WIRED Talked to a Fired DOGE Staffer About Who Was Really in Charge

With Elon Musk and different leaders of nan alleged Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) purportedly connected their way out, WIRED said pinch a fired DOGE staffer astir his experience, really nan group communicates, who appears to beryllium successful charge—and what mightiness beryllium coming next.

Earlier this week, Sahil Lavingia published a blog post connected his individual website detailing his 55-day stint wrong DOGE. Lavingia, who WIRED first identified arsenic a personnel of DOGE astatine nan Department of Veterans Affairs (VA), is nan CEO of Gumroad, a level that helps creatives waste their work.

In his post, Lavingia describes nan kinds of projects he worked connected astatine nan VA and his wide impressions of moving pinch DOGE. Lavingia described nan DOGE operations arsenic “disorganized,” pinch small accusation sharing crossed different teams.

This could each alteration soon, arsenic Musk has spent nan past fewer weeks saying that he is going to beryllium mostly leaving his DOGE duties behind. Two of his closest lieutenants, Steve Davis and Nicole Hollander, look to beryllium departing arsenic well. Davis, who has worked pinch Musk for years, including astatine X and arsenic nan CEO of nan Boring Company, has been integral to nan day-to-day operations of DOGE.

Without Davis astatine nan helm, Lavingia says, it’s unclear who will lead DOGE—and successful what direction.

“Steven was nan only personification who was crossed everything,” Lavingia tells WIRED.

Musk, Davis, and Hollander did not reply to WIRED’s requests for comment.

Lavingia told WIRED that Davis appeared to beryllium nan personification directing astir of nan DOGE activities astatine different agencies, and was successful nonstop interaction pinch each nan DOGE members astatine various points. Generally, successful Lavingia’s experience, that correspondence happened utilizing nan encrypted messaging app Signal.

Experts and lawmakers person previously warned that utilizing Signal for charismatic authorities communications could break laws that require authorities labor to support records of each communications. Earlier this year, past nationalist information advisor Mike Waltz accidentally added nan editor of The Atlantic to a Signal group chat wherever Waltz and different elder officials successful nan Trump management discussed imminent and delicate subject actions successful Yemen.

Davis, Lavingia says, would connection priorities to whoever was nan DOGE squad lead astatine a fixed agency. At nan VA, Lavingia tells WIRED, Davis instructed nan DOGE squad to prioritize reviewing contracts for cancellation. Davis would connection Lavingia periodically to cheque successful astir really his activity was going, but would seldom reply to Lavingia’s responses, he says.

According to Lavingia, successful precocious March, Davis was coming astatine a gathering pinch Musk, called an “E meeting.” Many of nan DOGE workers he encountered astatine that meeting, Lavingia says, appeared mostly focused connected executing tasks that Davis had assigned to them.

Two different Musk loyalists, Anthony Armstrong and Baris Akis, were coming astatine nan “E meeting.” These 3 men— Armstrong, Akis, and Davis—appeared to beryllium nan group successful charge, Lavingia says.

“Steven is fundamentally for illustration a main of unit aliases assemblage man erstwhile Elon was there,” he says.