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‘Normalise Indian hate’: Elon Musk’s DOGE employee resigns after racist posts surface - Report
Reportedly, the deleted social media account linked with DOGE staffer Marko Elez, who resigned, advocated racism and eugenics.
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The Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), formed under Donald Trump’s administration and headed by Elon Musk, has been marred by controversies since its beginning. The newest one came in the form of Marko Elez's resignation. According to the Wall Street Journal, the DOGE staffer quit over resurfaced racist social media posts. This came after he was granted restricted access to a $5 trillion Treasury payment system.
According to the outlet, Elez was linked to a now-deleted social media account that advocated racism and eugenics on several occasions. One of the posts, shared from the account, also made a racist remark against Indians. “Normalize Indian hate” was written from the account on a post highlighting the prevalence of Indians in Silicon Valley. In another post, the account posted, “99% of Indian H1Bs will be replaced by slightly smarter LLMs, they’re going back don’t worry guys.”
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What else was posted on social media?
“Just for the record, I was racist before it was cool,” the account posted in July, reported the outlet. “You could not pay me to marry outside of my ethnicity,” it shared on a separate occasion.
After the old posts resurfaced, controversies brewed, and Elez, one of two temporary appointees at Treasury connected to DOGE, decided to resign. White House spokesperson Karoline Leavitt confirmed his exit.
About the controversial social media account:
The outlet reported that the deleted account @nullllptr previously went by the name @marko_elez. After reviewing the account's archived posts, the outlet found that the user @nullllptr also described that they were working at SpaceX and Starlink.
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The outlet further reported that Elez now operates an X account named @marko_elez. This account and @nullllptr reportedly often interacted with the same users and shared similar content.
Who is Marko Elez?
Elez majored in computer science at Rutgers University. As a sophomore, he co-founded a company called Unimetrics.io, which aimed to connect high schoolers with mentors to help with college applications.
He worked with Musk for SpaceX, including on projects related to the company’s Starlink satellites. He also worked with the billionaire at X. At the social media company, he focused on artificial intelligence.
