DOGE BAGS

Elon Musk’s rag-tag band of unaccountable teenage employees is running amok. Federal government workers tell What A Day they’re bracing for the worst.

• De facto President Elon Musk has unleashed a handful of baby-faced tech bros to dismantle the U.S. government from the inside out with his so-called “Department of Government Efficiency.” Despite promising transparency, Musk has tried to keep their identities shrouded in mystery. Yet one DOGE partisan in particular has taken the spotlight: Edward Coristine, a 19-year-old Northeastern University dropout who referred to himself on LinkedIn (of all places…) as “Big Balls.” He briefly worked at Musk’s brain chip start-up Neuralink, which apparently qualified him to be a “senior adviser” in the boss’s made-up agency. I wish I were kidding, but this is the hellish timeline we’re living in.

• Coristine’s untucked shirt-blazer-shorts outfit and taper fade frat bro haircut don’t inspire confidence — and neither does his professional history. In 2022, he was fired from an internship at a cybersecurity firm for leaking company secrets, and later wrote on a Discord server that he did “nothing contractually wrong.” A year earlier, he launched an image-sharing site that allowed users to create custom URLs. Many of those links — which reference racism, rape and child sexual abuse — redirected back to his site.

• In MAGAworld, however, failing upwards is the norm. Coristine now seems to have gained access to vast amounts of sensitive government information, with appointments at the State Department and Department of Homeland Security. Others have combed through Treasury, USAID, NOAA, DHS, Education Department and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB).

• “I’m nervous that if this kid is DOGEing all over the place, not only will known issues like that go unresolved, but that he will create new vulnerabilities,” a long-time State Department employee told What A Day, noting how vulnerable government systems are to hackers. “There is no way that someone with such little experience, who has been there for all of 10 minutes, could understand some of this.”

• Other agencies are taking precautions. “We have been advised by our leadership team to contact them immediately if we are approached by anyone at DOGE,” a federal employee told What A Day. “So far, they seem focused on other departments, so it’s a little bit of a breather.”

DOGE’s rampage through the agencies is testing the limits of the law.

• The “move fast and break things” mantra that Silicon Valley tech bros swear by doesn’t work well when it comes to the federal government, Brian Finucane, a former State Department legal adviser, told What A Day — neither “in terms of substantive outcomes nor in terms of compliance with the law.” The way that DOGE is going about operations, he added, is reminiscent of a troubled Iraqi transitional government that was set up by the U.S. in 2003.

• “If they replace … civil servants with a bunch of, like, 19-year-old douchebags and whatever else they are planning, the operation of the federal government is going to be vastly undermined,” Crooked’s Leah Litman told Pod Save America. Rebuilding that workforce could take some time.

Welp! “I guess the silver lining here is that if he does a crime, they can investigate him and call it ‘Operation: Big Balls’ when they raid his penthouse,” the State Department employee said. What a world we live in!

Do you know Big Balls or other DOGE bros? I can’t believe that’s a serious question… Reach out to me on Signal at 413-726-4767 or whataday@crooked.com. I’ll keep you totally anonymous.

GRADE: F PLUS

DOGE has been working this week to gut the Department of Education, as Donald Trump mulls shuttering the agency for good. What A Day got exclusive details about their recent scheming.

This week, DOGE announced it canceled 89 contracts worth $881 million. Separately, DOGE also said it canceled 29 training grants for Diversity, Equity and Inclusion worth $101 million.

The 89 contracts were agreed by the department’s Institute of Education Sciences (IES), which aims to provide scientific backing for education practice — in other words, rigorous grounding for the way students are taught.

DOGE has tried to make a public case for its murky actions. The group claimed in a post on X that one  contractor was paid $1.5 million to “observe mailing and clerical operations” at a mail center. Another helped students “interrogate the complex histories involved in oppression, and help students recognize areas of privilege and power.” You can view a full list of the canceled contracts here.

“Pretty sloppy work by DOGE — no real justifications or coherent descriptions,” a senior education official told What A Day.

We also got a copy of DOGE’s recommended talking points, which were given to Department of Education staffers, to be repeated if any pesky lawmakers started asking questions about WTF is going on. DOGE wants department staff to say: “These contracts support the education deep state who take millions of taxpayer funds with NO results for students.”

Some officials are refusing to put their names on the statement, or adding the name of the political appointee who provided the talking points instead, the official said. Hello, Resistance.

NEWS NEWS NEWS

The White House barred the Associated Press from Donald Trump’s executive order signing in the Oval Office today, because the outlet refuses to recognize his “Gulf of America” name change. The AP uses that  internationally recognized name (Gulf of Mexico), while acknowledging Trump’s name change. “It plainly violates the First Amendment,” AP Executive Editor Julie Pace said in a statement.

Trump is still freezing funds for the National Institutes of Health, disobeying court orders. 

Trump demanded $500 billion worth of rare earth minerals from Ukraine (think lithium and titanium for modern technologies) in exchange for maintaining U.S. support in its war against Russia. “We have to get something,” Trump said. “They’ve essentially agreed to do that so at least we don’t feel stupid.”

Trump said he’ll cut aid to Egypt and Jordan if they don’t take in Palestinians who he plans to expel from Gaza (which is a war crime). Egypt and Jordan have tons of reasons why they don’t want to take in some 2 million refugees, which you can read about here.

Wholesale egg prices have “blown way past” record highs to as much as $8 a dozen. Wasn’t he gonna get prices low on Day One or something? Brb, I’m taking out a mortgage so I can order an omelette.

Elon Musk’s net worth dropped below $400 billion, due to Tesla’s stocks falling 27 percent since December. He’s still rich… but on the other hand, if this continues, he’ll be way less rich by the end of Trump’s term. So keep at it, Elon.

Trump’s Justice Department has moved to drop corruption charges against New York City Mayor Eric Adams. The mayor has cozied up to Trump since he took office, attending his inauguration and pledging to help with immigration enforcement. Maybe he offered Trump a luxury plane ride to Turkey, too?

Beetlejuice vaper Rep. Laure Boebert (R-CO) and racist MAGA grifter Kid Rock were seen getting into a cab together at 2:30 a.m. after Trump’s inauguration. Apparently Boebert is his hype woman at parties, “totally transfixed by the rock star, yapping away, doing a little dance, and clapping like she was front row at his concert,” a person told TMZ. I hate all of this.

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