FILE PHOTO: Jan 20, 2025; Washington, DC, USA; Google CEO Sundar Pichai talks with Elon Musk before the 60th Presidential Inauguration in the Rotunda of the U.S. Capitol in Washington, Monday, Jan. 20, 2025. Mandatory Credit: Julia Demaree Nikhinson-Pool via Imagn Images/File Photo
A cohort of subordinates of tech billionaire Elon Musk have taken over an important federal agency, in a move that according to WIRED Magazine unnerves experts, and "one official found reminiscent of Stalin."
People working in the government report "that the highest ranks of the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) — essentially the human resources function for the entire federal government — are now controlled by people with connections to Musk and to the tech industry. Among them is a person who, according to an online résumé, was set to start college last fall. Scott Kupor, a managing partner at the powerful investment firm Andreessen Horowitz, stands as Trump’s nominee to run the OPM. But already in place, according to sources, are a variety of people who seem ready to carry out Musk’s mission of cutting staff and disrupting the government."
Some figures now embedded in OPM include chief of staff Amanda Scales, who worked at Musk's xAI company, senior adviser Riccardo Biasini, who directed Musk's experimental "Vegas Loop" underground Tesla tunnel network, and a pair of extremely young software engineers, one of whom worked at Musk's brain-implant company Neuralink, and another of whom worked for Palantir, the data analytics firm run by longtime Musk associate and right-wing megadonor Peter Thiel.
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University of Michigan public policy professor Don Moynihan told WIRED that the risk is that Trump could use the software talent injected into OPM to further his goal of reclassifying federal workers to strip them of job protections: “I think on the tech side, the concern is potentially the use of AI to try and engage in large-scale searches of people's job descriptions to try and identify who would be identified for Schedule F reclassification.”
Musk, who bankrolled much of Trump's voter outreach operation last year, has no official position in the government but runs Trump's "Department of Government Efficiency" task force to recommend ways to slash federal programs. He was reportedly pushing to get an office in the West Wing, but Trump's chief of staff Susie Wiles put her foot down.
The billionaire has come under fire in recent days for making a gesture that has drawn comparisons to a Nazi salute at the president's inauguration rally. He vehemently denies that was the intent of the gesture.