Latest news with #SteveDavis
The Independent
5 days ago
- Business
- The Independent
Top DOGE officials are already fleeing as Musk leaves government
Top officials at the Department of Government Efficiency are set to leave their roles following the departure of DOGE head Elon Musk. Three officials – adviser Steve Davis, adviser and spokesperson Katie Miller, and attorney James Burnham – are leaving the administration, a White House official told The Hill. Davis served in a leadership role at DOGE and has worked with Musk at several of his companies, including the Boring Company, SpaceX, and X, the social media platform formerly known as Twitter. Serving as DOGE's 'chief operating officer,' Davis spoke to Fox News in March, calling the work an 'inspiring mission' that was 'worth doing.' Davis also appeared at a briefing alongside Musk at the White House with a small group of reporters, when Musk spoke about DOGE's work and its future. Miller is the wife of Deputy Chief of Staff for Policy Stephen Miller and was also part of the first Trump administration. She was named to the DOGE advisory board in December. Burnham was DOGE's general counsel. He's also the president and founder of Vallecity Capital LLC and earlier served as a Supreme Court clerk for Justice Neil Gorsuch. On Wednesday night, Musk took to X to share his gratitude to President Donald Trump. 'As my scheduled time as a Special Government Employee comes to an end, I would like to thank President @realDonaldTrump for the opportunity to reduce wasteful spending,' he said. 'The @DOGE mission will only strengthen over time as it becomes a way of life throughout the government.' Yet Musk earlier this week courted controversy as he slammed the large spending package put forward by Trump and congressional Republicans, which passed the House last week, and is currently expected to massively balloon the debt to $4 trillion even amid huge cuts in public services. 'I was, like, disappointed to see the massive spending bill, frankly, which increases the budget deficit, not just decrease it, and undermines the work that the DOGE team is doing,' the billionaire told CBS. Both Musk and the other top officials at DOGE were limited by a 130-day restriction on their status as Special Government Employees. Musk has said that he will return full-time to his companies. Musk is stepping down just after a former DOGE associate has said that he was removed after an interview in which he spoke about his work was published earlier this month. Engineer and tech startup founder Sahil Lavingia wrote in a personal blog post that he 'got the boot' from DOGE the day after Fast Company published an interview with him. In the interview, he discussed finding fewer inefficiencies than he had expected. He was assigned as the senior adviser to the chief of staff at the Department of Veterans Affairs, Government Executive noted. 'I would say the culture shock is mostly a lot of meetings, not a lot of decisions,' Lavingia told Fast Company. The outlet noted that Lavingia noticed that there were plenty of mission-driven people working in the government. '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,' he said. Fiscal conservatives, meanwhile, are frustrated that the spending cuts put forward by DOGE aren't being codified, and worried about Trump's spending plan boosting expenditures. 'To see Republicans in Congress cast aside any meaningful spending reductions ... is demoralizing and represents a betrayal of the voters who elected them,' Florida Governor Ron DeSantis wrote on X. Republican Georgia Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene wrote on Wednesday: 'Personally I want to pass DOGE cuts every single week until the bloated out of control government is reigned back in. As a country, we cannot survive our national debt and honestly, we may be past the point of return. We should be aggressively attacking our debt and aggressively, cutting all waste fraud, and abuse and unnecessary programs.'
WIRED
5 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.'
Fox News
5 days ago
- Business
- Fox News
DOGE staffing shakeup as Elon Musk hangs up his hat, White House confirms
A White House official confirmed to Fox News on Thursday that in addition to billionaire Elon Musk, multiple other staffers and special government employees from the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) are departing. Musk has been heading DOGE since President Donald Trump took office in January. The department was tasked with cutting $2 trillion from the federal government's budget through efforts to slash spending, government programs and federal workforce. Musk announced his departure from DOGE late Wednesday. "As my scheduled time as a Special Government Employee comes to an end, I would like to thank President @realDonaldTrump for the opportunity to reduce wasteful spending," Musk said on X. "The @DOGE mission will only strengthen over time as it becomes a way of life throughout the government." Along with Musk, advisor Steve Davis, advisor and spokesperson Katie Miller, and attorney James Burnham are leaving their posts within DOGE, a White House spokesperson confirmed to Fox News. With Musk's departure, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters at a briefing Thursday that Trump and members of his Cabinet will now spearhead DOGE's efforts. "The DOGE leaders are each and every member of the president's cabinet and the president himself, who is wholeheartedly committed to cutting waste, fraud and abuse from our government," Leavitt said. "The entire Cabinet understands the need to cut government waste, fraud and abuse," she continued. "And each Cabinet secretary at their respective agencies is committed to that. That's why they were working hand in hand with Elon Musk. And they'll continue to work with their respective DOGE employees who have onboarded as political appointees at all of these agencies. "So surely the mission of DOGE will continue, and many DOGE employees are now political appointees and employees of our government." While DOGE was tasked with cutting $2 trillion from the budget, its efforts led to roughly $175 billion in savings due to asset sales, contract cancellations, fraud payment cuts and other ways to eliminate costs, according to an update on DOGE's website. The savings translate to about $1,087 in savings per taxpayer, the website notes. A senior White House official told Fox News Digital previously that DOGE is now part of the "DNA" of the federal government, and it will continue to operate as it had under Musk.
