DOGE Isn’t Dead. Here’s What Its Operatives Are Doing Now

To one member of Elon Musk’s so-called Department of Government Efficiency, the last few months have been “crazy.” In a slideshow of photos and videos posted to Instagram last month, Yat Choi—who joined DOGE this spring—posted clips of Trump administration officials dancing on the White House lawn to“Y.M.C.A”; people loading into what appears to be a private jet; and house parties decorated with American flags and attendees donning red, white, and blue hats holding red Solo cups and cans of High Noon.

On Instagram, Choi described his work as ongoing, announcing that he was returning to the underground Pennsylvania mine where federal retirement claims are processed. “Like Jigga [Jay-Z] I showed them the blueprint back in April, now going back in the Mine to lead the pilots next week,” wrote Choi, who previously worked as an engineer at AirBnb and has referred to Canada as home in other Instagram posts. Choi did not respond to a request for comment.

It’s not just Choi. Many of the original young and inexperienced DOGE technologists whose identities were first reported by WIRED appear to still be enmeshed in federal agencies. Edward “Big Balls” Coristine, Gavin Kliger, Marko Elez, Akash Bobba, and Ethan Shaotran all still claim to be affiliated with DOGE or the US government. So do other tech workers from Silicon Valley and Musk companies like xAI and SpaceX. Coristine, Kliger, Elez, Bobba, and Shaotran did not respond to requests for comment.

The DOGE ethos—characterized by cutting contracts and government workers, consolidating data across agencies, and importing private sector practices—remains fully in force. While several media reports have suggested that DOGE has all but fizzled out, DOGE affiliates are scattered across the federal government working as developers, designers, and even leading agencies in powerful roles.

“That’s absolutely false,” one USDA source says of reporting that DOGE has disbanded. “They are in fact burrowed into the agencies like ticks.”

DOGE has “just transformed,” an IRS employee tells WIRED.

While DOGE is no longer moving across the government in a move-fast-and-break-things blitz, DOGE affiliates appear to be digging in for the long haul—and Silicon Valley–shaped fingerprints remain all over the way agencies continue to be run.

Over the last few weeks, the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) has rolled out coding tests to its hundreds of technical staff, quizzing them over their “technical proficiency.” The decision to roll out these tests came from Sam Corcos, a DOGE operative and chief information officer of the Treasury, according to a source familiar with the situation. Corcos is seeking to overhaul the IRS’s 8,500-person IT department, the source says. This is part of a larger ongoing “modernization” process at the US Treasury.

The tests, administered through a tool called HackerRank, have been used by private-sector tech companies like Airbnb, LinkedIn, and PayPal to quiz a potential hire’s technical skill. One source at X, the social media company owned by Musk, tells WIRED that X uses “HackerRank’s tool to do coding screen-sharing for tech screens and remote interviews,” but confirmed that existing employees are not assessed with the tool.

“They want to see IRS as like a tech company, that’s the feeling I get,” says an IRS employee who spoke to WIRED on the condition of anonymity, as they were not authorized to speak to the press.

While coding tests are expected for candidates applying for technical roles, testing existing agency employees is highly unusual, four IRS sources tell WIRED. Early in DOGE’s tenure, staffers at the Technology Transformation Services (TTS) were forced to defend their projects on video calls with DOGE members. Government employees were also asked to send weekly emails detailing their work and achievements, which were later reviewed by artificial intelligence. (These emails and project reviews closely resemble the playbook Musk used when he took over X, formerly Twitter, in 2022.)

Despite an all-hands meeting two weeks ago, employees say they still don’t feel like they have answers. “They’re keeping us in the dark,” says the IRS employee. “They won’t tell managers why [they’re issuing the tests] or how the results will be used.”

Corcos and the IRS did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Other DOGE operatives are still working to slash regulations across government as well. Scott Langmack, a DOGE operative at the Department of Housing and Urban Development until July, is now serving as the executive director of “deregulation AI” at the Office of Management and Budget (OMB). In this role, which Langmack took on in August, he is leading the development of “custom AI applications to accelerate the elimination of the excess regulation constraining American business,” according to his LinkedIn profile. Langmack and OMB did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Sam Beyda, who has reportedly been linked to DOGE, is now deputy chief of staff for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), after serving as a policy advisor to deputy secretary of Health and Human Services Jim O’Neill. He does not appear to have any public health experience. Prior to joining the federal government, Beyda, who graduated Columbia in 2023, worked at a company that helped manufacture cannabinoids. That company’s parent organization is headed by Beyda’s father-in-law.

