Musk says he will bring back DOGE staffer who resigned following reports of racist social media postings

Elon Musk rehires Marko Elez after social media controversy, supported by VP JD Vance and President Trump.

Elon Musk said on Friday he is re-hiring a staff member at the Department of Government Efficiency who resigned a day earlier after he was linked to social media posts that espoused racism.

Mr. Musk, in a post on his social media network X, said he would bring back Marko Elez after Vice President JD Vance called for him to be rehired. President Donald Trump later endorsed his vice president's view.

Marko Elez resigned Thursday after The Wall Street Journal linked the 25-year-old DOGE staffer to a deleted social media account on X that posted last year, “I was racist before it was cool” and “You could not pay me to marry outside of my ethnicity,” among other posts.

The account in September included a post that said, “Normalize Indian hate." The vice president's wife, Usha Vance, is the daughter of Indian immigrants.

Mr. Vance, in a post on Musk-owned X, said Mr. Elez should be brought back and blamed “journalists who try to destroy people.”

“I obviously disagree with some of Elez’s posts, but I don’t think stupid social media activity should ruin a kid’s life,” Vance said.

“I’m with the vice president,” Trump told a news conference Friday.