you know, we were talking a little bit about marko elez, this 25 year old, what we're learning about some of the people who are working for donald trump or pardon me, in doge for elon musk, the fact that there was all of this support, right, that we're seeing for marko elez. so you have the vice president basically saying, look, i am not going to let some stupid social media post cancel this kid. the fact that donald trump, when he was asked about it, so he was asked about that earlier today and he almost for a minute you could see he did what he would normally do, which is just deflect. i don't know what you're talking about, but then all of a sudden it was, oh, you said it was okay, jd vance, i'm going to back you up. what does that tell you about not only the support for elon musk that is coming from the top, but also the power that he has. >> this is something that is so interesting to me, and it's something that i know many journalists are keeping a very close eye on. right? which is the dynamic between musk and trump, sort of everyone waiting and anticipating, maybe where is th

classified materials and americans personal information in federal court, government lawyers said marko elezead only access to a highly sensitive payment system at the treasury department. >> ignition. liftoff. >> elez, who previously worked at spacex, has been the center of attention. his doge position was terminated after the wall street journal uncovered racist and eugenic posts on an account linked to him. but then elon musk, the vice president, and trump himself, weighed in. >> the vice president says bring him back. what do you say? >> well, i don't know about the particular thing, but if the vice president said that, did you say that? i'm with the vice president. >> another doge worker, edward coristine, who called himself big balls on social media, was fired from an internship with the data security firm called path network in 2022, accused of leaking information to a competitor. a spokesperson telling cnn his contract was terminated after the conclusion of an internal investigation into the leaking of proprietary company information that coincided with his tenure. the injection of u

government lawyers said marko elez had read only access to a highly sensitive payment system at the treasury department ignition. >> liftoff. >> elez, who previously. >> worked at spacex, has. >> been the center. >> of attention. his doge position was terminated after the wall street journal uncovered racist and eugenic posts on an account linked to him. but then elon musk, the vice president, and. trump himself weighed in. >> on. >> the doge engineers, was fired for. >> some inappropriate posts. the vice president says bring him back. what do. >> you say? >> well, i don't know about the particular thing, but if the vice president said that, did you say that? i'm with the vice president. >> the injection of unconventional outsiders is alarming. some federal employees. this man who spoke at a virginia congressman's town hall this week didn't identify himself out of fear of retaliation. >> elon musk in a building and after he visited the building, called for a. 50% cut of the entire. >> agency. >> my colleagues. >> are getting 15 minute, one on one. >> uh. >> check ins with 19, 20. >> and. 21

government lawyers said marko elez had read only access to a highly sensitive payment system at the treasurytment. >> in addition. liftoff. >> elez, who previously worked at spacex, has been the center of attention. his doge position was terminated after the wall street journal uncovered racist and eugenic posts on an account linked to him. but then elon musk, the vice president, and trump himself weighed in. >> on the doge engineer was fired for some inappropriate posts. the vice president says bring him back. what do you say? >> well, i don't know about the particular thing, but if the vice president said that, did you say that? i'm with the vice president. >> the injection of unconventional outsiders is alarming. some federal employees. this man who spoke at a virginia congressman's town hall this week didn't identify himself out of fear of retaliation. >> elon musk in our. >> building, and after he visited the building, called for a 50% cut the entire agency. my colleagues are getting 15 minute, one on one, uh, check ins with 19, 20 and 21 year old college graduates. asking to justify th

government lawyers said marko elez had read only access to a highly sensitive payment system at the treasury department. the mission. >> liftoff. >> elez, who previously worked at spacex, has been the center of attention. his doge position was terminated after the wall street journal uncovered racist and eugenic posts on an account linked to him. but then elon musk, the vice president, and trump himself weighed in. >> on the doge engineers. >> was fired. >> for some inappropriate posts. the vice president says bring him back. what do you say? >> well, i don't know about the particular thing, but if the vice president said that, did you say that? i'm with the vice president. >> the injection of unconventional outsiders is alarming. some federal employees. this man who spoke at a virginia congressman's town hall this week., didn't. identify himself out of fear of retaliation. >> at elon musk in our building. >> and after he visited the building, called for a 50% cut of the entire agency. my colleagues are getting 15 minute, one on one, uh, check ins with 19, 20 and 21 year old college graduate

