Latest news with #SahilLavingia
Zawya
3 days ago
- Business
- Zawya
Without Musk, DOGE likely to fizzle out, says ex-staffer
Without billionaire Elon Musk in the Trump administration, his cost-cutting Department of Government Efficiency project is likely to sputter out, a former DOGE staffer said in his first interview since leaving the team. Tesla CEO Musk announced on Wednesday evening that he was ending his time as a special government employee but vowed that DOGE would continue without him. Administration media representatives also said in statements to Reuters that DOGE would continue its work. DOGE has overseen job cuts at nearly every federal agency as part of U.S. President Donald Trump's attempts to shake up the federal bureaucracy. However, software engineer Sahil Lavingia, who spent almost two months working for the group of pro-Musk technologists, said he expects DOGE to quickly "fizzle out." "It'll just die a whimper," Lavingia, who was fired from DOGE earlier this month, told Reuters. "So much of the appeal and allure was Elon." He said he expected DOGE staffers to "just stop showing up to work. It's like kids joining a startup that will go out of business in four months." That would cap a remarkable undoing for DOGE, which Musk initially vowed would cut $2 trillion in federal spending. Instead, DOGE estimates its efforts have saved around $175 billion so far and the group's tallies have been riddled with errors. The White House praised DOGE but did not comment on Lavingia. "DOGE is integral to the federal government's operations, and its mission, as established by the President's executive order, will continue under the direction of agency and department heads in the Trump administration," White House spokesperson Harrison Fields said. Musk did not respond to a request for comment. Lavingia, the 32-year-old founder and CEO of creator platform Gumroad, said he was recruited by DOGE through a personal contact and joined the team in March. While he said he was proud of certain achievements at the Department of Veterans Affairs, including modernizing the agency's internal artificial-intelligence chatbot, he said he was often at a loss about what work he was expected to do. "I got dropped into the VA with an HP laptop. What are we supposed to do? What is the road map?" Lavingia said he asked, to no avail. "I felt like I was being pranked." Veterans Affairs press secretary Pete Kasperowicz said in a statement to Reuters: "VA looks forward to continuing to work with its DOGE liaisons to help the department improve its performance, customer service, and convenience to Veterans." Lavingia said Steve Davis, the president of Musk's tunneling enterprise the Boring Company, ran day-to-day operations while Turkish-born venture capitalist Baris Akis helped with DOGE recruitment and DOGE logistics. Davis and Akis did not respond to requests for comment sent via the White House. When instructions did come through, they were usually communicated through phone calls or small chats on the encrypted Signal messaging app that would typically auto-delete in one day, Lavingia said. Lavingia said instructions included moving faster to increase mass layoffs at the VA, the federal government's second-largest agency. The only time he met Musk, Lavingia said, was at an all-hands meeting in March with what he estimated was between 40 and 60 fellow DOGE staffers. Lavingia said he asked to open-source, or make freely available, some of his computer code, which Musk approved. He then asked if they could livestream DOGE meetings to increase transparency. "Elon said: 'That's a great idea. We'll do it next week.' He then caught himself and said: 'Maybe we pre-record it because of security risks.'" Lavingia said he never heard back. In early May, after he spoke to media outlet Fast Company about working at DOGE, Lavingia said his computer access was revoked in what amounted to a firing. He said Musk and team leaders never explicitly told him he should not talk to journalists. "My DOGE days were over," Lavingia wrote in a blog about his experience. (Reporting by Alexandra Ulmer in San Francisco; Editing by Matthew Lewis and Jamie Freed)
