Elon Musk To Rehire DOGE Staffer Who Bragged ‘I Was Racist Before It Was Cool’

Photo By Sthanlee B. Mirador/Sipa USA)(Sipa via AP Images

Elon Musk announced on X Friday that DOGE staffer Marko Elez would be rehired after he resigned on Thursday following reports he made racists post in the past.

Musk, who hired the 25-year-old, put up a poll on X asking, “Bring back @DOGE staffer who made inappropriate statements via a now-deleted pseudonym?”

Elez resigned from Musk’s DOGE after the Wall Street Journal reported on his past social media activity, which included posting statements like, “Just for the record, I was racist before it was cool.”

Among the litany of bigoted things Elez posted was a screed against Indian Americans. “You could not pay me to marry outside of my ethnicity. Normalize Indian hate,” Elez’s account read in September. The WSJ added:

The user appeared to have a special dislike for Indian software engineers. “99% of Indian H1Bs will be replaced by slightly smarter LLMs, they’re going back don’t worry guys,” the user posted in December, referring to large language models such as OpenAI’s ChatGPT.

Vance, who is married to an Indian American, replied to Musk’s poll and wrote, “Here’s my view: I obviously disagree with some of Elez’s posts, but I don’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.”

Musk replied to Vance and wrote, “He will be brought back. To err is human, to forgive divine.”

President Donald Trump agreed during a press event on Friday that Vance was right to call for Elez’s return.

The WSJ also reported Elez’s account advocated for “eugenics” and posted things like, “I would not mind at all if Gaza and Israel were both wiped off the face of the Earth.”