Musk, Vance Step In To Get DOGE Staffer Back After Journo Tries To ‘Destroy’ Him

After a Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) staffer resigned this week due to pressure from a Wall Street Journal reporter with a background at the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), Elon Musk, Vice President JD Vance, and President Donald Trump all stepped in to get the 25-year-old back on the DOGE team.

Marko Elez resigned on Thursday after journalist Katherine Long dug up social media posts Elez published under a now-deleted pseudonym. Some of the alleged posts include, “You could not pay me to marry outside of my ethnicity,” “Normalize Indian hate,” and “Just for the record, I was racist before it was cool.”

Musk ran a poll on Thursday, asking X users to weigh in on Elez’s ouster, to which 78% of respondents said the staffer should be brought back to the DOGE team. VP Vance, commenting on the poll, agreed, writing, “I don’t think stupid social media activity should ruin a kid’s life.”

“Here’s my view: I obviously disagree with some of Elez’s posts, but I don’t think stupid social media activity should ruin a kid’s life,” Vance wrote. “We shouldn’t reward journalists who try to destroy people. Ever. So I say bring him back. If he’s a bad dude or a terrible member of the team, fire him for that.”

Here’s my view:

I obviously disagree with some of Elez’s posts, but I don’t think stupid social media activity should ruin a kid’s life.

We shouldn’t reward journalists who try to destroy people. Ever.

So I say bring him back.

If he’s a bad dude or a terrible member of… https://t.co/OgG6Z3hKPE

— JD Vance (@JDVance) February 7, 2025

Responding to Vance, Musk wrote, “He will be brought back. To err is human, to forgive divine.”

????

He will be brought back.

To err is human, to forgive divine. https://t.co/TV6SJIb5P6

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) February 7, 2025

Vance further backed up his position when asked about the posts in light of his children being half Indian. “Racist trolls on the internet, while offensive, don’t threaten my kids. You know what does? A culture that denies grace to people who make mistakes,” the VP posted.

“I cannot overstate how much I loathe this emotional blackmail pretending to be concern,” he continued. “My kids, god willing, will be risk takers. They won’t think constantly about whether a flippant comment or a wrong viewpoint will follow them around for the rest of their lives. They will tell stupid jokes. They will develop views that they later think are wrong or even gross. I made mistakes as a kid, and thank God I grew up in a culture that encouraged me to grow and learn and feel remorse when I screwed up and offer grace when others did.”

I cannot overstate how much I loathe this emotional blackmail pretending to be concern.

My kids, god willing, will be risk takers. They won’t think constantly about whether a flippant comment or a wrong viewpoint will follow them around for the rest of their lives.

They will…

— JD Vance (@JDVance) February 7, 2025

Adding to the calls to bring back Elez was the president himself. “Well, I don’t know about the particular thing, but if the vice president said that … I’m with the vice president,” Trump told Fox News reporter Peter Doocy on Friday.

Trump sides with JD Vance, says that the DOGE engineer fired for edgy posts on a private now-deleted account should be rehired: pic.twitter.com/pTU6gT4r73

— End Wokeness (@EndWokeness) February 7, 2025

The journalist who dug up the posts is Wall Street Journal reporter Katherine Long, who reportedly used to work for USAID per her LinkedIn profile, which now appears to be offline.

Notably, DOGE uncovered wasteful spending at USAID earlier this month, and the Trump administration is now in the process of gutting the USAID workforce.