Fourteen months ago, WIRED introduced the world to a cadre of young, inexperienced technologists who were working with Elon Musk’s newly formed, so-called Department of Government Efficiency. These workers, many of them between the ages of 19 and 24, were given the keys to the US government. They were also quickly the subject of controversy, as they laid waste to government agencies with little rhyme or reason. When Musk departed DOGE, many of the people who constituted DOGE’s early strike force dispersed.
But as the dust has settled, it’s clear that DOGE’s efforts have caused lasting damage in both large and small ways—from the more than 300,000 federal workers fired to the destruction of the US Agency for International Development to even just increased wait times for assistance on the Social Security Agency’s phone lines.
Yet its members have been given positions of increased responsibility, both inside the government and out, despite the fact that DOGE’s own members described the organization as “chaotic” and the group failed to achieve many of its goals.
Musk’s DOGE may no longer exist as it did a year ago, but its impact continues to ripple across the government. Just as Musk used allegations of fraud and waste as a way to cut government jobs and cripple whole government agencies, the Trump administration has recently maintained that it has continued taking aim at “waste, fraud, and abuse.” While some of DOGE’s operatives have remained in government, ascending to powerful positions within the administration, others have moved to the private sector. In some cases, those moves were back to companies that maintain strong connections to Musk or other players in his Silicon Valley universe.
WIRED identified 10 of these people, some of whom remain in the spotlight and others who have quietly slipped back to private life. These people were selected based on the following criteria: If their titles, roles, or details had changed in government, if WIRED could identify their current work, and if WIRED had not previously noted where in government or the private sector they had moved to.
The individuals below constitute a telling snapshot of where DOGE members have landed, and where they continue to exert influence.
Edward “Big Balls” Coristine, National Design Studio
Edward Coristine was one the earliest—and youngest —members of DOGE. He joined the organization at just 19 years old with no prior experience in government. Coristine, who used the internet moniker Big Balls (including on LinkedIn), interned at Musk’s computer-brain interface company, Neuralink, and worked for a startup that hired former blackhat hackers.
At the height of DOGE, Coristine worked across several agencies. At the Social Security Administration (SSA), a whistleblower alleged that Coristine was part of a team of engineers who sought to upload sensitive data to an unsecured cloud server; at the General Services Administration, he sat in on calls where workers were forced to defend their jobs; he was also part of the team that helped shut down the US Agency for International Development (USAID). He appeared at half a dozen other agencies as well, including the Office of Personnel Management (OPM), the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, the State Department, the Department of Homeland Security, Health and Human Services, and the Department of Education.
Following Musk’s departure from the government in late June 2025, Coristine floated in and out of SSA before landing at the newly formed National Design Studio, where according to a recent interview with right-wing influencer Nick Shirley, Coristine said he is the engineering lead. Coristine has also apparently continued to help with the Trump administration’s efforts to target “fraud,” and Shirley claimed that Coristine recently helped him identify organizations in California to target for viral videos. Coristine did not respond to a request for comment.
Gavin Kliger, Department of Defense
Kliger was one of the earliest members of DOGE, appointed on January 20, 2025, to work at OPM as a senior adviser to the director for technology and delivery. Kliger previously worked at Databricks, a data analytics software company.
Early in his tenure with DOGE, Kliger worked at USAID and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, agencies the Trump administration has attempted to shut down entirely, and the National Institutes of Health, the Internal Revenue Service, the Food and Drug Administration, the US Department of Agriculture (USDA), and at the US Agency for Global Media, the news service funded by the US government.
In March, following a request for comment from WIRED, the Department of Defense announced that Kliger had been appointed the agency’s chief data officer. Emails released as part of Anthropic’s lawsuit against the DOD, in response to the Trump administration’s Anthropic ban after the company refused to remove restrictions about how its tools could be used by the military, reveal that Kliger was involved in the agency’s negotiations with the company.
Kliger, who had not yet been announced as the chief data officer, was copied on a March 4 email from Emil Michael, undersecretary of defense for research and engineering, to Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei regarding a potential agreement between the DOD and Anthropic. Anthropic and Kliger did not respond to a request for comment. In response to questions from WIRED, a senior Pentagon official said, “the Department of War’s DOGE team continues to execute the Secretary’s priorities.” The response did not clarify what specific work the DOGE team was doing or who its members were.
