Elon Musk has taken on a new role as the co-lead of the non-existent Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) advisory group. Before the group officially starts, he has already started criticizing individual government employees for what he believes is government inefficiency, sharing his thoughts with his millions of followers on X.
Recently, a user known as “datahazard” on X highlighted the role of Ashley Thomas, the Director of Climate Diversification at the US International Development Finance Corporation, suggesting that her position shouldn’t be funded by taxpayers. Musk reposted this with the comment “so many fake jobs,” garnering over 33 million views.
Source: The Wall Street Journal
Musk’s followers reacted by creating memes and harassing Thomas, causing her to make her LinkedIn and Facebook pages private. This has been condemned as an attempt to instill fear in federal employees by Everett Kelley, president of the American Federation of Government Employees, according to the WSJ.
Musk has a history of using harassment as a tactic, such as when he called someone a “pedo guy,” criticized a former Twitter executive, and accused a safety executive of supporting pedophilia, all in the name of “free speech.”
Musk has effectively used X as a platform to express his views and has used it to his advantage. He and DOGE co-lead Vivek Ramaswamy have committed to transparency in their work, even using X polls. This means that more government employees may face similar public scrutiny in the future.
