- Elon Musk conducted a poll on X asking whether a former DOGE staffer should be rehired.
- The former employee was linked to a social media account advocating for racism, the Journal reported.
- After 78% voted “Yes,” Musk said the former staffer would be “brought back.”
Elon Musk said a former Department of Government Efficiency staffer who made “inappropriate statements” will be “brought back” following the results of a social media poll.
Musk on Friday ran a poll on his social media platform, X, asking people whether a former DOGE staffer 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 of the rehiring.
The poll expired at about 11:15 a.m. ET on Friday and had about 385,000 votes, with 78% voting yes.
“He will be brought back,” Musk posted after the poll closed along with a saluting emoji. “To err is human, to forgive divine.”
Musk’s poll appeared to reference Marko Elez, a 25-year-old 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 is one of two Musk associates whose recent work at the Treasury Department has raised questions about DOGE’s level of access to the department’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.”
“True,” Musk replied to the comment.
Vice President JD Vance also weighed in on the matter 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, including asking whether he should resign as CEO of X and whether he should bring back high-profile accounts that had been 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 a November 2022 poll by Musk supported Trump’s ban being lifted.
Musk similarly restored the accounts of several suspended journalists after one of his poll’s results supported bringing them back earlier than the initial seven-day period.
BI could not reach Elez for comment. The Journal said Elez did not respond to its requests for comment. Musk and the White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment from BI.
