‘Elon is my prophet’: how Musk’s Doge team took a wrecking ball to Washington
The Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) dispatched young tech employees to disrupt federal agencies, beginning with unannounced visits to the IRS. This initiative triggered a controversial email demanding all federal workers list their weekly accomplishments, causing significant legal and privacy concerns for staff. The article highlights the tension between the new administration's efficiency goals and the operational realities of sensitive government departments.
- ▪DOGE sent young techies to federal agencies like the IRS to identify fraud and improve efficiency.
- ▪An email from the Office of Personnel Management required all federal employees to list five accomplishments from the previous week.
- ▪IRS Chief Privacy Officer Kathleen Walters warned that complying with the email could lead to criminal liability for employees.
- ▪The first DOGE representative, Gavin Kliger, arrived at the IRS unannounced without prior clearance from the Treasury department.
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| Original publisher | The Guardian — US |
| Canonical URL | https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/oct/03/elon-is-my-prophet-how-musks-doge-team-took-a-wrecking-ball-to-washington |
| Publication time | Sat, 03 Oct 2026 05:00:50 GMT |
| Retrieval time | 2026-10-03T05:07:41.904Z |
| Last seen | 2026-10-03T05:07:41.904Z |
| Headline source | Publisher (no WeSearch rewrite) |
| Excerpt source | publisher body |
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| Summary | WeSearch · cerebras-chat (WeSearch summarizer) |
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| Cluster | ufq4cHLxMGII · 1 stories |
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| Ranking reason | Story pages are not engagement-ranked. Hub feeds use recency, with optional source-diversified chronological ordering (cap consecutive stories per source). No personalized ranking. |
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| Indexing | May the item be indexed (stored, ranked, made findable)? | Allowed |
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| Retrieval / RAG | May the content be exposed for third-party retrieval-augmented generation? | Not asserted |
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| Commercial reuse | May the content be reused commercially? | Not permitted |
Basis: Derived from the published RSS/Atom feed. Contact: [email protected]. Reviewed: 2026-07-24.
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Illustration: Justin Metz / Guardian DesignTrump administration‘Elon is my prophet’: how Musk’s Doge team took a wrecking ball to WashingtonWhen the new ‘department of government efficiency’ sent young techies to disrupt federal agencies, not everyone complied. Here’s what happened when one worker fought to protect immigrant dataMichael LewisSat 3 Oct 2026 01.00 EDTSharePrefer the Guardian on GoogleIn the early hours of Saturday 22 February 2025 the following email landed in the inboxes of the entire US federal workforce:From: HR [email protected]: Saturday, February 22, 2025Subject: What did you do last week?Importance: HighPlease reply to this email with approx.
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