. >> one of those people, a young former spacex employee named marko elez, who resigned this week after a wall street journal report linked him to a series of racist posts on social media, including i was racist before it was cool. you cannot pay me to marry outside my ethnicity and normalize indian hate. vice president j.d. vance, defending the staffer, writing, i obviously disagree with some of velez's posts, but i don't think stupid social media activity should ruin a kid's life. so i say bring him back. musk, responding he will be brought back to is human to forgive divine. selina wang, abc news, washington. >> california attorney general rob bonta is pleased with the court's decision. he issued a statement saying in part, quote, the president does not hold the power to give americans a bank account and social security numbers to anyone he'd like. and as of friday night, he must stop doing so. yesterd, bonta joined that coalition of 19 attorneys general in filing a lawsuit seeking to block doj's associates from accessing sensitive treasury department material in the south bay. inves

. >> one of those people, a young former spacex employee named marko elez, who resigned this week after a wall street journal report linked him to a series of racist posts on social media, including i was racist before it was cool. you cannot pay me to marry outside my ethnicity and normalize indian hate. vice president j.d. vance, defending the staffer, writing, i obviously disagree with some of velez's posts, but i don't think stupid social media activity should ruin a kid's life. so i say bring him back. musk, responding he will be brought back to is human to forgive divine. selina wang, abc news, washington. >> california's attorney genera, rob bonta is pleased with the court's decision. he issued a statement saying in part, quote, the president does not hold the power to give americans a bank account and social security numbers to anyone he'd like. and as of friday night, he must stop doing so. on friday, bonta joined that coalition of 19 attorney generals in filing a lawsuit seeking to block doj's associates from accessing sensitive treasury department material. meanwhile, student

i want to talk about some of the reporting you guys did on wired this week, including you about marko eleze wall street journal was the first to talk about his racist, his eugenic posts on twitter. but then you guys said that he actually got fired, right? or excuse me, he got he resigned because of what he posted, but then he got rehired by elon musk. but i think what's happening is you see this and you have this edward quarantine or quarantine, also known as quote, big balls online. and he worked at a startup that hired convicted hackers and was fired from an internship for leaking company secrets. these are the people, right, mckenna, that elon musk has and they've had access. and i want to say, even though there may be injunctions right now, they've had access to our sensitive data, how would we even know? mckenna if they've changed stuff and they've seen our stuff and they've done things with our sensitive data. >> at this point in time, we have no idea. and i think that's the scariest part of this all. with the access that they have, what we've been told is that it's like read access

marko elez is his name. he is the 25 year old doge staff member who reportedly had access to the treasury department's most sensitive payment systems, the one that controls $6 trillion of payments, a fifth of the us economy today. a wall street journal reporter linked ellis to a now deleted social media account full of racist and hateful statements, including, for one example, i was racist before it was cool. shortly after that, reporter reached out to the trump administration for comment, the white house said ellis had suddenly resigned from his role with doge, although one has to imagine he was a little confused about why he was being fired. lots of people are calling elon musk's actions a coup. it's not really a coup in any way that maps directly onto history because, well, musk is working for the president of the united states and the president of the united states was duly elected. so the word doesn't fit in its most literal sense, but there is a way in which it fits perfectly conceptually, because what

now, marko elez graduated from rutgers university in 2021, and shortly after began working at musk'spany, space x, as a doge staffer. he was considered a special government employee with. access to sensitive federal agency i.t. systems. and data. >> and like the. >> slate of other 20 something year old engineers who are on musk's. doge team, he does not appear to have any experience. >> working in the. >> government. again, musk's doge team consists. >> of a slate of. >> software engineers in their early. >> 20s who have impressive. accomplishments in the tech world but are novices when it comes to the federal government and understanding how it works. musk's team includes a 23 year old software engineer from nebraska who used a.i. to help decipher an ancient scroll buried for centuries. another was a runner up in a hackathon contest last year as a harvard senior. a third is a ceo of a multi-billion dollar startup, and a fourth graduated high school just last year. but there is high concern, especially among democratic lawmakers on capitol hill, about the lack of transparency about w

