A former employee of Elon Musk's Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) claims he was fired just one day after an interview where he stated 'the government works'. Sahil Lavingia, CEO of tech startup Gumroad, shared his experience in a blog post.
Lavingia, who served as a senior advisor, said he found fewer inefficiencies than expected. He noted the culture shock was mostly 'a lot of meetings, not a lot of decisions'.
Lavingia spent 55 days at the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA). He worked on extracting employee data and implementing artificial intelligence. He expressed frustration with the lack of knowledge sharing and team culture.
He recounted an instance where Musk asked how to improve public perception of the agency. Lavingia suggested open-sourcing his work, which Musk agreed to. Lavingia felt DOGE was more like 'McKinsey volunteers' than a revolutionary force.
Lavingia said he used a large language model to review contracts at the VA. He also built tools to assist with layoff efforts and speed up AI implementation. He claimed he couldn't get approval to implement changes that would improve lives and save taxpayer money.
Lavingia expressed disappointment in his lack of progress. He also noted ambitious software projects already underway at the VA. These included reducing veterans' benefits claims processing time.
Musk abruptly left his position as head of DOGE. This followed tensions with Trump officials and criticism of a spending bill. Several other high-ranking officials have also departed DOGE.