- Elon Musk conducted a poll on X asking whether a former DOGE staffer should be rehired.
- The majority of the poll’s participants voted in support of rehiring the staffer, who Musk said made “inappropriate statements.”
- The former DOGE staffer was linked to a social media account advocating for racism, WSJ reported.
Elon Musk ran a poll on his social media platform X asking people whether a Department of Government Efficiency staffer who he said made “inappropriate statements” should be rehired.
“Bring back @DOGE staffer who made inappropriate statements via a now deleted pseudonym?” Musk wrote.
The majority of participants voted in favor.
The poll expired around 11:15 a.m. ET on Friday and had upwards of 385,000 votes, with 78% voting “Yes.”
Musk’s poll is an apparent reference to 25-year-old Marko Elez, who previously worked for SpaceX and X before joining DOGE.
The former DOGE staffer was linked to a since-deleted social media account that advocated for racism, The Wall Street Journal reported on Thursday. The White House later confirmed to Business Insider that the staffer had resigned.
Elez was one of two Musk associates whose recent work at the Treasury Department has raised questions about DOGE’s level of access to the Treasury’s payment systems, which contain sensitive data on millions of Americans.
The Treasury Department later agreed to not directly share the personal financial data with DOGE. Elez and Cloud Software Group CEO Tom Krause were identified in a Wednesday court hearing as the two Musk associates seeking access to the systems. Under the agreement, the Treasury said the two men would have read-only access to the records maintained by the Treasury’s Bureau of the Fiscal Service.
In response to Musk’s poll, one X user commented that the staffer “deserves a second chance,” but should “have a talk to about the racist stuff. Not cool.”
“True,” Musk replied to the comment.
Vice President JD Vance also weighed in on the matter on Friday, saying, “bring him back.”
“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 wrote in a post on X.
Musk has a history of conducting polls on X, ranging from asking if he should resign as CEO of X or whether he should bring back high-profile accounts that had been previously banned.
He has previously taken action in line with the results of some of his social media polls. The billionaire allowed Donald Trump to return to X after results from Musk’s November 2022 poll supported Trump’s ban being lifted.
Musk similarly restored the accounts of several suspended journalists after his poll’s results supported bringing them back earlier than the initial seven-day period.
BI attempted to reach Elez for comment but was unsuccessful. The Journal said Elez did not respond to requests for comment. Musk and the White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment from BI.
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