- Alexander Simonpour, who has worked at Tesla for several years, has popped up at NASA.
- He’s scheduled to attend a meeting next week with other DOGE people on NASA’s layoff plans.
- At least four people with Tesla connections have joined the Elon Musk-linked initiative.
A longtime Tesla engineering manager is on the DOGE team at NASA, according to agency records and two people familiar with the matter.
Alexander Simonpour, an employee of the General Services Administration with a NASA email address, is among those expected to attend a meeting between NASA officials and staff from the White House’s Department of Government Efficiency initiative next week where “reductions-in-force” may be discussed, according to the people and records reviewed by Business Insider. He lists several roles at Tesla going back to 2015 on his LinkedIn profile.
His name and work with DOGE have not previously been reported.
Other attendees at the meeting include Riley Sennott, a DOGE staffer whose connections to the initiative were revealed because his Google Calendar was public, and Scott Coulter, who has been named in court documents as being involved with the Trump administration’s efforts at the Social Security Administration. Coulter has been listed as a “program specialist” at NASA for weeks, according to agency employees.
Simonpour is at least the fourth person with Tesla connections pitching in on DOGE, the Elon Musk-linked White House initiative to shrink the government workforce and quickly slash spending. Sennott appeared to have interviewed at Tesla, BI previously reported, and a Tesla employee, Thomas Shedd, leads GSA’s Technology Transformation Services division.
Antonio Gracias, a longtime member of Tesla’s board of directors who is close with Musk, has a Social Security Administration email address, according to people familiar with the matter. His presence at the SSA was previously reported by Bloomberg. Jon Koval, who listed himself on LinkedIn as an employee of Gracias’s investment firm, Valor Equity Partners, is also involved with DOGE’s work at SSA, according to a record seen by Business Insider.
Tesla, NASA, Simonpour, Gracias, Koval, and Coulter didn’t respond to emails seeking comment.
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