Elon Musk‘s so-called Department of Government Efficiency tasked a college student with no government experience to dismantle the Department of Housing and Urban Development’s regulations using artificial intelligence.
Third-year University of Chicago student Christopher Sweet was introduced in a staff email, according to Wired, after President Donald Trump called for cabinet officials to ensure all agencies are in step with his agenda in an executive order issued Feb. 19 titled “Ending Taxpayer Subsidization of Open Borders.”
Additionally, Trump has put a freeze on $1 billion affordable housing preservation program—jeopardizing housing for tens of thousands of poverty-stricken Americans—until the department can be restructured to fit his agenda, reported the Associated Press.
Sweet, according to Wired, will undertake the restructuring on behalf of DOGE.
“I’d like to share with you that Chris Sweet has joined the HUD DOGE team with the title of special assistant, although a better title might be ‘Al computer programming quant analyst,’” DOGE staffer Scott Langmack wrote in the email, obtained by Wired. “With family roots from Brazil, Chris speaks Portuguese fluently. Please join me in welcoming Chris to HUD!”
Sweet, who has been studying economics and data science, has been tasked with identifying HUD rules that can be tempered or removed altogether. According to agency sources, he has also been granted access to a data repository known as the Public and Indian Housing Center Information Center, which includes income verification systems.
Sweet did not respond to Wired’s requests for comment. A HUD spokesperson said they do not comment on individual personnel, the report added, while The University of Chicago confirmed Sweet is “on leave from the undergraduate college.”
Few details of Sweet are online, however Wired found one biography–that appears to be since defunct–which reportedly says he has worked for several private equity firms.
Sweet is also helming the Trump administration’s government-wide use of AI to deregulate programs, according to two at least two sources who spoke to Wired. The sources added that Sweet is keeping an Excel sheet with at least a thousand areas where HUD may have potentially “overreached.”
Sweet is the latest of Musk’s twenty-something DOGE goons whose identity, and lack of professional background, has been unmasked.
The so-called department has burned its way through the federal government on a crusade to fulfill its promise to cut $2 trillion in government spending. Yet it has fallen drastically short, with Trump alleging in a Wednesday cabinet meeting that it had found $150 billion in estimated savings.
Amid the failure, and increasing animosity over his political meddling, Trump announced that Musk was making his exit from Washington.
“We all want to thank you for your help,” said Trump to Musk. “You really have sacrificed a lot.”
The post DOGE Trusted College Kid to Dismantle Regulations With AI appeared first on The Daily Beast.
