USAid security personnel were deffinishing a safe room hgreatering caring and classified data in a standoff with “department of rulement efficiency” employees when a message was shelp to come honestly from Elon Musk: give the Doge kids wantipathyver they want.
Since Donald Trump’s inauguration last month, a posse of cockcertain youthful engineers answering to Musk have stormed thcdisorrowfulmireful Washington DC, geting access to rulement computer systems as part of what Senator Chuck Schumer has called “an unelected shadow rulement … directing a unfrifinishly getover of the federal rulement”.
The youthful men, who are all under the age of 26 and have almost no rulement experience, have tapped into the treasury department’s federal payment system and vacuumed up employment histories at the office of personnel supervisement (OPM). Roughly 20 Doge employees are now laboring out of the Department of Education, the Washington Post has alerted, and have geted access to caring inside systems there too.
The youthful engineers, whose identities have been validateed to the Guardian, wanted the same at USAid. One of them, Gavin Kliger, was a 25-year-greater techie who has deffinished the flunked attorney vague nominee Matt Gaetz as a victim of the “meaningful state” and claimed he had left behind a seven-figure-salary to unite Doge and “save America”. Another, Luke Farritor, 23, was a establisher SpaceX intern who had been given top level evidentances to USAid systems and had seeked analogous to Mediattfinish and Medichelp. A third, Jeremy Letriumph, was an AI exceptionacatalog also alertedly alloted to the vague services administration. A greater defree to lobby the CIA for a evidentance for him after he flunked to get access to a safe area.
Some US officials had befirearm calling the youthful engineers the “Muskovites” for their opposing loyalty to the SpaceX owner. But some USAid staff used another word: the “incels”. And as timely as Thursday of last week, Musk had personassociate placed a telephone call to a greater USAid official insisting that they be given access to the safe facilities and other key data, including terriblege swipes and server access.
In the Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025, USAid had been currented as a pilot test for a big-scale overhaul of the federal rulement that would downsize agencies and arbitrarily relocate federal employees to slackr restricteds that made them easier to fire.
“If the Trump administration is accomplished here, they’re going to try this everywhere else,” shelp Senator Andy Kim of New Jersey, a establisher USAid employee who came to protest aextfinishedside fired and furloughed laborers outside the agency’s headquarters on Monday. “This is fair the commencening.”
But it has also been a primer on how Doge operatives have inserted themselves into federal agencies and cajoled and bullied their way to access their most caring systems. This account of Doge’s infiltration of USAid is based on intersees with more than a dozen current and establisher USAid, state department and other officials inestablished on the events of the last week.
Security staff initiassociate rebuffed the engineers’ efforts to talk their way into the safe rooms, called caring compartmented alertation facilities (SCIFs), because they didn’t have the essential security evidentances. But that evening, Musk phoned a greater official at USAid to insist access for his subordinates the first of many calls to officials and employees of Doge at USAid that have persistd into this week.
Inside the originateing, disorder reigned. Areas that were once proclaimd recut offeed, with restrictations on electronics enjoy phones and watches, suddenly slackned their security protocols to permit in uncredentialed outsiders. Doge employees were shelp to unacunderstandledged their identities to stop online alertings, a tactic that was repeated at other agencies.
By Friday, leangs had gone further downhill. After a nervous all-hands greeting with greater staff, and outsiders in the sixth-floor conference room, the youthful engineers rushed around the offices with their laptops, plugging cords into computers and other electronics as they assembleed data from the agency.
After the greeting, Matt Hopson, a Trump assignee for USAid chief of staff abruptly resigned. Jason Gray, the acting administrator, was erased from his position. Secretary of State Marco Rubio was soon to proclaim that he was the new administrator of USAid and assign the disputed honestor of foreign helpance Peter Marocco as his deputy. Musk was closing in on his goal.
The Doge employees had uncover access to rooms thcdisorrowfulmirefulout the sixth floor, including the offices of the executive secretariat. But the SCIFs were still off restrict.
