Looks like DOGE is swapping one billionaire for another.
Airbnb co-founder Joe Gebbia is expected to be part of a “small council of advisers” overseeing the Department of Government Efficiency after Elon Musk’s dramatic departure late last month, a report said Tuesday.
Gebbia, 43, is worth $8.5 billion, according to Forbes, and is a close ally of Musk. He serves on the boards of directors of Tesla, where Musk remains CEO, and Airbnb, but he has not been involved in the latter company’s operations since 2022.
Sources told The New York Times that Gebbia was “under consideration to effectively take over Mr. Musk’s signature government project” to slash federal spending even before he had a falling out with Trump. However, sources told the paper that “he was not interested in a role in which he alone would lead DOGE.”
Musk, 53, was the face of DOGE in the first four months of Trump’s second term, and faced intense criticism for the department’s gaffes, like grossly miscalculating savings and accidentally ending Ebola prevention, as well as its attempts to slash the jobs of tens of thousands of federal workers.
Tesla stock dropped 15 percent this year, according to the Times. Many of the electric vehicle manufacturer’s most significant dips in value came after Musk lashed out publicly or clashed with Trump, all of which stem from his head-first dive into Republican politics last summer.
Gebbia wants to avoid a similar fate. The Times wrote that he wishes to be part of a small council “in part because of the intense scrutiny that would come with a formal role in charge of” DOGE.
The tech figure hails from the suburbs of Atlanta, Georgia, but made his billions in Silicon Valley. He has expressed support for Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and indicated he is passionate about the Kennedy scion’s “Make America Healthy Again” movement.
Gebbia has worked with DOGE since February, but has approached his work more discreetly than Musk has, though he has made some media appearances. Reports indicate that he has focused on modernizing the retirement process for federal employees, which is among the least controversial missions at DOGE.
Another name in contention to be on DOGE’s council of leaders is the investment banker Anthony Armstrong, the Times reported. Armstrong is also a Musk ally, having helped him purchase Twitter in 2022 when he worked at Morgan Stanley.
Armstrong joined DOGE shortly after Trump’s inauguration, the Times reported, but he left that role to work at the Department of Homeland Security in April.
ProPublica reported that DOGE is still chock-full of Musk allies, despite the world’s richest man no longer leading the department. The nonprofit reported that “at least 38” of DOGE’s remaining staffers work or have worked for businesses run by Musk.
The post Another Billionaire Lining Up to Co-Lead DOGE After Musk’s Dramatic Exit appeared first on The Daily Beast.
