Elon Musk revealed the young and talented engineers behind the controversial Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) team auditing the U.S. Treasury Department’s payment system, sparking a mix of excitement and curiosity across the tech and financial sectors. These engineers are now part of a high-stakes audit of the Treasury’s payment infrastructure, tasked with reducing wasteful federal spending. While Musk's involvement with DOGE has already caused liberal heads to spin, critics argue that the engineers lack the government experience and expertise to manage such a significant job.
The engineers' ages range from 19 to 24, and one of the six men is still in college. According to a source familiar with GSA protocols, these baby-faced engineers possess GSA emails and A-suite-level clearances, which grant them access to the agency’s top floor, all physical spaces, and IT systems. They can also access highly sensitive Treasury payment information, including Social Security and Medicare customer payment systems.
Musk has repeatedly praised his team. He confirmed media reports on X that suggested DOGE was made up of some of the “best software engineers.”
The rumors “are in fact true,” he wrote.
Their names are Akash Babba, Luke Farritor, Ethan Shaotran, Edward Corristine, Gauthier Cole Killian, and Gavin Kliger.
The group has been tasked with “modernizing Federal technology and software to maximize governmental efficiency and productivity.”
The New York Times reports that 23-year-old Farritor, formerly a SpaceX intern under Musk, now serves as an "executive engineer" in the Office of the Secretary of Health and Human Services. He has been granted access to U.S. Agency for International Development systems and has requested access to the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services systems, which handle contracts.
He was awarded part of a $700,000 prize in 2024 for using AI technology to decode a 2,000-year-old document from the Vesuvius scrolls of Pompeii—an ancient text that scientists had been attempting, and failing, to unravel for centuries.
At just 19, Coristine is the youngest of the bunch. He has already been dubbed an “expert” in his field. However, it is unclear what his role in DOGE would be. Reports indicate that he has been conducting calls with department staff and making them “go over code they had written and justify their jobs.” His father is the CEO of the popcorn company LesserEvil.
Shoatran, 22, founded Energize AI, an AI-powered scheduling assistant for professionals, which received a $100,000 grant from OpenAI in 2023. He also participated in Musk’s xAI "hackathon," where his team finished as runner-ups after using xAI's Grok to generate plausible responses from X followers to a hypothetical question.
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