JD Vance Supports Rehiring Engineer Accused of Anti-Indian Remarks as Musk Considers His Return
Vance Calls for ‘Normalize Indian Hate’ DOGE Guy to Be Hired Back
Elon Musk has suggested he might rehire the 25-year-old engineer at his Department of Government Efficiency.
JD Vance, whose wife is the daughter of Indian immigrants, advocated Friday for the rehiring of a Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) engineer who was accused of posting “normalize Indian hate” on X.
Vance acknowledged he disagreed with “some” of what 25-year-old Marko Elez had reportedly posted on a burner X account but said he does not think “stupid social media activity should ruin a kid’s life.”
“So I say bring him back,” Vance said on X. “If he’s a bad dude or a terrible member of the team, fire him for that.”
A flurry of people rushed to remark that Elez’s posts—in which he allegedly wrote someone “could not pay me to marry outside of my ethnicity” and “I was racist before it was cool”—were proof enough he was a “bad dude.”
Others praised Vance for standing up for Elez, however, and Elon Musk appears to be at least considering hiring him back at DOGE.
Musk wrote in an X poll: “Bring back @DOGE staffer who made inappropriate statements via a now deleted pseudonym?”
The overwhelming majority of users voted in favor of bringing Elez back.
ADVERTISEMENT
Many in the poll’s comments said they agreed with Vance, who also wrote of Elez’s situation: “We shouldn’t reward journalists who try to destroy people. Ever.”
The Wall Street Journal first revealed Elez’s old posts on Thursday. The report said Elez had resigned after the White House was asked to comment about his possible ties to the account.
ADVERTISEMENT
That account—username @nullllptr—disparaged Indians in the tech sector amid the MAGA civil war between Musk, who supports the H1-B foreign worker visa program, and Trump lackey Steve Bannon, who wants it abolished.
In a post that appeared to be directed at Indian software engineers amid the debate, the account reportedly wrote, “99% of Indian H1Bs will be replaced by slightly smarter LLMs, they’re going back don’t worry guys.” “LLMs” stands for Large Language Models, which are artificial intelligence programs that use deep learning to process language.
Elez, a Rutgers University graduate, worked for Musk’s SpaceX, Starlink, and X before he landed a gig at DOGE, where he was granted access to the Treasury Department’s “top-secret” payment system.
