All posts tagged: DOGE

Kennedy Says US Health Agency Has 72,000 Staff, up From 62,000 After DOGE Cuts

Kennedy Says US Health Agency Has 72,000 Staff, up From 62,000 After DOGE Cuts

Published by Sam Flores

WASHINGTON, April ⁠16 (Reuters) – ⁠U.S. ⁠Secretary of Health ​and Human ‌Services Robert F. ‌Kennedy ⁠Jr. ⁠said on Thursday his department ​now has 72,000 ​employees and is looking ⁠to ⁠hire 12,000 ⁠more to ​make up for ​cuts ⁠led by the Department ⁠of Government Efficiency. The department had 82,000 employees ⁠before the DOGE cuts reduced its workforce to 62,000 employees last year, ⁠he said. (Reporting by Ahmed Aboulenein in Washington; ​Editing by ​Chris Reese) Copyright 2026 Thomson Reuters. Source link

Where the DOGE Operatives Are Now

Where the DOGE Operatives Are Now

Published by skeptic

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 …

DOGE Made Drastic Cuts to a Global Vaccine Assistance Program. Now There’s a Deadly Measles Outbreak in Bangladesh

DOGE Made Drastic Cuts to a Global Vaccine Assistance Program. Now There’s a Deadly Measles Outbreak in Bangladesh

Published by José Betancourt

Sign up to see the future, today Can’t-miss innovations from the bleeding edge of science and tech Even after prolonged chaos, Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency didn’t end up saving taxpayers much money. It did, however, manage to devastate global health infrastructure on its way out. For evidence, look no further than Bangladesh, currently in the grips of one of the worst measles outbreaks in recent memory. According to the Guardian, over 100 children have died as a result of gaps in vaccination coverage, with more than 900 confirmed measles cases reported since the viral flare-up began in March. Two thirds of those impacted are over nine months old, the outlet reported, the age at which infants typically become eligible for measles inoculation. The United Nations has helped the Bangladeshi government kickstart an emergency vaccination drive, but for many families, the damage has already been done. At the heart of the public health failure lies a shortage of vaccine stockpiles. That shortage traces back, at least in part, to the wave of DOGE-driven spending …

Marshals waived training rules for Musk DOGE security, emails say

Marshals waived training rules for Musk DOGE security, emails say

Published by Sam Flores

Members of Elon Musk’s private security team were deputized as federal agents last year even though some of the billionaire’s guards lacked the required training and law enforcement experience, according to newly released government emails. Subscribe to read this story ad-free Get unlimited access to ad-free articles and exclusive content. The emails shed new light on how the U.S. Marshals Service responded to Musk’s entourage during his five-month stint in the second Trump administration. The agency in February 2025 approved a request that it said came from the White House to deputize Musk’s bodyguards, a decision that allowed them to carry weapons in some federal buildings and continue protecting him. Musk, the world’s wealthiest person, was a senior adviser to President Donald Trump and oversaw the Department of Government Efficiency from January of last year until his rocky exit in May. The Marshals Service released the emails and related documents in response to a request under the Freedom of Information Act filed by Democracy Forward, a progressive advocacy group that has been investigating Musk’s tenure …

Edward ‘Big Balls’ Coristine Is Helping Out on Viral Fraud Videos Now

Edward ‘Big Balls’ Coristine Is Helping Out on Viral Fraud Videos Now

Published by skeptic

Nick Shirley—the right-wing creator whose YouTube investigation sparked the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown in Minnesota—claims that his most recent video about alleged fraud in California was bolstered by data provided by none other than Edward Coristine, one of the first members of the so-called Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) known online as “Big Balls.” Coristine, who joined DOGE at 19 years old with no prior government experience, was staffed across several agencies including the Social Security Administration (SSA) and the Small Business Administration (SBA). Before joining DOGE, Coristine worked at Elon Musk’s Neuralink for several months and founded a startup known for hiring black hat hackers. In an interview with Coristine published on Shirley’s YouTube channel on Thursday, Shirley claims that Coristine personally pulled data on Medicaid spending for businesses based in California as potential targets. Coristine nodded along, telling Shirley that the government must create more opportunities to crowdsource fraud investigations. The information Coristine allegedly pulled for Shirley was from a dataset published by the DOGE team at the Department of Health and Human …

