waymo software engineer Jordan Wick, who completed undergrad at MIT in 2019 and earned a masters from the school the following year. Wick, according to government records reviewed by WIRED, appears to have a DOGE email account associated with the Executive Office of the President. Two sources tell WIRED that Wick is among the team that has been given access to Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) systems and equipment. Wick did not immediately respond to a request from WIRED. Shortly after the email was sent, his online resume was removed. On December 5, 2024, around the same time the messages associated with Jancso's handle were being sent out, a person using the handle Luke Farritor posted a message in a Discord server for SpaceX interns. 'Hi everyone! I'm recruiting SWEs for Doge. Reach out if interested!' the message reads. 'We are looking for skilled software engineers (and ops people) at any career stage who are willing to work for ~6mo in person in DC. Paid. Tons of really ambitious projects in the works. We are going to fix the government!' The six-month timeline aligns with the 130 workday limit that special government employees (SGEs) are legally allowed to serve in a single year. Musk himself is currently categorized as an SGE. Luke Farritor, as WIRED first reported, is a 23-year-old former SpaceX intern and Thiel Fellow now working as a DOGE technologist. Politico has reported that he is now listed as an information engineer in an internal directory at the Department of Energy. He did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Since its establishment by executive order on the first day of Donald Trump's presidency, DOGE has taken over key agencies at the center of the federal government such as the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) and the General Services Administration (GSA) and placed operatives in about a dozen agencies with the apparent aim of radically reducing the size of the federal workforce and increasing presidential powers. Its access to sensitive data and systems has placed DOGE at the center of a growing number of legal battles. Early Saturday morning, a federal judge temporarily barred members of the task force from access to records and the Treasury payment system through which the vast majority of federal spending flows, and ordered records in their possession destroyed immediately. As WIRED has reported, a threat intelligence team at the agency recommended members have access to payment systems revoked and that they be monitored as an 'insider threat.'
