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2w ago

Musk Shifts to Advisory Role in DOGE as Engineer Exposes Project Disarray

Sahil Lavingia’s diary exposes DOGE’s lack of authority, followed by his sudden firing for speaking to the press

A photo collage and illustration of some of the people in the venture capital world said to be working with Elon Musk's Department of Government Efficiency. It includes Musk, Ethan Shaotran, Vinay Hiremath, Michael Kratsios, Baris Akis, Joe Gebbia, Marc Andreessen, Brad Smith, Scott Kupor, Shaun Maguire.
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Overview

  • Elon Musk announced he will transition from leading the Department of Government Efficiency to an advisory position on May 29, with deputies Steve Davis and Nicole Hollander also stepping down
  • Sahil Lavingia joined DOGE in mid-March as a volunteer software engineer for the Department of Veterans Affairs to develop large language-model tools for identifying wasteful contracts
  • His published diary reveals that DOGE functioned without direct decision-making power and suffered from fragmented teams lacking shared processes
  • Lavingia built and open-sourced prototypes to analyze over 90,000 federal contracts and improve the VA’s chatbot experience but never obtained approval to deploy them in production
  • He was abruptly dismissed after speaking with a reporter, underscoring DOGE’s role as a ‘fall guy’ for unpopular cuts amid ongoing legal challenges to its authority