WIRED Talked to a Fired DOGE Staffer About Who Was Really in Charge

With Elon Musk and other leaders of the so-called Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) purportedly on their way out, WIRED spoke with a fired DOGE staffer about his experience, how the group communicates, who appears to be in charge—and what might be coming next.

Earlier this week, Sahil Lavingia published a blog post on his personal website detailing his 55-day stint within DOGE. Lavingia, who WIRED first identified as a member of DOGE at the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA), is the CEO of Gumroad, a platform that helps creatives sell their work.

In his post, Lavingia describes the kinds of projects he worked on at the VA and his overall impressions of working with DOGE. Lavingia described the DOGE operations as “disorganized,” with little information sharing across different teams.

This could all change soon, as Musk has spent the last few weeks saying that he is going to be largely leaving his DOGE duties behind. Two of his closest lieutenants, Steve Davis and Nicole Hollander, appear to be departing as well. Davis, who has worked with Musk for years, including at X and as the CEO of the Boring Company, has been integral to the day-to-day operations of DOGE.

Without Davis at the helm, Lavingia says, it’s unclear who will lead DOGE—and in what direction.

“Steven was the only person who was across everything,” Lavingia tells WIRED.

Musk, Davis, and Hollander did not reply to WIRED’s requests for comment.

Lavingia told WIRED that Davis appeared to be the person directing most of the DOGE activities at different agencies, and was in direct contact with all the DOGE members at various points. Generally, in Lavingia’s experience, that correspondence happened using the encrypted messaging app Signal.

Experts and lawmakers have previously warned that using Signal for official government communications could violate laws that require government employees to maintain records of all communications. Earlier this year, then national security adviser Mike Waltz accidentally added the editor of The Atlantic to a Signal group chat where Waltz and other senior officials in the Trump administration discussed imminent and sensitive military actions in Yemen.

Davis, Lavingia says, would message priorities to whoever was the DOGE team lead at a given agency. At the VA, Lavingia tells WIRED, Davis instructed the DOGE team to prioritize reviewing contracts for cancellation. Davis would message Lavingia periodically to check in about how his work was going, but would rarely reply to Lavingia’s responses, he says.

According to Lavingia, in late March, Davis was present at a meeting with Musk, called an “E meeting.” Many of the DOGE workers he encountered at that meeting, Lavingia says, appeared mostly focused on executing tasks that Davis had assigned to them.

Two other Musk loyalists, Anthony Armstrong and Baris Akis, were present at the “E meeting.” These three men— Armstrong, Akis, and Davis—appeared to be the people in charge, Lavingia says.

“Steven is basically like a chief of staff or body man when Elon was there,” he says.