If you’ve listened to the ranting of the legacy media and the Democrats, you’d think that Elon Musk has hired a bunch of snot-nosed teenagers to serve in the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE).

The reality is far from that false perception.

Musk began formally hiring people for DOGE in November 2024, although many people who were brought in had a current working relationship with him or had worked with him in the past.

Although he’s been characterized as the “co-president” with Trump, or as overstepping his boundaries, Musk’s intention is clear:

Musk himself has made no secret of his intentions, saying that DOGE is a ‘wood chipper for bureaucracy’ and that he is ‘deleting’ agencies.

A White House spokesperson wrote, ‘Those leading this mission with Elon Musk are doing so in full compliance with federal law, appropriate security clearances, and as employees of the relevant agencies, not as outside advisors or entities.’

Although they haven’t publicized all the job requirements, they’ve given a general idea of the people they are seeking:

DOGE — which is not an official federal department — was created by President-elect Donald Trump in November to provide recommendations on how to slash billions in federal spending.

In the same post, DOGE said Musk and Ramaswamy would only review the top 1% of applicants, and that it was exclusively seeking ‘super high-IQ’ individuals willing to work more than 80 hours per week deciding how to eliminate costs.

In late December, DOGE issued a new call for applicants with human resource, information technology and finance backgrounds. On Tuesday, the department said it is also hiring for additional roles, although it provided few details about the jobs or the type of work experience it wants from applicants.

‘Recruiting for a very small number of full-time salaried Software Engineers and InfoSec Engineers,’ the department said, with the latter referring to information security engineers.

It’s still unclear which employees will be salaried or not, and where the funds will come from.

In spite of the complaints about DOGE workers being young and inexperienced, their credentials are very impressive.

And the ages of the 24 employees from a report made this month range from 19 to 67; only one-third of them are younger than 30. 

Of course, age says very little about a person’s skills or commitment to the job.

Several objections against DOGE have been lodged with the White House. Government workers have complained about the DOGE workers’ lack of government experience, but there’s no indication that will jeopardize their ability to do the job. Still, the bureaucrats worry about their own positions:

As details trickle out from workers undergoing the changes, the team at DOGE and its allied agencies have come under increased scrutiny for their qualifications.

‘My colleagues are getting 15-minute one-on-one check-ins with 19, 20, 21-year-old college graduates asking to justify their existence,’ one speaker at a recent town hall in northern Virginia said without identifying himself or his agency due to fear of retaliation.

‘We got word that supervisors must now fill out a justification form and that there’s going to be just a 30% rank and yank with all staff of our agency,’ he added.

I guess it’s pretty intimidating to know that people will be judged on merit, but they can always choose to take the early-out package which has been offered.

Other complaints came from employees at the GSA:

Two GSA employees, who spoke to CNN on the condition of anonymity for fear of retribution, recalled recently meeting with young DOGE employees and said DOGE appears only interested in cutting costs, no matter the consequences.

One of those GSA employees said the DOGE staffers refused to disclose their identities but wanted insights into sensitive government data. ‘We don’t care about the policy work you do, show us technical work so we keep you,” the civil servant recalled being told.

‘Their obsessions with running our agency ‘like a business’ is nothing more than a reckless corporate takeover that disregards the critical role we play in serving the public,’ the employee said.

The Trump administration is treating civil servants ‘like disposable numbers on a balance sheet,’ he said.

In spite of reassurances that DOGE will not have access to systems in order to change them, alarms have been raised that they will do just that:

Katie Miller – the wife of President Donald Trump’s deputy chief of staff for policy who was named to DOGE in December – appeared to confirm the DOGE personnel gained access to classified information at USAID.

‘No classified material was accessed without proper security clearances,’ she said in a post on X.

The showdown raised concerns about the extent to which DOGE and its staffers would go on to access additional sensitive databases and information as they barrel through federal agencies across the government, without clear answers to the legality of the moves or the security measures taken to mitigate risk.

And the AFL-CIO made sure to include a shot at Musk and his companies in its complaints:

The AFL-CIO, the nation’s largest labor federation, filed an emergency lawsuit this week against DOGE amid anticipation that it would be heading for the Department of Labor, an attempt to stop Musk’s team ‘from unlawfully accessing the DOL’s systems and information.’

‘The labor movement considers it a top priority to protect the integrity of union members’ personal data and assure all workers who interact with the Labor Department that our information won’t be turned over to an unelected CEO whose companies have been the subject of numerous DOL investigations over the years,’ the AFL-CIO said in a press release.

Actually, it sounds to me like DOGE workers are determining what work is being done in each department they are investigating, who is doing the required work and showing no preference or special treatment to anyone.

People are just expected to do their jobs.

Imagine that.
 

Image: Logo, via X // fair use