- Some DOGE members haven’t shared their last names in meetings with federal workers, according to two employees.
- Thomas Shedd, a Tesla engineer who recently joined GSA, told staff he was “trying to protect these folks” from media attention.
- The interactions come amid DOGE’s claims that it will promote transparency.
Elon Musk‘s federal efficiency team is shielding the identities of some of its members during meetings with federal workers, according to two federal employees.
DOGE representatives didn’t provide their last names during recent interactions with workers at two different agencies, the employees said. The meetings, which included questions from the DOGE workers about responsibilities and areas for improvement, appear to be part of DOGE’s push to remake the federal workforce, and come amid DOGE’s claims that it will promote transparency.
One government worker told Thomas Shedd, a Tesla employee who is now leading the technology unit at the General Service Administration, that it was “awkward” and “seems to be policy” for new arrivals’ last names to be “actively concealed,” according to messages seen by Business Insider.
Shedd acknowledged that it was “weird and uncomfortable.” But he said it was a justified way to deflect media attention.
He was trying to understand GSA systems and practices, and “trying to protect these folks that are taking the time to do this for me,” he wrote.
Three days later, Wired reported on six people between the ages of 19 and 24 who were working with DOGE. Business Insider confirmed that three of these people have federal email accounts; BI could not verify the roles of the other three. They appear to wield tremendous power; one sent a message to all USAID employees telling them not to come to the office on Monday.
Most federal employees’ identities and salaries are publicly searchable, and have been for years. One of the federal employees who spoke with BI said they’d never seen anything like it. “There’s no need to” hide our names, the employee said. “It’s all public record.” (The workers aren’t authorized to speak with the press; their identities are known to BI.)
“Public service is a public trust, and not identifying DOGE team members is a violation of transparency and openness that the public deserves,” Scott Amey, the general counsel of the Project on Government Oversight, wrote in an email. “We can’t have officials hiding in the dark and not being accountable for their work.
“DOGE needs to go above and beyond all ethics and transparency requirements and release all of its work product,” he added.
Shedd didn’t respond to requests for comment. Katie Miller, a DOGE representative, didn’t respond to a request for comment.
It isn’t unprecedented for federal workers in sensitive jobs to use pseudonyms. Undercover police and FBI agents often use fake names as part of their work, and CIA recruiters have been known to only use their first names.
Since the 1990s, IRS employees have also been allowed to use pseudonyms, although it must be justified and approved by managers. People who work at Americans’ least-favorite federal agency are sometimes harassed or attacked, and the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration reported that as of 2018, there were 729 employees who used pseudonyms.
DOGE leader Elon Musk, meanwhile, has positioned himself as an enemy of censorship and a transparency booster.
“There should be no need for FOIA requests,” he once posted on X, referring to Freedom of Information Act requests that are often used by journalists and advocates to obtain government records. “All government data should be default public for maximum transparency.”
“Unless it’s a massive risk to the country — we don’t want to give, say, exact instructions on how to make a nuclear bomb or something like that — but unless there’s a genuine risk to the country, all information in the government should be public,” Musk said in October.
But two weeks into the presidency of Donald Trump, who turned DOGE into a White House office on his first day, many of DOGE’s actions have been shrouded in mystery. Its account on X has posted 19 times since Trump was sworn in, and its official website only has a logo.
Much of the information that’s known about DOGE and Musk’s government activities have been leaked to media outlets. The New York Times reported on January 20 that Musk had a White House access badge, but the White House didn’t confirm Musk’s status as a “special government employee” until February 3.
Even the most basic information about DOGE’s structure, such as the administrator designated in Trump’s executive order, hasn’t been officially confirmed.
The White House did not respond to BI’s questions about the identity of DOGE’s administrator.
Juliana Kaplan contributed reporting.
