Elon Musk announced Friday that the Department of Government Efficiency employee who quit for a range of racist social media posts will be reinstated.
Musk made a series of social media posts expressing his support for Marko Elez, the DOGE staffer who wrote in September that he couldn’t be paid to “marry outside [his] ethnicity,” and that people should “normalize Indian hate.” Musk also fired off postings attacking the journalist who had brought the racist posts to light, leading Elez to resign.
“Bring back @DOGE staffer who made inappropriate statements via a now deleted pseudonym?” Musk asked in one post on X, attaching a poll where users could vote.
The vice president of the United States, who is married to an Indian woman and has three children with her, decided to weigh in on the racist boss’s pitch to reinstall the racist employee. Spoiler alert: He thought it was a great idea!
“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 on X. “We shouldn’t reward journalists who try to destroy people. Ever. So I say bring him back.”
Crucially, the person in question posted these things in September 2024, and is currently 25 years old. Not exactly a kid.
“If he’s a bad dude or a terrible member of the team, fire him for that,” Vance wrote, drawing a clear distinction between someone who is racist and someone who is a “bad dude.” Vance has actually been posting on X a lot recently, after he seemingly vanished from all governance the moment he entered the White House.
Less than an hour later, Donald Trump was asked about Vance’s complicity during a press conference. He replied, “Well, I don’t know about the particular thing, but if the vice president said that—did you say that?—I’m with the vice president!”
Musk took Vance’s approval as marching orders. “He will be brought back,” Musk wrote on X. “To err is human, to forgive divine.” But given all of his support for Elez, it seems that to Musk, there wasn’t much to forgive in the first place.
Democratic Representative Ro Khanna, who has been gentle on Musk as the representative of Silicon Valley, responded to Vance’s endorsement with a reminder that the vice president had been personally implicated in the hateful rhetoric of Musk’s employee.
“Are you going to tell him to apologize for saying “Normalize Indian hate” before this rehire? Just asking for the sake of both of our kids,” Khanna wrote in a post.
Vance, who clearly doesn’t believe in the dangers of hate speech, responded with a multipost tirade.
“For the sake of both of our kids? Grow up,” he replied. “Racist trolls on the internet, while offensive, don’t threaten my kids. You know what does? A culture that denies grace to people who make mistakes. A culture that encourages congressmen to act like whiny children.”
In a separate post, Vance said he was more concerned that his children would spend their lives afraid to tell stupid jokes “that they later think are wrong or even gross” than face racialized hatred that is forgiven by his own administration.
(Again, since entering office, he’s had a lot of time to tweet.)
Khanna wasn’t being whiny; he was raising a real concern. There has been a surge in anti–South Asian hate since January 2023, with threats of violence against Asian Americans increasing by 17 percent. The majority of that hate has been directed at South Asian Americans specifically, according to a report from Stop AAPI Hate.
Musk’s decision to reinstall his racist employee comes as concerns about DOGE’s sweeping access to sensitive information and startling lack of oversight reached new heights Friday.
