Musk says he will bring back DOGE staffer who resigned after report of racist postings
Washington (AP): Elon Musk said on Friday he is re-hiring a staff member at the Department of Government Efficiency who resigned a day earlier after he was linked to social media posts that espoused racism.
Musk, in a post on his social media network X, said he would bring back Marko Elez after Vice President JD Vance called for him to be rehired. President Donald Trump later endorsed his vice president's view.
Marko Elez resigned Thursday after The Wall Street Journal linked the 25-year-old DOGE staffer to a deleted social media account on X that posted last year, “I was racist before it was cool” and “You could not pay me to marry outside of my ethnicity,” among other posts.
The account in September included a post that said, “Normalize Indian hate." The vice president's wife, Usha Vance, is the daughter of Indian immigrants.
Vance, in a post on Musk-owned X, said Elez should be brought back and blamed “journalists who try to destroy people.”
“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 said.
“I'm with the vice president,” Trump told a news conference Friday.
A few hours later, Musk posted: “He will be brought back. To err is human, to forgive divine.”
The White House did not immediately respond to a message Friday confirming if Elez had been rehired. The administration earlier in the day had confirmed Elez' resignation.
The vice president said Elez should be fired “if he's a bad dude or a terrible member of the team.”
Elez did not respond to a message seeking comment Friday.
Elez was among two DOGE employees who were at the center of a controversy this week when they accessed the US Treasury Department's payment system, prompting a court challenge and a judge's decision to restrict their access.
In its report, The Wall Street Journal found a since-deleted account under the handle @nullllptr with a user described as an employee at SpaceX and Starlink, two of Musk's companies. The account previously went by the username @marko_elez.
Elez, in archives of his personal website, said he worked for SpaceX and on its Starlink satellites, and at X.
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Prez nod for FIR against AAP's Manish Sisodia, Satyendar Jain in Rs 2,000-cr classroom 'scam'
New Delhi, Mar 13 (PTI): President Droupadi Murmu has given her approval for the registration of an FIR against AAP leaders Manish Sisodia and Satyendar Jain in an alleged scam of Rs 2,000 crore in the construction of classrooms in Delhi government schools, sources said.
In 2022, the Delhi government's vigilance directorate recommended a probe into the alleged scam and submitted a report to the chief secretary.
The President has given her approval for registering the FIR against Sisodia and Jain in connection with the alleged scam during their tenures as ministers in the Arvind Kejriwal-led Delhi government, the sources said.
The Central Vigilance Commission (CVC), in a report dated February 17, 2020, highlighted "glaring irregularities" in the construction of classrooms in Delhi government schools by the Public Works Department (PWD).
The President's approval came under Section 17A of the Prevention of Corruption Act that pertains to "enquiry or inquiry or investigation of offences relatable to recommendations made or decision taken by public servant in discharge of official functions or duties".
Reacting to the development, senior AAP leader Saurabh Bharadwaj accused the BJP of carrying out a witch-hunt against its political rivals.
The BJP has no interest or intention to fulfil the promises it made to the people of Delhi. Its only agenda is to carry out a witch-hunt against its political rivals to stifle the voice of people, the former minister said in a statement.
The BJP-led central government has already decided to prosecute every political adversary of the party and grant approvals to move the case forward but it should wait for the judicial process to begin, he said.
In July 2019, BJP leader Harish Khurana and then AAP rebel MLA Kapil Mishra, now a minister in the Delhi government, lodged a police complaint about the alleged scam.
According to a report prepared by the Anti-Corruption Bureau (ACB) of the Delhi government, the complainants alleged that there was a scam worth over Rs 2,000 crore in the construction of classrooms and school buildings in Delhi. The work was done at a highly inflated cost by the Delhi government.
The alleged scam involves the construction of around 12,748 classrooms.
The ACB report said the total expenditure incurred for constructing the classrooms and school buildings was around Rs 2,892.65 crore. They were allegedly constructed at the rate of Rs 8,800 per square feet, whereas it was common knowledge that the average construction cost (even for a builder of flats) was around Rs 1,500 per square feet.
The total cost for constructing a classroom and school building, according to the tender awarded, was allegedly around Rs 24.86 lakh per room, whereas such rooms are easily constructed in Delhi at around Rs 5 lakh per room, it said.
The prices were increased almost five times to defraud the taxpayer by siphoning off money from the public exchequer in the garb of construction cost, the report said.
Even for a 5-star hotel, top ultra-luxury quality construction is around Rs 5,000 to Rs 5,500 per square feet, it said.
The complainants submitted a copy of documents in which information received under the RTI Act in respect of the construction of 18 classrooms in the Govt Girls Senior Secondary School, Nathupura, Burari (school ID:-1207111) revealed that they were constructed at a cost of Rs 12 crore, the ACB report said.
