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Elon Musk’s Demolition Crew

4 553
07.02.2025

by Avi Asher-Schapiro, Christopher Bing, Annie Waldman, Brett Murphy, Andy Kroll, Justin Elliott, Kirsten Berg, Sebastian Rotella, Alex Mierjeski, Pratheek Rebala and Al Shaw

On President Donald Trump’s authority alone, Elon Musk, the world’s richest man, has been unleashed on federal agencies. Employees from Musk’s companies and those of his allies, as well as young staffers he’s recruited, are wresting authority from career workers and commandeering computer systems.

While some have been public about their involvement, others have attempted to keep their roles secret, scrubbing LinkedIn pages and other sources of data. With little information from the White House, ProPublica is attempting to document who is involved and what they are doing.

Musk’s team, known as the Department of Government Efficiency, has already thrown entire swaths of the federal government and its programs into disarray — programs that serve millions of Americans.

Musk himself has made no secret of his intentions, saying that DOGE is a “wood chipper for bureaucracy” and that he is “deleting” agencies.

A White House spokesperson wrote, “Those leading this mission with Elon Musk are doing so in full compliance with federal law, appropriate security clearances, and as employees of the relevant agencies, not as outside advisors or entities.” None of the people identified responded to requests for comment.

We are still reporting. Do you have information about any of the people listed below? Do you know of any other Musk associates who have entered the federal government? You can reach our tip line on Signal at 917-512-0201 . Please be as specific, detailed and clear as you can.

Anthony Armstrong, 57

Senior Adviser to the Director

Connected to: Office of Personnel Management

Musk link: Worked on Musk’s purchase of Twitter

Armstrong is a technology banker at Morgan Stanley who worked on Musk’s $44 billion acquisition of Twitter — since rebranded as X — in 2022. He has been given an influential role at OPM, which handles personnel issues across the federal government. Since Trump took office, OPM has spearheaded the new administration’s efforts to dramatically reduce the federal workforce and roll back telework and remote work policies.

Riccardo Biasini, 39

Senior Adviser to the Director

Connected to: Office of Personnel Management

Musk link: Former engineer at Tesla, executive at the Boring Company

Biasini is an engineer and former executive who has worked at two of Musk’s companies, the Boring Company and Tesla. He has also taken a high-ranking role at OPM. Biasini was listed as the contact person for the government-wide email system put in place by the Trump administration and used to send messages directly from OPM to millions of federal workers across the government, according to a recent court filing .

Brian Bjelde, 44

Senior Adviser

Connected to: Office of Personnel Management

Musk link: Vice president of people operations at SpaceX

Bjelde is a longtime SpaceX employee who’s spent more than 20 years at the company, according to his LinkedIn profile, where he’s had a variety of jobs, including as managing director of the “food services group.” He previously worked for NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory. He’s been referred to in press reports as a “top DOGE Lieutenant,” working at OPM to slash head count. CNN previously revealed that Bjelde had informed OPM staff of a plan to cut 70% of the agency’s workforce. The New York Times reported that Bjelde helped Musk cut staff at Twitter following its takeover.

Akash Bobba, 21

Senior Adviser to the Director

Connected to: Office of Personnel Management

Bobba was named by Wired magazine as part of a team of six young engineers picked by Musk for his DOGE team. A recent graduate of the University of California, Berkeley, Bobba worked as an intern at Meta, the social media company, and at Palantir, the software and data analytics firm that is a........

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