- A young staffer at the Department of Government Efficiency posted on Substack why he joined DOGE.
- Gavin Kliger wrote why he left his tech job to fight what he calls “systemic corruption” in government.
- Elon Musk’s DOGE has hired many young tech professionals with little government experience.
Gavin Kliger, a former Databricks software engineer who joined Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency, published a Substack post Friday explaining why he walked away from “millions of dollars, prestige, and a life of comfort” in tech to address what he calls “institutional failure” and “systemic corruption” in government.
Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency has hired mostly early to mid-career tech professionals and recent college grads, many of whom have little or no government experience, with Kliger being one of them.
After graduating from the University of California, Berkeley in 2020, Kliger worked as a software engineer at startup Databricks before becoming a “Senior Advisor to the Director for Technology and Delivery” at the US Office of Personnel Management under DOGE in January, according to his LinkedIn profile. Business Insider was not able to independently verify his DOGE title, and Kliger did not respond to a request for comment.
Kliger’s Substack post explained why he walked away from his tech job to join DOGE.
“The numbers were staggering — stock grants, bonuses, a Silicon Valley salary — stacked against a bureaucratic grind at the Department of Government Efficiency,” Kliger wrote. “But this isn’t another story about leaving tech for government work. It’s about watching vital systems degrade, one by one, until the only rational response is to step in and fix them.”
Kliger said he felt compelled to join DOGE because he believes the government had been stifling conservative viewpoints, forcing people to comply with its arbitrary mandates, and become too bogged down with bureaucracy.
Kliger was reported to be one of the DOGE staffers who searched USAID’s offices in early February and demanded access to sensitive information that required special security clearances.
In his Substack post, Kliger said his disillusionment with liberal institutions and viewpoints began in high school during the 2016 election and only grew once he got to college.
Kliger criticized Berkeley’s handling of campus protests in 2017, accusing the university of allowing a violent mob to attack conservatives and arguing that the media falsely described the protests as “mostly peaceful.”
One of the protests in question, in August 2017, saw around 2,000 demonstrators marching without incident when a smaller group of about 100 people joined in shortly before several violent incidents occurred, The Washington Post reported at the time.
Kliger wrote that COVID-19 restrictions pushed him further against “bureaucratic nonsense.”
“It was never about public health. It was about power. About seeing what people would tolerate and pushing further,” Kliger wrote.
Kliger wrote that these weren’t just “isolated failures” — instead, he believes there is a larger system of “institutional failure” and “systemic corruption.” And that made him realize, he wrote, that the government needs major reform.
Kliger has been writing on Substack since November 2024, and previous pieces include thoughts about Trump cabinet selections Matt Gaetz and Pete Hegseth. When his name was first reported as part of DOGE, he briefly posted an article titled “Why DOGE” with a subscription price of $1,000 per month before removing it. He is now charging $8 a month.