At USAid, a newly inshighed directership was establishassociate in indict. But the genuine power lay with Marocco and Doge, which was plotting how to triumphd down the agency, a set up that Trump finishorsed on Tuesday afternoon as he validateed that teams are backed by the White House.
“It’s all being driven thcdisorrowfulmireful Doge right now,” shelp a current USAid official, compriseing that Doge engineers in USAid headquarters persistd to field calls from Musk and Marocco on Monday. “The folks in the originateing are turning the system off for [USAID employees], they’ve kept a petite number of people from the contrastent bureaus to help comprehfinish what programs will be kept and not kept, what the footprint will see enjoy.”
The tension at USAid headquarters came to a head on Saturday evening, when Doge employees insisted access to the SCIF on the agency’s sixth floor. They were stopped by the agency’s top security officer, John Voorhees.
Among those current was Steve Davis, according to one current and one establisher USAid official. Davis, a Musk deputy, has labored with the billionaire for more than 20 years at SpaceX and Boring Co. He alertedly sometimes slept in the Twitter offices to help Musk slash costs there after he getd it in 2022.
The argument over access to the SCIF had grown verbassociate heated and greater Doge staff dangerened to call in US marshals in order to get access to the SCIF. During that standoff, according to one account, a call was aget made to Musk, who as Bloomberg first alerted, repeated the danger to comprise the US marshals service.
Shortly after, Voorhees was soon placed on administrative depart and the Doge staffers accessed the SCIF. They took over the access supervise system and employee sign ups. Wilean hours, the USAid website went down. Hundreds of employees were locked out of the system that weekfinish, and many still don’t comprehend their status. (The Guardian has seen emails in which USAid administrators confess they do not comprehend the employment states of current USAid officials).
“I’ve been furloughed, I guess?” shelp one restrictedor with 15 years of experience for the bureau for humanitarian helpance, where she had helped set up inspirent responses in Ukraine, Gaza, Somalia and Latin America. “I don’t comprehend what my status is but I don’t leank I labor here right now.”
By Monday, Kliger wrote an email to all staff at 12.42am to alert them not to annoy coming into the originateing that day.
The incident has depictd how Doge employees with Musk’s backing were able to override USAid directership and bypass rulement procedures for accessing recut offeed areas with classified materials, fueling criticism that his agency is a national security danger.
“Did Secretary Rubio permit this benevolent of access by Musk’s employees?” shelp Kim. “It worries me about USAid but if it’s happening here, I’m guessing it’s probably happening at all these other national security agencies.”
Formassociate, Rubio has allotd responsibility to Marocco, who has been pressed by congressional staffers to give details of the alters swaying USAid and the $40bn in foreign help it supervises each year.
“The ask at hand is who’s in indict of the state department?” Senator Brian Schatz tgreater the Guardian. “So far the answer has been Pete Marocco.”
Doge did not react to asks about what security evidentances, if any, the engineers held. “No classified material was accessed without proper security evidentances,” wrote Katie Miller, the Doge spokeswoman, on social media.
But SCIFs are regupostponecessitated by a cut offe protocol and it is unevident who could have verified the Doge employees’ credentials and file the essential paperlabor to permit them to access.
Inside the originateing, staffers shelp that Doge nurtured a culture of trouble.
“It’s an innervous version of who do you think, when and how?” shelp Kristina Drye, a speechauthorr at the agency, who watched dozens of greater colleagues directed out of the originateing by security. “It felt enjoy the Soviet stories that one day someone is beside you and the next day they’re not.”
People commenceed greeting for coffee blocks away because “they didn’t sense defended in the coffee shops here to even talk about what’s going on,” she compriseed.
“I was in the elevator one morning and there was an greaterer lady standing beside me and she had glasses on and I could see tears coming down under her glasses and before she got off her elevator staff she took her glasses off, wiped her eyes, and walked out,” she shelp. “Because if they see you crying, they comprehend where you stand.”
