3 hours ago
4
Amid DOGE drama, JD Vance says what he thinks about Marko Elez's past posts.
Vice president JD Vance weighed in on the resignation of
Marko Elez
, a 25-year-old staff of Elon Musk's Department of Government Efficiency, whose past social media posts spelt trouble for him and he quit the team. A Wall Street Journal first reported about the resignation and Elez's past posts advocating for racism and eugenics. This snowballed into a major controversy over the background of the youngsters hired by Elon Musk to scrutinize the federal departments -- one went viral for his online name 'Big balls' which was widely reported on television Thursday and Friday -- to Elon Musk's utter disbelief.
'Normalize Indian hate'
Elez used @nullllptr as his account to put out problematic thoughts. The account was deleted in December but many posts were archived. “Just for the record, I was racist before it was cool,” the account posted in July. “You could not pay me to marry outside of my ethnicity,” the account wrote on X in September. “Normalize Indian hate,” the account wrote the same month. The Wall Street Journal report said after they inquired about the account and its past posts, White House spokesperson Karoline Leavitt said Elez resigned from his role.
Who is Marko Elez?
The 25-year-old gained prominence after he got access to sensitive taxpayer information and systems the treasury department uses to process all the payments. Elez has not spoken amid the controversy. The computer science major from Rutgers University, as a sophomore, co-founded a company, Unimetrics.io, that aimed to connect high-schoolers with mentors who could help burnish their college applications. Elez worked at SpaceX, including on Starlink satellites and then he worked for X also before joining DOGE.
What Elon Musk said about Marko Elez
Elon Musk ran a poll asking his followers if DOGE should rehire the “staffer who made inappropriate statements via a now deleted pseudonym.” Within hours, it had amassed more than 200,000 votes, almost 80% in favor of bringing Elez back.
JD Vance says 'bring him back'
JD Vance said he obviously disagrees with some of Elez's posts, but he doesn't think social media activity should ruin his 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," Vance said.
Who is Katherine Long? Musk calls her cruel and disgusting
As the
DOGE drama
unfolded, some conservative social media handles claimed that Katherine Long who wrote the Wall Street Journal article received USAID. "She's a disgusting and cruel person," Elon Musk wrote.
"She should be fired immediately," Elon Musk wrote replying to a post that linked her to USAID.
