DOGE Isn’t Dead. Here’s What Its Operatives Are Doing Now

To one member of Elon Musk’s so-called Department of Government Efficiency, the last few months have been “crazy.” In a slideshow of photos and videos posted to Instagram last month, Yat Choi—who joined DOGE this spring—posted clips of Trump administration officials dancing on the White House lawn to“Y.M.C.A”; people loading into what appears to be a private jet; and house parties decorated with American flags and attendees donning red, white, and blue hats holding red Solo cups and cans of High Noon.

On Instagram, Choi described his work as ongoing, announcing that he was returning to the underground Pennsylvania mine where federal retirement claims are processed. “Like Jigga [Jay-Z] I showed them the blueprint back in April, now going back in the Mine to lead the pilots next week,” wrote Choi, who previously worked as an engineer at AirBnb and has referred to Canada as home in other Instagram posts. Choi did not respond to a request for comment.

It’s not just Choi. Many of the original young and inexperienced DOGE technologists whose identities were first reported by WIRED appear to still be enmeshed in federal agencies. Edward “Big Balls” Coristine, Gavin Kliger, Marko Elez, Akash Bobba, and Ethan Shaotran all still claim to be affiliated with DOGE or the US government. So do other tech workers from Silicon Valley and Musk companies like xAI and SpaceX. Coristine, Kliger, Elez, Bobba, and Shaotran did not respond to requests for comment.

The DOGE ethos—characterized by cutting contracts and government workers, consolidating data across agencies, and importing private sector practices—remains fully in force. While several media reports have suggested that DOGE has all but fizzled out, DOGE affiliates are scattered across the federal government working as developers, designers, and even leading agencies in powerful roles.

“That’s absolutely false,” one USDA source says of reporting that DOGE has disbanded. “They are in fact burrowed into the agencies like ticks.”

DOGE has “just transformed,” an IRS employee tells WIRED.

While DOGE is no longer moving across the government in a move-fast-and-break-things blitz, DOGE affiliates appear to be digging in for the long haul—and Silicon Valley–shaped fingerprints remain all over the way agencies continue to be run.

Over the last few weeks, the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) has rolled out coding tests to its hundreds of technical staff, quizzing them over their “technical proficiency.” The decision to roll out these tests came from Sam Corcos, a DOGE operative and chief information officer of the Treasury, according to a source familiar with the situation. Corcos is seeking to overhaul the IRS’s 8,500-person IT department, the source says. This is part of a larger ongoing “modernization” process at the US Treasury.