Joe Gebbia says the backlash he got from working at DOGE was depressing

Joe Gebbia, who cofounded Airbnb and was its chief product officer, said he had a “pretty unpleasant” experience when he first joined the Trump administration’s government efficiency commission, DOGE.

“If you go back to February, when I got involved, there were a lot of people who were neutral, a lot of people who were positive, and then an equal amount of people who were just hateful,” Gebbia said in an episode of “The Katie Miller Podcast,” which aired Monday.

Miller, who is married to Stephen Miller, the White House’s deputy chief of staff, was previously DOGE’s communications lead. She left DOGE in May and started her namesake podcast in August.

“I remember thinking, if it’s a stranger on the internet calling you something, it’s not a big deal. But if it’s somebody that you worked with for a long time, it hits different,” Gebbia said without specifying who his detractors were.

Representatives for Gebbia did not respond to requests for comment from Business Insider.

In February, Gebbia announced on X that he was joining the White House DOGE office. In his post, which was published on February 27, Gebbia said his first project would be to improve the “slow and paper-based retirement process” for federal employees.

He told Miller on her podcast that he was disappointed that his work at DOGE, which he saw as a form of public service, was being vilified.

“The hate mail text messages that I got were disheartening to say the least,” Gebbia said.

“I guess it was my first experience with it being so intense. It was just depressing for some period of time, and then eventually, it transitioned to, I liken it to a beasting. It kind of hurt, but a few hours later it’s gone,” he continued.

Gebbia, who left his operational role at Airbnb in 2022, has a good relationship with Elon Musk and sits on Tesla’s board.

He told Miller he was first introduced to the DOGE team in late January after Musk invited him to meet them. Musk was the de facto leader of DOGE until May.

Those criticisms, however, do not seem to have dampened Gebbia’s commitment to public service. Last month, President Donald Trump appointed Gebbia as the US’s first chief design officer.

Trump signed an executive order on August 21, which created Gebbia’s new role and the National Design Studio. Trump said in his order that the “America by Design” national initiative would “update the Government’s design language to be both usable and beautiful.”

In an X post on August 23, Gebbia said one of his goals as chief design officer was to “update today’s government services to be as satisfying to use as the Apple Store.”

“I will do my best to make the US the most beautiful, and usable, country in the digital world,” Gebbia wrote in his post.

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