One of Elon Musk’s nerd army is trolling his new fans by charging $1,000 to read a manifesto about why he joined DOGE – only to find the post is blank.
Gavin Kliger, 25, is one of six baby-faced boys with little-to-no government experience handpicked by the ‘First Buddy’ to sow havoc in the civil service.
He was the one who sent a company-wide email sent to employees at USAID telling them not to come into the agency’s Washington DC headquarters on Monday.
Kliger sent the instruction from a USAID email address he was provided with as part of high-level access to its systems, along with fellow DOGE nerd Luke Farritor.
While the staff were kept home, DOGE gained access to the agency’s IT system, building security, and classified materials, and began dismantling it.
Just hours before he sent the email, Kliger made a post on his Substack page titled: ‘Why DOGE. Why I gave up a seven-figure salary to save America.’
Unlike the rest of his Substack, the post was ‘subscriber only’ with a $1,000-a-month fee – or $10,000 for a whole year – to access a single word of it.
However, those who were curious enough to cough up the extraordinary fee found there wasn’t even that – the post was completely blank.
Gavin Kliger, 25, is one of six baby-faced boys with little-to-no government experience handpicked by Elon Musk to sow havoc in the civil service
Kliger made a post on his Substack page titled: ‘Why DOGE. Why I gave up a seven-figure salary to save America’. Despite a $1,000 paywall, it is completely empty
‘Poetically blank, please reevaluate your life choices,’ one comments on the post read.
Kliger furthered his elaborate trolling with a bizarre voicemail greeting that pointed anyone who called his registered phone number to the post.
‘I just wrote a beautiful Substack on this, the Weekly Byte, if you just go there, it’s behind the paywall, but I think it will answer that question for you… it’s pretty good,’ he said.
The one-minute greeting was an elongated version of the prank where the owner of the phone pretends to answer, but it is actually recorded.
Kliger first pretended he was driving through a tunnel and having trouble hearing the call, then eventually exclaiming, ‘They said what? No, no, I don’t think that’s right.’
The recorded message then made its pitch for the caller to read his Substack.
Despite its name, the Substack was not updated weekly, and only has two other posts – both of which are free to read.
Despite its name, Kliger’s Substack was not updated weekly, and only has three posts
Unlike the rest of his Substack, the post was ‘subscriber only’ with a $1,000-a-month fee – or $10,000 for a whole year – to access a single word of it
They are both strident defenses of Donald Trump’s most controversial cabinet nominations – Matt Gaetz and Pete Hegseth.
Gaetz was nominated for attorney-general but withdrew after a damning House report found he paid for sex with 17-year-old girl and numerous other misconducts.
Kliger’s post titled ‘The Curious Case of Matt Gaetz: How the Deep State Destroys Its Enemies’ portrayed Gaetz as an innocent victim who was ‘framed’.
His other post, ‘Pete Hegseth as Secretary of Defense: The Warrior Washington Fears’, was a passionate defense of the former Fox News host’s nomination filled with frequent Trump-ally talking points.
Hegseth was narrowly confirmed by the Senate despite his history of alcohol abuse and allegations of sexual assault and harassment.
Kliger’s claim that he left a ‘seven-figure job’ to join DOGE is also dubious as his private sector work history didn’t include such a role.
His most recent job, according to his LinkedIn, was as a ‘senior software engineer’ at Databricks, a cloud computing firm in San Francisco, from May 2020 to last month.
Salaries for that position at Databricks range from $102,000 to $308,000 a year according to Indeed, while Glassdoor puts the top end at $321,000, including bonus.
Kliger was the one who sent a company-wide email sent to employees at USAID telling them not to come into the agency’s Washington DC headquarters on Monday
The Berkeley graduate reportedly instructed all employees at the agency not to return to Washington headquarters on Monday
Kliger graduated from the University of California, Berkeley, in 2020 and interned at Twitter in 2019 – well before Musk’s takeover in 2022.
Musk last month appointed him a special adviser to the director for information technology at the Office of Personnel Management, where numerous other Musk lackeys were installed.
The Tesla owner has essentially taken over the OPM, along with the General Services Administration, through his leadership of DOGE.
Kliger’s now-deleted Github from his time at Berkeley claims he is an Eagle Scout, National Merit Scholar, National AP Scholar, a black belt first dan in Taekwondo, and an accomplished pianist.
‘I want to do work that will influence the future,’ it read.
‘Whether that means developing software, researching system deployment, or working in some other sphere, I know that I will contribute insight and creativity towards meeting the challenges I face.
‘In my spare time, I enjoy playing the piano and clarinet and attending music concerts at Berkeley. One of my favorite pastimes is playing online blitz chess.’
Kliger’s father, Larry Kliger, is president of Lawrence Allen & Associates, a commercial real estate firm.
Musk last month appointed Kliger a special adviser to the director for information technology at the Office of Personnel Management, where numerous other Musk lackeys were installed
Who are Musk’s other nerds?
Musk enlisted a troupe of young men aged 19 to 25 – three of whom are believed to still be in college – to fill high-powered engineering roles and cut costs.
At just 19, Edward Coristine is the youngest of the fresh-faced bunch taking on corporate America and longstanding government institutions.
According to WIRED, he’s been dubbed an ‘expert’ in his field, and specifics about his role aren’t yet clear.
