Recent hires to the Office of Personnel Management have tipped Elon Musk's hand and revealed the only qualification that will matter in the coming Musk-assisted shakeups of the federal government: personal loyalty.
A report from Wired revealed that Musk lackeys have been placed throughout the structure of the OPM, an agency that acts as a human resources department for federal employees. While the insertion of former employees at Musk's Boring Company and xAI as advisers is alarming, nothing quite illustrated the point like the hiring of two former Musk associates who aren't yet old enough to rent a car.
The outlet reports that the upper echelons of OPM include a 21-year-old software engineer who formerly worked at Palantir, the analytics company owned by Musk's former Paypal partner Peter Thiel. Another unnamed employee graduated from high school this year and reportedly lists bicycle mechanic and camp counselor on their resume, alongside an internship at Musk's Neuralink.
Musk was hand-picked by Trump to head the Department of Government Efficiency, with a mandate to cut government spending by slashing the federal workforce. The Trump administration side-stepped the red tape of advisory committees by creating DOGE out of the already existing U.S. Digital Service. His early acts appear to be moves to surround himself with loyalists that could help him politicize the formerly neutral OPM.
“My guess is that typically, in the past, there have been only one or maybe two political appointees in all of OPM. All the rest are career. So this seems like a very political heavy presence in an organization that is not very political,” Harvard professor emeritus Steven Kelman told the magazine.
The OPM has already signaled its intentions to weed out employees involved in diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives. Many federal employees received an email promoting a digital tip line for employees to rat on supposed DEI programs within the government. Kelman said that the system of "turning in your friends to the government" was reminiscent of "Soviet Stalinism."