Al Arabiya
3 days ago
- Business
- Al Arabiya
Without Elon Musk, DOGE likely to fizzle out: Ex-staffer
Without billionaire Elon Musk in the Trump administration, his cost-cutting Department of Government Efficiency project is likely to sputter out, a former DOGE staffer said in his first interview since leaving the team. Tesla CEO Musk announced on Wednesday evening that he was ending his time as a special government employee but vowed that DOGE would continue without him. Administration media representatives also said in statements to Reuters that DOGE would continue its work. DOGE has overseen job cuts at nearly every federal agency as part of US President Donald Trump's attempts to shake up the federal bureaucracy. However, software engineer Sahil Lavingia, who spent almost two months working for the group of pro-Musk technologists, said he expects DOGE to quickly 'fizzle out.' 'It'll just die a whimper,' Lavingia, who was fired from DOGE earlier this month, told Reuters. 'So much of the appeal and allure was Elon.' He said he expected DOGE staffers to 'just stop showing up to work. It's like kids joining a startup that will go out of business in four months.' That would cap a remarkable undoing for DOGE, which Musk initially vowed would cut 2 trillion dollars in federal spending. Instead, DOGE estimates its efforts have saved around 175 billion dollars so far, and the group's tallies have been riddled with errors. The White House praised DOGE but did not comment on Lavingia. 'DOGE is integral to the federal government's operations, and its mission, as established by the President's executive order, will continue under the direction of agency and department heads in the Trump administration,' White House spokesperson Harrison Fields said. Musk did not respond to a request for comment. Lavingia, the 32-year-old founder and CEO of creator platform Gumroad, said he was recruited by DOGE through a personal contact and joined the team in March. While he said he was proud of certain achievements at the Department of Veterans Affairs, including modernizing the agency's internal artificial-intelligence chatbot, he said he was often at a loss about what work he was expected to do. 'I got dropped into the VA with an HP laptop. What are we supposed to do? What is the road map?' Lavingia said he asked, to no avail. 'I felt like I was being pranked.' Veterans Affairs press secretary Pete Kasperowicz said in a statement to Reuters: 'VA looks forward to continuing to work with its DOGE liaisons to help the department improve its performance, customer service, and convenience to Veterans.' Lavingia said Steve Davis, the president of Musk's tunneling enterprise the Boring Company, ran day-to-day operations while Turkish-born venture capitalist Baris Akis helped with DOGE recruitment and DOGE logistics. Davis and Akis did not respond to requests for comment sent via the White House. When instructions did come through, they were usually communicated through phone calls or small chats on the encrypted Signal messaging app that would typically auto-delete in one day, Lavingia said. Lavingia said instructions included moving faster to increase mass layoffs at the VA, the federal government's second-largest agency. The only time he met Musk, Lavingia said, was at an all-hands meeting in March with what he estimated was between 40 and 60 fellow DOGE staffers. Lavingia said he asked to open-source, or make freely available, some of his computer code, which Musk approved. He then asked if they could livestream DOGE meetings to increase transparency. 'Elon said: 'That's a great idea. We'll do it next week.' He then caught himself and said: 'Maybe we pre-record it because of security risks.'' Lavingia said he never heard back. In early May, after he spoke to media outlet Fast Company about working at DOGE, Lavingia said his computer access was revoked in what amounted to a firing. He said Musk and team leaders never explicitly told him he should not talk to journalists. 'My DOGE days were over,' Lavingia wrote in a blog about his experience.