Jeremy Lewin, State Department
A former lawyer and investment banker, Jeremy Lewin helped effectively shutter USAID early in the second Trump administration. As a result, tens of thousands of people stopped receiving treatment for diseases like tuberculosis, refugees saw food aid slashed, and sanitation projects to prevent the spread of cholera ceased. A study from The Lancet estimates that if programs previously supported by USAID remain defunded, it could lead to 14 million preventable deaths around the world.
As part of the agency’s dismantling, it was brought under the purview of the State Department, where Lewin was appointed undersecretary for foreign assistance, humanitarian affairs, and religious freedom in July 2025. During his time at State, Lewin was instrumental in approving $30 million in funding for the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, the controversial aid group backed by the American and Israeli governments. Lewin also helped implement the $2 billion US contribution to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs that would exclude aid to Yemen, Afghanistan, and Gaza. In a New York Times interview in July 2025, Lewin highlighted a move towards drones for certain types of humanitarian assistance. “The best foreign assistance is that which ends,” he said during the interview. The State Department did not respond to a request for comment.
Nate Cavanaugh and Justin Fox, Private Sector
Nate Cavanaugh, a startup founder and dropout from Indiana University, was one of the earliest members of DOGE. Justin Fox had previously worked in private equity and came to the government from Nexus Capital Management.
Together, they led DOGE’s takeover of the US Institute of Peace, a Congressionally funded nonprofit. Cavanaugh was installed as its acting president, firing most of the organization’s staff and attempting to get rid of its building. These actions are subject to ongoing litigation. Cavanaugh was also appointed to be the acting director of the Interagency Council on Homelessness, and then promptly placed the entirety of the group’s staff on administrative leave. In a legal deposition, Fox admitted that he used an OpenAI-developed LLM to scan government government contracts for terms that appeared to indicate programs related to “diversity, equity, and inclusion.”
As of January 2026, Cavanaugh and Fox are working together on an AI startup called Special, according to their LinkedIn accounts. Special describes itself as “a technology investment platform” focused on crypto investments. Its website includes pictures of both Musk and Argentine president Javier Milei, along with the words “You know it when you see it.” Cavanaugh and Fox did not respond to a request for comment.
Bridget Youngs, Private Sector
Bridget Youngs, who previously worked at the clean energy investment firm New Energy Capital, was first identified as a DOGE operative at the Peace Corps. According to her LinkedIn, she was on staff at the Department of Labor between March and August 2025. At the DOL, Youngs says she “lead agency actions resulting in over $25 billion in taxpayer savings, re-industrialization workforce initiatives, deregulation, and platform modernization for Federal unemployment and workforce visas.”
After leaving DOGE in August 2025, Youngs founded an Austin-based company called Terminus Industrials, which aims to manufacture large power transformers, a critical component for data centers. In a podcast interview, Youngs described herself as the team “lead” at the DOL where she said she focused on “automated shipbuilding” using AI, automation, and reskilled labor to speed up the building process. Youngs describes her team at Terminus as composed of “former Tesla and former John Deere” employees. Youngs did not respond to a request for comment.
John Solly, Private Sector
John Solly, a software engineer who was part of the DOGE team at SSA, joined Leidos, a government contractor, in October 2025 as chief technology officer for the company’s health IT division. While working as part of the DOGE team, Solly worked with the SSA’s “Death Master File.” In 2025, thousands of immigrants were being added to the Death Master File dataset that effectively shut down their social security numbers and cut off their ability to get jobs or receive government benefits.
According to a whistleblower complaint, Solly sought help transferring sensitive data, including the personal identifying information of millions of Americans, from SSA on a thumb drive to share with his current employer. According to LinkedIn, Solly was employed by Leidos at this time. Solly denies any wrongdoing, and Leidos says government data was never uploaded to Leidos devices or networks.
In response to questions from WIRED, Solly’s lawyer says, “It is critical to note that both SSA and Leidos have conducted comprehensive investigations, including forensic audits of their computer systems, and unequivocally determined that Mr. Solly did not access or share any [Personally Identifiable Information]. He has always strictly adhered to both institutions’ rules and procedures and will continue to do so.”