WIRED
5 days ago
- Business
- WIRED
Another Top Musk Lieutenant Appears to Be Leaving DOGE
May 29, 2025 5:25 PM Nicole Hollander, who previously slept in Twitter's offices while assisting Elon Musk's takeover of the company, appears to be stepping away from a key role in the General Services Administration. One of Elon Musk's top allies at the General Services Administration (GSA), Nicole Hollander, appears to be scaling back her work for the agency, according to sources and documents obtained by WIRED. Since January, Hollander, who is affiliated with Musk's so-called Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), has been working on real estate projects related to federal leases and office buildings for GSA. The move is part of a purported wind-down for Musk and his leadership team at the so-called Department of Government Efficiency. On Wednesday, Musk posted on X that his 'scheduled time as a Special Government Employee' was coming to an end, and thanked President Trump for 'the opportunity to reduce wasteful spending.' The post echoed remarks Musk made last month in a Q1 earnings call with Tesla shareholders, where he said he'd be spending just 'a day or two a week on government matters.' It's not yet clear whether those remarks were made to appease Tesla shareholders or truly reflect a decision to scale back Musk's government involvement. Steve Davis, a longtime Musk lieutenant, is also reportedly leaving DOGE, according to the Wall Street Journal. Davis has played a key role in Musk's government operations, including overseeing budget cuts and hiring practices. He's also Hollander's partner. Both Davis and Hollander played an instrumental role in Musk's Twitter takeover in 2022. During that transition, they moved into the Twitter office building in San Francisco with their newborn baby. Hollander oversaw real estate projects for Twitter (now X), while Davis managed a brutal cost cutting program known as zero-based budgeting. When they were done, the company was almost unrecognizable, with a real estate footprint and employee base a fraction of its former size. Their time in government has also seen a radical shrinking of the federal workforce, with tens of thousands of employees losing their jobs. Since February, the GSA has been carrying out plans to prepare to sell hundreds of federal office buildings. With Davis and Hollander apparently out, their cost-cutting work seems to be continuing: On May 29, GSA sent out a memo saying it was speeding up the sale or transfer of the Captain John F. Williams Coast Guard building, which is United States Coast Guard's New England headquarters. GSA employees say no official announcement has been made regarding Davis and Hollander—and noted they've seen multiple members of the DOGE team in the office in recent weeks. Edward Coristine—the young engineer known online as 'Big Balls'—appears, for example, to be continuing his government work, scheduling meetings with agencies including the Treasury and the Federal Emergency Management Agency as recently as May 29. The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment by WIRED. The GSA also did not respond to a request for comment by WIRED. Hollander, reached via a direct message on X, also did not respond prior to publication.
CBS News
5 days ago
- Business
- CBS News
Elon Musk leaving DOGE, but he'll continue to advise Trump, White House says
Elon Musk says time with DOGE, Trump administration is coming to an end Elon Musk announced Wednesday night that his time as a "special government employee" with the Trump administration is winding down. But that doesn't mean he's leaving President Trump's circle. "As my scheduled time as a Special Government Employee comes to an end, I would like to thank President [Trump] for the opportunity to reduce wasteful spending," Musk wrote on X. He added that his Department of Government Efficiency's "mission will only strengthen over time as it becomes a way of life throughout the government." Musk, a billionaire entrepreneur, was set to begin his offboarding process with the White House on Wednesday night, according to an administration official. But that doesn't mean his relationship with the president or time at the White House are over. "Musk left on good terms and is still friends with the president," a senior administration official told CBS News. "This isn't a separation, but just a return to the private sector for Musk. He will continue to be a friend to the president, and we can characterize that as an 'adviser.'" Musk is not likely to participate in Cabinet meetings, but potentially could in the future, the official said. Steve Davis, a top Musk lieutenant at DOGE, is also leaving the White House. Musk's DOGE team has upturned the government through employee cuts at nearly every federal agency and the termination of billions of dollars of government contracts. Musk has said the effort has cut around $160 billion in spending. However, some of the spending cuts cited by DOGE have contained errors, and one report estimates the cuts could cost the government $135 billion due to lost productivity and the cost of putting staff on leave and re-hiring some workers. The White House said in February that Musk is a "special government employee," or SGE. The designation allowed him to work for the executive branch, subject to different ethics rules than federal employees. But SGEs are limited to working 130 days in a 365-day period. Friday, May 30, would mark 130 days since Mr. Trump was inaugurated for his second term and when Musk's work at DOGE began. Musk's announced departure comes a day after a "CBS Sunday Morning" interview where he criticized the budget bill passed by House Republicans last week. The bill has been backed heavily by Mr. Trump, who dubbed it the "big, beautiful bill." "I was disappointed to see the massive spending bill, frankly, which increases the budget deficit, not just decreases it, and undermines the work that the DOGE team is doing," Musk told "CBS Sunday Morning" correspondent David Pogue in a broadcast exclusive interview. In an April earnings call with Musk's car company Tesla, he told investors his time at DOGE would "drop significantly" in May so he could focus on his companies. Musk suggested he would spend one to two days a week on government work, "as long as the president would like me to do so." Some Tesla investors pushed Musk to dial back his involvement in the Trump administration, worrying his attention was divided and the carmaker's brand was at risk. White House Office of Management and Budget Director Russ Vought said in a Fox Business interview on Wednesday that the Trump administration will make some of DOGE's cuts permanent through a bill in Congress known as a rescission package, which is a way for Congress to cancel funds it previously appropriated but that the federal government has not yet spent. Vought said that cuts to foreign aid and the U.S. Agency for International Development, as well as funds to the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, would be included first.