Japan Times
3 days ago
- Business
- Japan Times
DOGE likely to fizzle out without Musk, says ex-staffer
Without billionaire Elon Musk in the Trump administration, his cost-cutting "department of government efficiency" project is likely to sputter out, a former DOGE staffer said. Tesla CEO Musk announced on Wednesday evening that he was ending his time as a special government employee but vowed that DOGE would continue without him. DOGE has overseen job cuts at nearly every federal agency as part of U.S. President Donald Trump's attempts to shake up the federal bureaucracy. However, software engineer Sahil Lavingia, who spent almost two months working for the group of pro-Musk technologists, said he expects DOGE to quickly "fizzle out.' "It'll just die a whimper,' Lavingia, who was fired from DOGE earlier this month, said. "So much of the appeal and allure was Elon.' He said he expected DOGE staffers to "just stop showing up to work. It's like kids joining a startup that will go out of business in four months." That would cap a remarkable undoing for DOGE, which Musk initially vowed would cut $2 trillion in federal spending. Instead, DOGE estimates its efforts have saved around $175 billion so far and the group's tallies have been riddled with errors. Lavingia, the 32-year-old founder and CEO of creator platform Gumroad, said he was recruited by DOGE through a personal contact and joined the team in March. While he said he was proud of certain achievements at the Department of Veterans Affairs, including modernizing the agency's internal artificial-intelligence chatbot, he said he was often at a loss about what work he was expected to do. "I got dropped into the VA with an HP laptop. What are we supposed to do? What is the road map?" Lavingia said he asked, to no avail. "I felt like I was being pranked." The White House, the VA and Musk did not respond to requests for comment. The White House has previously said that DOGE works at a fast pace to root out waste, fraud and abuse, and generate savings for American taxpayers. Lavingia said Steve Davis, the president of Musk's tunneling enterprise the Boring Company, ran day-to-day operations while Turkish-born venture capitalist Baris Akis helped with DOGE recruitment and logistics. Davis and Akis did not respond to requests for comment sent via the White House. When instructions did come through, they were usually communicated through phone calls or small chats on the encrypted Signal messaging app that would typically auto-delete in one day, Lavingia said. Lavingia said instructions included moving faster to increase mass layoffs at the VA, the federal government's second-largest agency. The only time he met Musk, Lavingia said, was at an all-hands meeting in March with what he estimated was between 40 and 60 fellow DOGE staffers. Lavingia said he asked to open-source, or make freely available, some of his computer code, which Musk approved. He then asked if they could livestream DOGE meetings to increase transparency. "Elon said: 'That's a great idea. We'll do it next week.' He then caught himself and said: 'Maybe we pre-record it because of security risks.'" Lavingia said he never heard back. In early May, after he spoke to media outlet Fast Company about working at DOGE, Lavingia said his computer access was revoked in what amounted to a firing. He said Musk and team leaders never explicitly told him he should not talk to journalists. "My DOGE days were over," Lavingia wrote in a blog about his experience.
WIRED
3 days ago
- Business
- WIRED
WIRED Talked to a Fired DOGE Staffer About Who Was Really in Charge
May 29, 2025 8:07 PM Sahil Lavingia, who says he was fired from DOGE after speaking out about his experiences there, told WIRED about how he communicated with the group, who appears to be in charge, and what might be coming next. PHOTO-ILLUSTRATION: WIRED STAFF; GETTY IMAGES With Elon Musk and other leaders of the so-called Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) purportedly on their way out, WIRED spoke with a fired DOGE staffer about his experience, how the group communicates, who appears to be in charge—and what might be coming next. Earlier this week, Sahil Lavingia published a blog post on his personal website detailing his 55-day stint within DOGE. Lavingia, who WIRED first identified as a member of DOGE at the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA), is the CEO of Gumroad, a platform that helps creatives sell their work. In his post, Lavingia describes the kinds of projects he worked on at the VA, and his overall impressions of working with DOGE. Lavingia described the DOGE operations as 'disorganized,' with little information sharing across different teams. This could all change soon, as Musk has spent the last few weeks saying that he is going to be largely leaving his DOGE duties behind. Two of his closest lieutenants, Steve Davis and Nicole Hollander, appear to be departing as well. Davis, who has worked with Musk for years, including at X and as the CEO of the Boring Company, has been integral to the day-to-day operations of DOGE. Without Davis at the helm, Lavingia says, it's unclear who will lead DOGE—and in what direction. 