Since president Donald Trump’s inauguration, the CDC has lost more than a quarter of its staff, including employees specializing in topics like lead poisoning and HIV. In August, the CDC’s director left her post, later telling a Senate committee that she was fired. Her lawyers alleged that she had been “targeted” for refusing to fire CDC staff and “rubber stamp unscientific, reckless directives.” Beyda referred WIRED to the HHS press office, and a spokesperson said Beyda has “never worked for DOGE or DOGE-affiliated parts of the federal government.” The CDC did not respond to a request for comment.

Over the last few months, a handful of DOGE operatives have migrated to a new White House office. In August, Airbnb cofounder Joe Gebbia, who was previously DOGE’s lead overhauling the federal retirement system, was appointed as US chief design officer. His new role was established through an executive order that would oversee a new group called the National Design Studio (NDS). According to the order, NDS is tasked with redesigning government web pages and digital services. Gebbia, the White House, and the Executive Office of the President (EOP) did not respond to requests for comment.

NDS is housed within the EOP, just like the US DOGE Service (USDS). In August, WIRED reported that DOGE personnel who had been assigned to the General Services Administration (GSA) would transfer over to NDS. Several of the original DOGE operatives have joined the studio as well, including Coristine, who identifies as a member of the group in the bio of his X account as of last week. Choi cites both DOGE and NDS on his Instagram profile.

Since NDS was created, the office has produced a handful of websites describing White House efforts on issues like health care, immigration, and public safety. The sites, which look more like something from a tech company than the federal government, host information related to programs like the Trump Gold Card and links to apply for law enforcement jobs like the Trump administration’s DC task force.

Last week, Coristine and other NDS workers posted on X about their roles in the launch of the Trump administration’s “Genesis” AI mission, an Energy Department initiative to build an AI platform for scientific research.

“The video, website, and branding were all made in-house by a group of 3 in a couple weeks,” Coristine posted to X last week. “Apply to have this level of ownership and scale.”

Still, reports of DOGE’s collapse continue. Late last month, Reuters reported that DOGE had “disbanded,” citing statements from OPM that the group was no longer a centralized government entity. “The truth is: DOGE may not have centralized leadership under @USDS [United States DOGE Service]. But, the principles of DOGE remain alive and well: de-regulation; eliminating fraud, waste, and abuse; re-shaping the federal workforce; making efficiency a first-class citizen; etc. DOGE catalyzed these changes; the agencies along with @USOPM and @WHOMB will institutionalize them,” Scott Kupor, director of the Office of Personnel Management and former managing partner at the venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz, said in a statement posted to X late last month.

The X account for DOGE, which regularly posts about contracts the group has cut, posted as well: “As usual, this is fake news from @Reuters. President Trump was given a mandate by the American people to modernize the federal government and reduce waste, fraud and abuse. Just last week, DOGE terminated 78 wasteful contracts and saved taxpayers $335M.”

While some DOGE affiliates have remained in government, others have indeed left for new roles in the private sector, including at Musk-owned and -led companies. In August, Anthony Armstrong, a former investment banker at Morgan Stanley, left DOGE and his post in government at OPM and EOP to join Musk’s xAI as its chief financial officer, according to his LinkedIn profile. John Solly, who was part of the DOGE team at the Social Security Administration, now works for Leidos, a major government contractor with projects across several government agencies. Solly and Armstrong did not respond to requests for comment.

In an appearance on Joe Rogan’s podcast in October, Musk confirmed DOGE’s continuity himself. “DOGE is still happening, by the way,” Musk told Rogan. “DOGE is still underway, there is still waste and fraud being cut by the DOGE team.”

“They don’t have like a clear person to attack anymore. They applied immense pressure to me to just stop it, so then I’m like, the best thing for me is to just cut out of this,” added Musk. “Now that I’m not in DC, they don’t really have a person to attack anymore.”

Despite the apparent confusion over DOGE’s continual work and existence in government, DOGE affiliates are proceeding as usual.

In his photo dump on Instagram about his work with DOGE and the government, Choi posted a banner with the phrase: "We do this not because it is easy, but because we thought it would be easy.” On the banner is a blue handwritten sticky note that reads “and we STILL think its [sic] easy!”