Akash Bobba, 21, Ethan Shaotran, 22, and Luke Farritor, 23, along with Coristine, have reportedly been granted A-suite level clearance for their work, meaning they can work out of the agency’s top floor with access to all physical spaces and IT systems.
Musk’s DOGE has been rapidly growing in power and expanding its remit, most recently securing clearance to access to restricted parts of the General Services Administration buildings and IT systems.
These systems store sensitive data including social security numbers, addresses and contact information.
Elon Musk enlisted a troupe of young men aged 19 to 25 – three of whom are believed to still be in college – to fill high-powered engineering roles and cut costs
Finally, Gautier Cole Killian has been named for his role with DOGE, which is reportedly on a ‘volunteer’ basis at this stage.
After widespread criticism about the men’s youth, Musk released a statement about the appointments.
‘Time to confess: Media reports saying that DOGE has some of world’s best software engineers are in fact true,’ Musk wrote on X.
Luke Farritor, 23
Luke Farritor has a known link to Musk already, having interned for SpaceX prior to landing his new gig.
Farritor, dropped out of the University of Nebraska in order to begin working for Nat Friedman, the Silicon Valley entrepreneur behind GitHub.
Friedman described Farritor as ‘a national treasure’ after his appointment with DOGE was made public.
He won part of a $700,000 prize in 2024 after using AI technology to help decipher a 2,000 year old document – part of the Vesuvius scrolls from Pompeii – which scientists had been trying, and failing, to solve for centuries.
The charred scroll was believed burnt beyond recognition.
Luke Farritor has a known link to Musk already, having interned for SpaceX prior to landing his new gig
Edward Coristine, 19
The youngest of Musk’s elite squad is just 19 and a student at Northeastern University in Boston.
Coristine reportedly interned at Musk’s Neuralink for three months last summer, after graduating high school.
Little is known about Coristine’s role at DOGE, however he is listed as an ‘expert.’
WIRED cited sources alleging Coristine has been conducting calls with staff in the department and making them ‘go over code they had written and justify their jobs.’
Employees were allegedly confused by his inclusion in the meetings, and later expressed concerns that they were not properly briefed on his identity or role, even during the call.
Coristine’s father, Charles, is the chief executive of popcorn empire, LesserEvil. Coristine once worked as a team member for the brand.
Up until recently, Coristine reportedly used a social media handle named ‘@EdwardBigBaller.’
The youngest of Musk’s elite squad is just 19 and a student at Northeastern University in Boston
Akash Bobba, 21
Bobba is another ‘expert’ within the department still studying at the University of California, Berkeley.
According to a former LinkedIn account, which has since been deleted, Bobba was an investment engineering intern at a hedge fund.
He had also previously interned for Meta and Palantir – who was founded by 2016 MAGA donor, Peter Thiel.
Just six years ago, Bobba was the organizer behind the Princeton Junction, New Jersey, local model United Nations. His father is an academic in computer science.
Bobba spoke at his graduation ceremony from West Windsor-Plainsboro South High School in July 2021, telling his classmates to ‘appreciate the complexity in life’.
”We live in an age where simplicity reigns supreme, where 30-second TikToks and 280-character tweets come to define our identities,’ he said.
‘This increasing willingness to simplify even the most complex narratives into sensational tidbits, perpetuates misinformation and in the process divides the communities, families, and relationships we cherish.
‘What’s the solution, you might ask? Seek discomfort.’
Bobba is another ‘expert’ within the department still studying at the University of California, Berkeley
Ethan Shaotran, 22
Shaortran founded Energize AI – a scheduling assistant for professionals. The startup earned a $100,000 grant from OpenAI in 2023.
The 22-year-old said in September he was a senior at Harvard University, and was working in the school’s computing lab on autonomous vehicles.
Musk is famously trying to develop self-driving cars at his Tesla headquarters.
Shaortran is part of the Harvard Mountaineering Club and worked as a scuba divemaster in Hawaii over a gap year.
He also has a link to Musk, having participated in his xAI ‘hackathon’. He and his team were runner ups after they used xAI’s Grok to create plausible responses from X followers to a hypothetical question.
Shaortran founded Energize AI – a scheduling assistant for professionals. The startup earned a $100,000 grant from OpenAI in 2023
Gautier Cole Killian, 24
Killian was working as an engineer at Jump Trading, which specializes in high-frequency financial trades and algorithms.
Now, he is reportedly working as a ‘volunteer’ with DOGE, although in what capacity remains unclear.
The 24-year-old graduated McGill University.
Killian was working as an engineer at Jump Trading, which specializes in high-frequency financial trades and algorithms
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Musk’s DOGE boasts sweeping power
Musk is leading an extraordinary civilian review of the federal government with Trump’s agreement.
‘It became apparent that it’s not an apple with a worm it in,’ Musk said in a live session on X Spaces early Monday.
‘What we have is just a ball of worms. You’ve got to basically get rid of the whole thing. It’s beyond repair.’
Musk recently hinted he was also the mastermind behind Trump’s decision to purge federal employees by posting a symbolic picture on X harkening back to his infamous Twitter cleanse.
At the time, he sent a letter to staff titled: ‘A Fork in the Road.’ The same title was used in Trump’s recent email proposing generous lay-off packages
Musk later shared on X that he commissioned an artwork of an enormous fork standing in the road, indicating it was all connected.
Musk does not hold elected office, but on Monday was formally appointed a ‘special government employee’ by the White House.
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