government lawyers said marko elez had read only access to a highly sensitive payment system at the treasury department. ignition. liftoff. elez, who previously worked at spacex, has been the center of attention. his doge position was terminated after the wall street journal uncovered racist and eugenic posts on an account linked to him. but then elon musk, the vice president, and trump himself weighed in. >> on the. >> doge engineers. >> was fired for some inappropriate posts. the vice president says bring him back. what do you say? >> well, i don't know about the particular thing, but if the vice president said that, did you say that? i'm with the vice president. >> the injection of unconventional outsiders is alarming. some federal employees. this man who spoke at a virginia congressman's town hall this week didn't identify himself out of fear of retaliation. >> at elon musk. in our building, and after. >> he visited the building, called for a 50% cut of the entire agency. my colleagues are getting 15 minute, one on one. uh, check ins with 19, 20 and 21 year old college graduates asking t

old marko. >> elez included such. >> gems as. >> just for the record, i was racist. >> before it was cool. >> you could. >> not pay me to marry. >> outside of my ethnicity and. normalize indian hate. >> and this. >> morning, on cue, vice. >> president james david. >> vance said elez should be brought back onto the. >> team, posting. i don't think. >> stupid social media activity. >> should ruin. >> a kid's life. >> okay. >> so now he's just a kid. a kid, a kid who was. >> given direct access. >> to treasury department systems, responsible. for nearly every single payment made by the us government, including social security. checks that people rely on. >> a kid, i thought they were highly trained professionals, man, not kids. >> to no one's surprise, elon jumped on his personal version of truth social. >> and tweeted. >> in. >> agreeance with. jd and announced his. triumphant return this afternoon. >> this after spending much of yesterday. joking with. >> his twitter stans. >> twitter stans. >> about another one of his junior. >> henchmen, who on his linkedin went by the name big ball

and one of those two workers has already resigned. 25 year old marko elez reportedly quit after the wall street journal reported that he was linked to a social media account that pushed racism and eugenics. boris. >> let's dig deeper on this story with doreen greenwald. she's president of the national treasury employees union. doreen, thanks so much for sharing part of your afternoon with us. at least 65,000 federal workers have chosen to take this resignation offer so far. do you have any idea how many of them are from the department of treasury? >> i do not, and i don't even know if those are accurate numbers. from what we're hearing on the ground is sometimes people have put in a request and then also have requested to pull that back. and i have no idea where those numbers are coming from. >> you've argued that despite doj's name, that this effort to shrink the federal government is not actually about efficiency. what do you think the motives are, then? >> well, i can tell you that federal employees come to work every day to serve the american people. they take an oath to the constitu

and wired reports that a 25 year old engineer, marko elez, was among the doge, staffers given access to the code at the treasury department that controls social security payments, tax returns and more, according to wired. those privileges could give someone the power to log into servers through secure shell access, navigate the entire file system, change user permissions, and delete or modify critical files. early this morning, that federal judge got the treasury department to limit doj's access to your sensitive data to just two doge people who supposedly would have only read only access. according to the language agreed to by the two sides, one of the two is musk ally tom krause, the chief executive officer at cloud software group. the other is marco ellis. treasury department officials were asked by the judge if those musk allies had distributed the fiscal data to anybody else, and they said, as far as we are aware, no, they have not. outside the treasury department, as far as we are aware. well, that's not exactly comforting. but wait, there's more. the wall street journal is rep

who had access to that sensitive treasury department information, and one of them was 25 year old marko elez, who, after the wall street journal reported that he had been tied to a social media account that advocated for racism and eugenics, had resigned. well, elon musk got on his on x, said that he should be brought back. jd vance hopped on, said he should be brought back. >> we should. >> note backs. >> him up. this is significant because he apparently posted online. normalized indian hate jd vance. his wife is of indian descent. so that is a significant announcement from jd vance. then trump backing him. let's go to kaitlan collins who is in the room for the press conference. and caitlin, you asked trump directly if he had pushed elon musk to analyze defense spending and look at money being spent at the pentagon. and trump answered, yes. >> yeah, that was the question we had going in, because obviously, what elon musk has been directed and tasked by the president to do is to reduce government spending and to increase government efficiency. and the pentagon has the biggest discretionary d