Tech billionaire Elon Musk said Friday he'll rehire a 25-year-old Department of Government Efficiency engineer who accessed sensitive U.S. Treasury payment systems and then stepped down over scrutiny about racist internet posts.
Marko Elez worked for Musk-owned companies SpaceX, Starlink and X before signing on for a role at DOGE. He was forced to resign Thursday over questions about his ties to a social media account that promoted "racism and eugenics," according to the Wall Street Journal.
“You could not pay me to marry outside of my ethnicity,” the account wrote on X in September, according to the Journal's review of archived posts. “Normalize Indian hate,” the account wrote that same month about a separate post that discussed "the prevalence of people from India in Silicon Valley."
Elez had full control over computer code that directed Security payments, tax returns and other payments owed to Americans, according to the report.
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Another post from the user in December appeared to show a particular dislike for Indian software engineers: “99% of Indian H1Bs will be replaced by slightly smarter LLMs, they’re going back don’t worry guys”
“Just for the record, I was racist before it was cool,” @nullllptr posted in July, the Journal reported.
“The deleted @nullllptr account previously went by the username @marko_elez, a review of archived posts shows,” the report said. “The user behind the @nullllptr also described themselves as an employee at SpaceX and Starlink, where Elez has worked, according to archives of Elez’s personal website.”
On Friday morning, Vice President J.D. Vance said that while he disagreed with Elez's posts, he didn't "think stupid social media activity should ruin a kid’s life."
"We shouldn’t reward journalists who try to destroy people. Ever. So I say bring him back. If he’s a bad dude or a terrible member of the team, fire him for that," opined Vance.
Musk agreed, replying with a salute emoji and responding, "He will be brought back. To err is human, to forgive divine."