A Year After DOGE Cuts, GSA Now Plans to Hire Hundreds of Employees

A Year After DOGE Cuts, GSA Now Plans to Hire Hundreds of Employees

Published by skeptic

A year after Elon Musk’s so-called Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) effectively fired thousands of government employees, one federal agency that was affected by those cuts is now preparing to hire hundreds of people. The General Services Administration (GSA), an agency that oversees the government’s IT department and real estate holdings, is hiring “approximately 400 positions” across its Public Building Service (PBS) division, according to an email obtained by WIRED. “We’re thrilled to announce that the GSA Strategic Hiring Committee has approved the PBS staffing plan designed to address our workforce needs and strengthen our teams,” states an email sent by PBS chief of staff Donna Dix to employees on Monday. The email goes on to say that the hiring effort will focus on “the most significant areas of need: facilities management, acquisition, and project management.” GSA did not respond to a request for comment. PBS, which manages the federal buildings under GSA’s banner, lost hundreds of employees in March 2025 following DOGE cuts. The agency, WIRED reported at the time, was also instructed to …

Mark Zuckerberg texted Elon Musk to offer help with DOGE

Mark Zuckerberg texted Elon Musk to offer help with DOGE

Published by skeptic

While the relationship between Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg was once thorny enough that Musk challenged Zuckerberg to a cagefight, things had warmed up by the early days of the second Trump administration — at least according to court documents published Friday. As reported by Engadget, these texts between Zuckerberg and Musk were released as part of Musk’s lawsuit against OpenAI. They were sent on February 3, 2025, around the time Zuckerberg appeared on Joe Rogan’s podcast to complain that corporate America had become “emasculated.” Referring to Musk’s aggressive government-slashing efforts through the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), Zuckerberg texted, “Looks like DOGE is making progress. I’ve got our teams on alert to take down content doxxing or threatening the people on your team. Let me know if there’s anything else I can do to help.” Musk reacted with a heart emoji, then asked, “Are you open to the idea of bidding on OpenAI with me and some others?” In response, the Meta CEO suggested discussing the idea over the phone. According to previously released …

Trump admin has viral DOGE videos taken down. Archivists have already re-uploaded them.

Trump admin has viral DOGE videos taken down. Archivists have already re-uploaded them.

Published by skeptic

Last week, viral videos of two former staffers of the Elon Musk-led government agency DOGE went viral. The videos offered a rare, behind-the-scenes look at how DOGE was run and how cuts to federal funding were determined. On Friday, a federal judge ordered the videos be removed after a complaint from the Trump administration. However, much to the chagrin of the U.S. government, internet archivists and forums like Reddit’s r/datahoarders have already re-uploaded backups of the videos. The American Council of Learned Societies (ACLS), the American Historical Association (AHA), and the Modern Language Association (MLA) originally hosted the hours-long depositions of two former DOGE employees, Justin Fox and Nate Cavanaugh. Fox and Cavanaugh had been deposed as a result of a lawsuit from the three organizations regarding DOGE’s cuts to the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH). The depositions of the two DOGE employees quickly went viral. Fox’s interview especially spread after clips were made of his inability to explain exactly what DEI (Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion) was, regardless of the fact that DEI was …

COBOL Is the Asbestos of Programming Languages

COBOL Is the Asbestos of Programming Languages

Published by skeptic

Early in the Covid-19 pandemic, the governor of New Jersey made an unusual admission: He’d run out of COBOL developers. The state’s unemployment insurance systems were written in the 60-year-old programming language and needed to be updated to handle the hundreds of thousands of claims. Trouble was, few of the state’s employees knew how to do that. And the crisis went beyond New Jersey, just one of many states that depended on these unwieldy systems. By one rough calculation, COBOL’s inefficiencies cost the US GDP $105 billion in 2020. You might think New Jersey would have replaced its system after this—and that Covid was COBOL’s last gasp. Not quite. The state’s new unemployment system came with a number of quality-of-life improvements, but on the backend, it was still made possible by a mainframe running the ancient language. COBOL, short for Common Business-Oriented Language, is the most widely adopted computer language in history. Of the 300 billion lines of code that had been written by the year 2000, 80 percent of them were in COBOL. It’s …

High Point Museum HVAC Grant Canceled After ChatGPT Labeled It DEI, Lawsuit Says

High Point Museum HVAC Grant Canceled After ChatGPT Labeled It DEI, Lawsuit Says

Published by Jenni Sidey

A federal lawsuit alleges that a government initiative created by the Trump administration relied on the generative AI software ChatGPT to help identify grants tied to diversity, equity, and inclusion programs. The lawsuit alleges that a grant awarded to the High Point Museum in North Carolina to replace its HVAC system was flagged as related to DEI and subsequently canceled. According to a report by Fox 8 News, High Point received s $349,000 grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities to replace outdated climate-control equipment used to preserve its collections. The funding was later canceled after staff working for the Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, reviewed grant proposals with the help of the AI chatbot. Related Articles The revelation surfaced in a lawsuit brought by the American Council of Learned Societies and the American Historical Association, which are challenging a broader wave of humanities grant cancellations. The groups argue that the cuts were unlawful and violated the First Amendment. DOGE was established by executive order in January 2025 and was tasked with reviewing federal spending across …