Amanda Scales, Office of Personnel Management and Private Sector
Amanda Scales was one of the early DOGE team members who appeared at OPM within the first week of Trump’s presidency, where she was installed as the agency’s chief of staff.
Scales had come from xAI, Musk’s AI company, where she worked on the talent team. Before xAI, she worked at Human Capital, a venture firm founded by close Musk associate Baris Akis, who acted as both a recruiter for DOGE team members and an unofficial member of the group’s leadership team. (Akis was reportedly not able to formally join DOGE because he is a Turkish citizen.) Human Capital has investments in the defense tech startup Anduril and the betting platform Kalshi, amongst others.
Scales left OPM in April 2025, briefly returning to xAI before joining Arsenal Pulse, a talent recruitment firm that counts the Boring Company, also founded by Musk, as one of its clients. According to her LinkedIn, Scales officially returned to OPM in January 2026, and appears to have retained her position as a partner at Arsenal Pulse. In a LinkedIn post, Scales said that she would be helping to recruit people into the newly formed US Tech Force. In response to a request for comment, OPM spokesperson McLaurine Pinover told WIRED that Scales “is currently contracted by OPM to help with recruitment efforts.”
Ashley Boizelle, Private Sector
During the first Trump administration, Ashley Boizelle was the acting general counsel for the Federal Communications Commission. She then went on to work as Amazon’s senior corporate counsel before she joined DOGE in March 2025. From August 2025 until January 2026, Boizelle served as senior counsel to the president.
Earlier this year, she left government to join Hadrian, a manufacturing startup focused on the defense and space industries. In 2025, Hadrian raised $260 million in investments, co-led by Peter Thiel’s Founders Fund. Thiel cofounded the defense contractor Palantir. Boizelle did not respond to a request for comment.
Adam Ramada and Brooks Morgan, Private Sector
Adam Ramada came to DOGE from Spring Tide Capital, a Miami-based venture firm. On January 23, 2025, he joined the government, working across the DOL, Department of Energy, and Department of Education. At the Energy Department, Ramada had access to networks that included information about the US government’s nuclear weapons program.
At the Department of Education and DOL, Ramada was part of teams cutting government contracts and programs. In a statement submitted to a DC court on February 13, 2025, Ramada described his role at the Department of Education as “auditing contract, grant, and related programs for waste, fraud, and abuse” and helping “senior Department leadership obtain access to accurate data and data analytics to inform their policy decisions at the Department.” At the Department of Education, Ramada worked with Brooks Morgan, another DOGE member, who had previously founded a startup called Podium Education.
According to LinkedIn, Ramada and Morgan started an Austin-based venture firm, Banner VC, in August 2025. The firm recently invested $50 million in a firm called Mesh Optics. Morgan and Ramada did not respond to a request for comment.
Tarak Makecha, Private Sector
Mackecha, a former Tesla engineer, came to DOGE from the drone company SkySafe. During his time at DOGE, Makecha worked at the Department of Justice, the FBI, the State Department, and he US Agency for Global Media.
In August 2025, Makecha joined Valor Equity Partners, leading its investments in national security technologies, according to his LinkedIn. Valor Equity Partners was founded by billionaire Antonio Gracias, a close associate of Musk and himself a member of DOGE. Makecha did not respond to a request for comment.
Unknowns
For some of DOGE’s most prominent figures, it’s unclear where exactly they’ve ended up. Aram Moghaddassi, who worked for the Musk-owned companies xAI and Neuralink, became chief information officer at SSA, where he stayed until January, according to his LinkedIn. Luke Farritor, another of the young engineers and a former SpaceX intern and Thiel fellow, has largely vanished from the 10 or so agencies he was detailed to as part of DOGE, and has not publicly announced his next move. Ethan Shaotran, the Harvard student who joined DOGE his senior year of college and was staffed across at least half a dozen agencies, left the government in January, according to his LinkedIn. Marko Elez, who briefly had write access to some of the Treasury’s most sensitive payment systems, has also left his position, and his post-DOGE moves remain a mystery. Moghadassi, Farritor, Shaotran, and Elez did not respond to requests for comment.
The post Where the DOGE Operatives Are Now appeared first on Wired.