'Steven was the only person who was across everything,' Lavingia tells WIRED. Musk, Davis, and Hollander did not reply to WIRED's requests for comment. Lavingia told WIRED that Davis appeared to be the person directing most of the DOGE activities at different agencies, and was in direct contact with all the DOGE members at various points. Generally, in Lavingia's experience, that correspondence happened using the encrypted messaging app Signal. Experts and lawmakers have previously warned that using Signal for official government communications could violate laws that require government employees to maintain records of all communications. Earlier this year, then-national security advisor Mike Waltz accidentally added the editor of the Atlantic to a Signal group chat where Waltz and other senior officials in the Trump administration discussed imminent and sensitive military actions in Yemen. Davis, Lavingia says, would message priorities to whomever was the DOGE team lead at a given agency. At the VA, Lavingia tells WIRED, Davis instructed the DOGE team to prioritize reviewing contracts for cancellation. Davis would message Lavingia periodically to check in about how his work was going, but would rarely reply to Lavingia's responses, he says. According to Lavingia, in late March, Davis was present at a meeting with Musk, called an 'E meeting.' Many of the DOGE workers he encountered at that meeting, Lavigna says, appeared mostly focused on executing tasks that Davis had assigned to them. Two other Musk loyalists, Anthony Armstrong and Baris Akis, were present at the 'E meeting.' These three men— Armstrong, Akis, and Davis—appeared to be the people in charge, Lavingia claims. 'Steven is basically like a chief of staff or body man when Elon was there,' he says. Akis, the co-founder and president of venture capital firm Human Capital, is a long-time Musk associate. He is not a US citizen. In February, the Atlantic reported that Trump advisers had prevented Musk from hiring Akis into DOGE because he was born in Turkey, but has a green card. U.S. legal regulations, the Atlantic noted, generally do not allow for non-Americans to be employed by the government. Lavingia says, however, that Akis was the person who helped bring him into DOGE, messaging let him know that he would be assigned to work at the VA and connecting him with the DOGE team lead for the agency. Akis did not respond to WIRED's request for comment and WIRED was not able to review messages between Lavingia and Akis. The Atlantic noted in their February report that Akis also did not respond to their request for comment. In a live recording with the All-In Podcast earlier this month, Antonio Gracias, another Musk ally and a known DOGE affiliate, appeared to confirm Akis's presence, and said that 'Baris and Emily do the recruiting' for DOGE. (Lavingia could not confirm who the mention of 'Emily' referred to in the podcast.) Armstrong, who helped advise Musk on his purchase of Twitter, has mostly focused his efforts at the Office of Personnel Management (OPM), one of the first departments taken over by DOGE. Davis has long been an important part of Musk's inner circle. When Musk took over Twitter in 2022, Davis and his partner, Hollander, slept in the company's offices with their newborn child as they helped Musk fire thousands of people and shrink the company's footprint. Hollander also joined Davis in the DOGE effort, working at the General Service Administration (GSA). Even before Trump took office, Davis led the recruitment efforts for DOGE, then based out of SpaceX's DC offices. He recruited one young engineer who is now running a 'DOGE orthogonal' AI startup, according to previous WIRED reporting. Davis was also instrumental in pressing for access to sensitive data at the Social Security Administration (SSA) for one of the group's young engineers, Akash Bobba. Musk and Davis were what is known as special government employees (SGEs), who are able to work in government for a limited period of time up to 130 days. In his blog post, Lavingia writes that DOGE was a way for the Trump administration to distance itself from otherwise unpopular decisions. 'In reality, DOGE had no direct authority. The real decisions came from the agency heads appointed by President Trump, who were wise to let DOGE act as the 'fall guy' for unpopular decisions,' he wrote on his website earlier this week. Without Musk and Davis, Lavingia says he has 'no idea' what direction DOGE will take. And as for the young engineers who followed Musk and Davis into government: 'I assume they'll leave soon too.'
