After Elon Musk got away with doing a Nazi salute last month at Donald Trump’s inauguration last month, it’s hard to believe that anyone he supervises would face consequences for saying or doing something racist. However, Department of Government Efficiency Employee Marko Elez resigned from his position for exactly that.
Elez, 25, worked for the advisory group led by the billionaire. He ultimately left his role on Thursday after he was allegedly connected to a social media account that promoted racism and eugenics.
The Wall Street Journal said it had discovered links between Elez and a social media account on Musk’s platform X. The account was deleted in December. “The deleted @nullllptr account previously went by the username @marko_elez, a review of archived posts shows,” the Journal wrote.
The user @nullllptr described themselves as an employee at SpaceX and Starlink, where Elez has worked. Some of the tweets from the account were shocking, to say the least.
“You could not pay me to marry outside of my ethnicity,” @nullllptr tweeted on X in September. Another tweet read “Normalize Indian hate.”
The account also boasted that they were racist before racism was “cool.” White House spokesperson Karoline Leavitt told the Wall Street Journal that Elez resigned after the outlet inquired about the account.
On Friday morning, Musk went on X to ask if he should rehire Elez. “Bring back @DOGE staffer who made inappropriate statements via a now deleted pseudonym?” Musk wrote. Along with the post was a poll asking users to answer “Yes” or “No.”
Vice President JD Vance also chimed in on Elez’s resignation via X. “I obviously disagree with some of Elez’s posts, but I don’t think stupid social media activity should ruin a kid’s life,” Vance said.
He also insisted that journalists shouldn’t be rewarded for trying to “destroy people.”
“So I say bring him back. If he’s a bad dude or a terrible member of the team, fire him for that,” Vance concluded.
DOGE has recruited staff members who have just graduated high school or college, with some employees being as young as 19.