Behind DOGE’s standoff at USAID: Desk searches and Elon Musk calling

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Behind DOGE’s standoff at USAID: Desk searches and Elon Musk calling

8:21 CAT | 06 Feb 2025

File photo: Bloomberg

Young staffers from Musk’s government-efficiency initiative gained access to sensitive information to cap a weeklong effort that puts the aid agency’s fate in question.

With the headquarters of the US Agency for International Development nearly empty on Saturday, a small group of Elon Musk aides arrived at Washington’s Ronald Reagan Building and demanded access to the agency’s suite of offices, including a secure room designed to store classified and sensitive documents.

The team from the Department of Government Efficiency, an effort led by the world’s richest man to cut government spending, was comprised of at least four young men under 30 with backgrounds in tech – “the DOGE kids,” as they’d come to be known among some USAID staffers. They’d been seeking information from the more than 60-year-old foreign-aid agency’s officials for several days, and according to a message sent to senior USAID officials that recounted Saturday’s events, they weren’t taking no for an answer. Four people familiar with that message described it to Bloomberg News.

What followed, according to their descriptions, was a confrontation between the DOGE workers and a security official at USAID who refused the Musk aides’ request to enter a highly secure room. The DOGE employees visited several floors and went from office to office, searching desks.

Before the episode ended, one of the DOGE employees made a call to Musk, who informed the agency’s security officials that he would involve the US Marshals Service if his team wasn’t given access to even sensitive information. Eventually, the team received access to at least some of what it was after.

The episode, which capped a week of tension between Musk’s budget-cutting department and the foreign-aid agency, came as more than 100 USAID employees were placed on administrative leave – including, on Saturday, personnel from the offices of the inspector general, legislative and public affairs, and the office of security.

The personnel moves and attendant controversy – President Donald Trump essentially shut down USAID’s primary mission when he froze foreign aid on his first day in office – have roiled an agency established in 1961 to help other countries alleviate poverty and disease, rebuild after war or crisis and use American funding to push back on Chinese and Russian influence.

On Saturday, the standoff centred on access to a secure room that’s designed for reviewing classified and sensitive information. Called a “secure compartmented information facility,” or SCIF, the room on the second floor of the Reagan Building houses some of USAID’s most sensitive documents and personnel information. While the personnel documents they were seeking are not classified, according to people familiar with them, entry to the SCIF requires a top secret/sensitive compartmented information security clearance. It’s unclear whether the DOGE team held security clearances at that level.

“No classified material was accessed without proper security clearances,” wrote Katie Miller, who Trump has attached to DOGE, in a post on X Sunday. She didn’t respond to a request for comment sent to her LinkedIn account.

According to descriptions of the message about Saturday’s events that was shared among USAID officials, the DOGE team included Luke Farritor, who won a fellowship from technologist Peter Thiel’s foundation last May. He listed his age as 22 on his personal website last year; the website has since been updated to include only a recording of a song. Another team member was Edward Coristine. According to a cached version of his bio on X, he was a recent intern at Musk’s company, Neuralink. His published bio no longer reflects that experience.

A third member was Jeremy Lewin. Two people familiar with the matter said he is also assigned to the General Services Administration. And a fourth was Gavin Kliger, who said on LinkedIn that he earned his bachelor’s degree from the University of California, Berkeley in 2020. That site also listed his previous experience as a senior software engineer in Silicon Valley; it says he’s now an adviser to the director of the Office of Personnel Management. Kliger launched a Substack two months ago on “current events in politics and technology.” In one post he wrote about former US Representative Matt Gaetz, Trump’s initial nominee for attorney general. Gaetz withdrew from consideration amid allegations of drug use and sex trafficking, which he denied. “The real story — the truth about Matt Gaetz’s rise and fall — is a byzantine tale of international intrigue, deep state machinations, and the awesome power of America’s permanent bureaucracy to destroy its enemies,” Kliger wrote.

None of the DOGE team members responded to requests for comment sent to email accounts that they were assigned by USAID officials.

Intense scrutiny

Trump’s allies have placed USAID under intense scrutiny. The influential Project 2025 document, a plan from the Heritage Foundation that appears to have guided the Trump administration thus far, said that the agency had become a “platform to pursue overseas a divisive political and cultural agenda that promotes abortion, climate extremism, gender radicalism, and interventions against perceived systemic racism.”

DOGE’s review of the agency began in earnest last week, when the new administration asked detailed questions during meetings about organizational charts, contractors and aid programs, according to five people familiar with the discussions. Leading many of these sessions was Peter Marocco, who previously worked at USAID and the State Department during Trump’s first administration. Marocco’s wife once worked as USAID’s White House liaison. Marocco didn’t immediately respond to a telephone call seeking comment Sunday evening.

On Jan. 27, at least four members of DOGE showed up at USAID’s headquarters. They worked out of a conference room that usually hosts foreign delegations, according to people with direct knowledge of the meetings. They were joined by Marocco and USAID acting administrator Jason Gray. The DOGE team, one of whom also works at the Office of Personnel Management, was given USAID emails and credentials to access certain USAID computer systems, the people said.

Throughout the week, people familiar with the chain of events said, meetings centered around obtaining a list of people who work for USAID and preparing memos about moving the agency under the State Department’s foreign assistance bureau. The DOGE team had another task, according to five people with direct knowledge: to collect details from USAID databases about the people who work for the agency and the aid programs they are assigned to. That information is housed within the agency’s office of security, and it is considered sensitive but unclassified because it contains personal identifiable information.

They also wanted information about when employees logged into computers and used their badges to enter conference rooms – the sort of information held in the secure area, according to five people with direct knowledge of the situation. Through the end of the week, they weren’t given access to that, however.

Meanwhile, according to an email sent by a USAID human resources official, DOGE was trying to fire at least some employees.

The Jan. 30 email from Nick Gottlieb, USAID’s director of employee and labor relations, carried the subject line, “Farewell and Thanks (Again) – Illegal Activity in the USAID Front Office.” It said, “Today, representatives of the Agency’s front office and DOGE instructed me to violate the due process of our employees by issuing immediate termination notices to a group of employees without due process. I refused and have provided Acting Administrator [Jason] Gray with written notification of my refusal.”

Gottlieb’s email also said that moments before he sent it, he was notified that he would be placed on administrative leave.

The next day, the DOGE team worked late into the evening and, with Marocco, took steps to change the agency’s offices. For example, artwork that depicted how USAID supported the LGBTQ community or that contained a mention of diversity, equity and inclusion were removed from the walls. Eventually, everything was taken down, according to eight people with direct knowledge of the matter.

Tensions had escalated that day because the DOGE team had still failed to secure access to the badging information it wanted from the security office, according to people with direct knowledge of the situation. That evening, USAID chief of staff Matt Hopson resigned, and Gray also threatened to leave, according to five of the people. Neither Hopson nor Gray responded to a request for comment.

When they finally gained access, USAID’s website was taken down. A slimmed down webpage was moved to the State Department’s website. “USAID is a criminal organization. Time for it to die,” Musk posted on X.

On Monday morning, USAID employees received a mass email saying the headquarters would be closed for the day and instructing most of them to work remotely. Kliger, one of the DOGE team members, was copied on the email. “Further guidance will be forthcoming,” it said.

Source: Bloomberg