Daily Mail
3 days ago
- Business
- Daily Mail
DOGE worker reveals why he was fired less than two months into the job as department implodes under Elon Musk exodus
A former DOGE employee claims he was fired from Elon Musk 's cost-cutting department just one day after his simple claim that 'the government works' was published in an interview. Sahil Lavingia posted to his blog Wednesday that he had been fired after speaking to Fast Company about his work at DOGE and what he has discovered about the federal government. Lavingia claimed that he found fewer inefficiencies than he expected while working as a senior advisor to the chief of staff. 'I would say the culture shock is mostly a lot of meetings, not a lot of decisions,' said Lavingia, an engineer and the CEO of tech startup Gumroad. 'But honestly, it's kind of fine - because the government works. It's not as inefficient as I was expecting, to be honest. I was hoping for more easy wins.' Lavingia had worked at the Department of Veterans Affairs, extracting employee data and working to implement artificial intelligence over the course of 55 days before he was given the boot. During that time, he said, he became increasingly frustrated by the lack of knowledge sharing within DOGE and what he called a lack of a team culture. In one instance, he recounted how Elon Musk asked all DOGE employees how they could improve the public's perception of the agency amid fiery protests - at which Lavingia suggested he open-source his work and Musk agreed. 'The reality was setting in: DOGE was more like having McKinsey [management consulting] volunteers embedded in agencies rather than the revolutionary force I'd imagined,' he wrote. 'It was Elon (in the White House), Steven Davis (coordinating) and everyone else scattered across agencies.' He noted that he had decided to join DOGE to make a difference in the federal government - and did have some limited successes. To help review contracts at the Department of Veterans Affairs, Lavingia said he used a large language model to flag some for potential cancelation. He also said he built tools to help the VA with its layoff efforts and worked to speed up the agency's use of artificial intelligence - and improve the internal ChatGPT tool on the VA's website. However, he claimed he 'was never able to get approval to ship anything to production that would actually improve American lives - while also saving money for the American taxpayer' even though he had developed several prototypes. Many of the longtime employees at the department were distrustful of him and the Department of Government Efficiency's efforts, as they worried about Lavingia's lack of understanding of the agency and its normal procedures, WIRED previously reported. At the same time, though, Lavingia said he was surprised to see what the department was already working on. 'In meetings with the Office of the [Chief Technology Officer], I discovered ambitious ongoing software projects like reducing veterans' benefits claims from 1333 days to under a week,' he shared. 'I also learned that several of VA's cod repos were already open-source, and the world's first electronic health record system, VistA, was built by VA employees over 40 years ago.' Reflecting back on his time at the Department of Government Efficiency, Lavingia said he 'learned a lot and got to write some code for the federal government. 'For that, I'm grateful,' the Gumroad CEO wrote. 'But I'm also disappointed. I didn't make any progress on improving the UX of veterans' filing disability claims or automating/speeding up claims processing like I had hoped to when I started.' Lavingia's essay came the same day Musk abruptly announced he was leaving his position as the head of DOGE - ahead of his scheduled departure. The Tesla boss had spent the last few weeks slowly phasing out of politics amid whispers of tensions with top Trump officials. The situation came to a head on Tuesday night when Musk laid into Trump's 'big beautiful bill' and admitted he was disappointed with the treatment his DOGE team had received. 'It undermines the work that the DOGE team is doing,' Musk bluntly told CBS of the $3.8trillion spending bill. Musk - who spoke to multiple outlets about the White House betrayal - went on to decry the treatment he and his baby-faced DOGE henchmen had received. 'DOGE is just becoming the whipping boy for everything,' he told the Washington Post. 'Something bad would happen anywhere, and we would get blamed for it even if we had nothing to do with it.' Several other high-ranking officials have since followed Musk's lead, with Katie Miller - who had served as an adviser to President Trump and the spokeswoman for the Department of Government Efficiency - reportedly joining Musk in the private sector. She is now reportedly helping Musk set up media interviews unrelated to his government work as he officially quit his position as the head of DOGE, an insider told CNN. The White House also confirmed on Wednesday that Steve Davis left his role as the number two man at DOGE, where he handled the day-to-day operations including hiring and firing. He reportedly took his cues from Musk about which agencies to cut, and worked to ensure those were carried out by DOGE staffers, those familiar with the internal workings of DOGE told the Wall Street Journal. But Davis had also reportedly been planning to focus more on modernizing the government's aging computer systems. A third DOGE leader, Brad Smith, is said to have also returned to the private sector. During his time at DOGE, Smith - a healthcare executive - had been stationed at the Department of Health and Human Services.
