Rachel Maddow blasted Elon Musk’s DOGE employees who have been given access to the U.S. Treasury payment systems for being horrifically unqualified on Thursday night’s show. The MSNBC host pointed out several examples including a known online hacker and one employee who resigned this week following racist tweets uncovered by The Wall Street Journal.
Maddow went on to summarize the WSJ report, reading several key points in the article.
“A key DOGE staff member who gained access to the Treasury Department’s central-payments system resigned Thursday after he was linked to a deleted social-media account that advocated racism and eugenics,” she said.
Marko Elez, 25, worked as a part of Elon Musk’s “cadre” of lieutenants who were sent into the Treasury as a part of the Department of Government Efficiency’s efforts to cut government spending. The paper uncovered a number of racist tweets from Elez’s now deleted social media accounts. Maddow read several on air.
“Just for the record, I was racist before it was cool,” the account posted in July, according to the Journal’s review of archived posts. ““You could not pay me to marry outside of my ethnicity,” Elez allegedly wrote on X as well as, “Normalize Indian hate.”
Maddow pointed out that it wasn’t until the WSJ pressed White House spokesperson Karoline Leavitt about the accounts that she said Elez had resigned from his role at DOGE.
“This is one of the Elon Musk lieutenants, one of his like Bad News Bears, who specifically was allowed access to the most sensitive payment system in the entire U.S. government,” Maddow said with clear concern. “The one that sends out more than 90% of all payments for all things from the United States Treasury.”
Maddow then lambasted newly appointed Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent who appeared in an interview with Bloomberg after Elez resigned, and said the DOGE employees are “highly trained professionals.” He also said that he trusted them with the sensitive information.
“That’s why he gave them access to the most sensitive payment system in the entire U.S. government that partisan political actors have never had access to before in the history of the country,” Maddow said with a mocking and exasperated tone.
The MSNBC host then went on to reference another DOGE employee uncovered by Wired who was given access to government systems.
“A young technologist known online as ‘Big Balls,’ who works for Elon Musk’s so-called Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), has access to sensitive US government systems. But his professional and online history call into question whether he would pass the background check typically required to obtain security clearances “ according to the Wired report.
Maddow continued in reference to the article and said that this employee, 19-year-old high school graduate, Edward Coristine, controls “dozens of web domains including at least two that are registered in Russia.”
“Someone using a Telegram handle tied to Coristine also solicited a cyberattack-for-hire service later that year,” according to the Wired report.
Coristine also worked at Path Network which is a network monitoring firm known for hiring reformed blackhat hackers. Path has hired several well known cybercriminals including Eric Taylor who goes by Cosmo the God and convicted hacker Matthew Flannery.
Maddow again referenced Treasury Secretary Bessent calling them “highly trained professionals.”
“This is the team that he’s decided it’s totally fine to give them complete access to the highest security systems … including the ones that have your social security number, your personal identifying information, your back account information, potentially your health information,” Maddow added with concern.
Maddow ended with one last DOGE employee, a 23-year-old who was given access to the energy department’s system yesterday by Energy Secretary Chris Wright. She said this was given out despite numerous objections from people in the Department of Energy. The system controls access to information about U.S. nuclear weapons.
“I don’t know if you worry about nuclear weapons,” Maddow added. “I don’t know if you worry about the safety of your social security number and your bank account. I mean, everybody has their own, you know, things that keep them up at night, right?
You can watch the full MSNBC segment above.
