News Desk
WASHINGTON — Marko Elez, a 25-year-old Trump administration appointee and former employee of Elon Musk’s companies, resigned this week after social media posts surfaced in which he espoused racist and eugenicist views, including disdain for Indian immigrants. The revelations have raised new concerns about the administration’s embrace of far-right ideology and Musk’s influence over government staffing.
Elez, who had administrator-level privileges on the Treasury Department’s payment systems, came under scrutiny after The Wall Street Journal linked him to an X account that promoted white supremacy and called for drastic immigration restrictions. One post, written in December amid the debate over H-1B visas, declared:
“99% of Indian H1Bs will be replaced by slightly smarter LLMs, they’re going back don’t worry guys.”
The account, @nullllptr, was previously registered under Elez’s real name, according to WSJ’s reporting. Other posts advocated repealing the Civil Rights Act and instituting a “eugenic immigration policy.” In another, the user wrote, “Just for the record, I was racist before it was cool.”
The revelations have ignited fresh scrutiny over the Trump administration’s hiring practices and Musk’s influence in shaping federal policy. Elez was among the cadre of young men Musk handpicked to lead DOGE, an office that has aggressively targeted programs focused on diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) across the federal government.
Virginia Congressman Don Beyer condemned Elez’s appointment as a “scandal.”
“Elon Musk gave a self-described racist and eugenicist access to a system that controls all financial payments from the U.S. Treasury,” Beyer said. “This is why we have a process to vet civil servants, and why we hire and promote them based on merit—not their personal relationship to some rich guy.”
DOGE has already moved to cut funding for several agencies that Musk and his allies claim promote a “woke” agenda, including USAID and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
Elez’s departure is the latest in a string of controversies surrounding Trump administration hires with links to white nationalist rhetoric. Earlier this week, ABC News reported that the State Department was hiring Darren Beattie, a former Trump speechwriter who was fired in 2018 for speaking at a white nationalist-linked conference. Beattie, who has celebrated the administration’s crackdown on DEI programs, recently posted on X:
“Competent white men must be in charge if you want things to work.”
The resurfacing of these far-right affiliations has underscored concerns over the increasing radicalization of young conservative staffers. The writer John Ganz has described this phenomenon as the “groyperfication” of government—where new appointees are drawn from online spaces steeped in racist conspiracy theories, eugenics advocacy, and anti-immigrant rhetoric.
Elez, who graduated from Rutgers University with a computer science degree, previously worked at SpaceX, Starlink, and X, specializing in artificial intelligence. His resignation follows growing scrutiny of Musk’s decision to staff federal offices with young ideologues who share his disdain for government bureaucracy and DEI initiatives.
While the White House has remained silent on Elez’s departure, Beyer called for those involved in his hiring to be fired, stating, “DOGE should be deleted in its entirety.”
With Musk’s influence extending deep into federal operations and the Trump administration’s willingness to embrace controversial figures, Elez’s resignation may be just the beginning of a broader reckoning over who is wielding power in Washington.
