Some staffers at Elon Musk’s so-called Division of Authorities Effectivity are drawing strong taxpayer-funded salaries from the federal businesses they’re slashing and burning, WIRED has discovered.
Jeremy Lewin, one of many DOGE workers tasked with dismantling USAID, who has additionally performed a job in DOGE’s incursions into the Nationwide Institutes of Well being and the Client Monetary Safety Bureau, is listed as making simply over $167,000 yearly, WIRED has confirmed. Lewin is assigned to the Workplace of the Administrator throughout the Basic Companies Administration.
Kyle Schutt, a software program engineer on the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Safety Company, is listed as drawing a wage of $195,200 by GSA, the place he’s assigned to the Workplace of the Deputy Administrator. That’s the most quantity that any “Basic Schedule” federal worker could make yearly, together with bonuses. “You can’t be supplied extra underneath any circumstances,” the GSA compensation and advantages web site reads.
Nate Cavanaugh, a 28-year-old tech entrepreneur who has taken a visual inside position interviewing GSA workers as a part of DOGE’s work on the company, is listed as being paid simply over $120,500 per yr. In line with DOGE’s official web site, the typical GSA worker makes $128,565 and has labored on the company for 13 years.
When Elon Musk began recruiting for DOGE in November, he described the work as “tedious” and famous that “compensation is zero.” WIRED beforehand reported that the DOGE recruitment effort relied partially on a staff of engineers related to Peter Thiel and was carried out on platforms like Discord.
Since Trump took workplace in January, DOGE has overseen aggressive layoffs throughout the GSA, together with the current elimination of 18F, the company’s unit devoted to know-how effectivity. It additionally developed a plan to unload greater than 500 authorities buildings.
Though Musk has described DOGE as “most clear,” it has not made its spending or wage ranges publicly accessible. Funding for DOGE had grown to round $40 million as of February 20, based on a current ProPublica report. The White Home didn’t reply to questions concerning the wage ranges for DOGE workers or how the finances is allotted to pay them.
Some DOGE staff members, together with Musk, are designated as “Particular Authorities Workers,” an advisory position restricted to a 130-day work interval. These positions may be paid or unpaid; SGEs drawing salaries above a sure grade should file monetary disclosure kinds, however the volunteer employees don’t. Any such worker will not be beholden to the identical guidelines as typical federal employees; they’re allowed to preserve drawing outdoors salaries and in some circumstances don’t have to disclose conflicts of curiosity. Different distinguished SGE staffers related with DOGE embody high aide Katie Miller, who continued her prior public relations work by the transition and greater than a month into the present administration. Her agency’s shoppers had included Apple and a Saudi-funded golf league, based on The Wall Road Journal.
