Former DOGE employees look inside the agency led by Elon Musk

Thanks to the lawsuit against the DOGE, we are now getting an inside look at what goes on at the government agency that was led by Elon Musk and the kind of people Musk hired to run it.

In May of last year, the American Council of Learned Societies (ACLS), the American Historical Association (AHA), and the Modern Language Association (MLA) filed a lawsuit in federal district court in an attempt to reverse DOGE’s cuts to the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH). These cuts eliminated all separations and programs, including grants.

As a result of this case, two DOGE employees, Justin Fox and Nate Cavanaugh were fired. Videos of those long hours with Musk’s DOGE staff just happened uploaded to YouTube.

So, how did Elon Musk’s government agency decide what to cut? Ask ChatGPT.

“Does the following have anything to do with DEI?” it’s the fastest DOGE ever used, giving the AI ​​chatbot extra guidance to make things as easy for them as possible, the staff revealed.

DOGE staff introduced ChatGPT to provide a “yes” or “no” response with a description that was shorter than 120 characters.

Most notable, but perhaps not surprising, is how similar the two DOGE staff seem to be. The two admit that they are inexperienced, having no experience in government before joining the DOGE. Clips of the script uploaded by 404 Media have already spread online showing how Fox struggled for a long time trying to define what DEI (Diversity, Equality, and Inclusion) is but they had a duty to remove any programs they saw as DEI.

Fox said that documentaries about black people’s rights or a film focusing on Jewish women in the Holocaust would be funded by DOGE because both would be considered DEI.

Fox thought these should be refunded because they focused on “a particular group or race” and were “not aimed at humanity.”

During the deposition, Fox provides a surprising omission by the DOGE in weeding out the programs that it determined were DEI.

DOGE will search for programs and grants to cut using terms like “Black,” “gender,” “LGBTQ+,” and “equality.” However, DOGE will not want to cut anything involving words like “caucasian” and “heterosexual.”

In his filing, Cavanaugh shared a plan he had for labeling the grants DOGE wanted to cut as “craziest.” DOGE’s work has labeled many LGBTQ+ related grants that way.

Fox, Cavanaugh, and other DOGE employees have been tasked with cutting billions of dollars from the US deficit by Elon Musk. DOGE managed to cut hundreds of billions of dollars. However, despite the DOGE cuts, the deficit increased. The DOGE was dissolved in November 2025.

An investigation is now underway involving the DOGE and its inexperienced staff hired by Musk. In another new caseone DOGE employee allegedly lifted public security records, stored them on a USB drive, and took them to his next job in the private sector.

Fox made $150,000 while working with DOGE. Cavanaugh made $120,000.