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| Musk to rehire Doge aide who resigned over racist posts | Musk to rehire Doge aide who resigned over racist posts |
| (32 minutes later) | |
| Elon Musk has said he will rehire an employee of his newly formed Department of Government Efficiency (Doge) who resigned after being linked to a racist social media account. | Elon Musk has said he will rehire an employee of his newly formed Department of Government Efficiency (Doge) who resigned after being linked to a racist social media account. |
| "He will be brought back," Musk posted on X, the social media platform he owns. "To err is human, to forgive divine." | "He will be brought back," Musk posted on X, the social media platform he owns. "To err is human, to forgive divine." |
| Media reports tied Marko Elez, 25, who previously worked for Musk's SpaceX company, to a now-deleted social media account that posted the incendiary comments. | Media reports tied Marko Elez, 25, who previously worked for Musk's SpaceX company, to a now-deleted social media account that posted the incendiary comments. |
| Vice-President JD Vance had said earlier in the day that the young employee should be given a second chance. | Vice-President JD Vance had said earlier in the day that the young employee should be given a second chance. |
| The account connected to Mr Elez - first reported by the Wall Street Journal - posted a variety of inflammatory comments that were verified by the BBC as authentic. | |
| "Just for the record, I was racist before it was cool," read one post from the pseudonymous account in July. | |
| Another post, in September, said: "You could not pay me to marry outside of my ethnicity." | |
| "Normalize Indian hate," another post that month said. | |
| All of the posts have since been deleted. | |
| 15 things Trump and his team did this week | |
| USAID could slash staff to hundreds after placing most on leave | |
| 'People seem dumbstruck' - Inside Musk's race to upend government | |
| On Friday, President Donald Trump, when asked about Mr Elez's resignation from Doge and Vance's support for the employee, said he didn't know about "that particular thing", but agreed with the vice-president on the matter. | |
| Writing on X, Vance said that while he disagreed "with some of Elez's posts... I don't think stupid social media activity should ruin a kid's life". | |
| Earlier in the day, Musk posted a poll on X inviting users to say whether the staff member should be brought back. | |
| At least 78% voted in favour of his return out of hundreds of thousands who participated, according to results displayed underneath. | |
| Responding to one user who said Musk should have a talk with Mr Elez "about the racist stuff. Not cool", the billionaire replied: "True." | |
| Mr Elez's resignation comes amid growing scrutiny of Doge, the government cost-cutting advisory group established by Trump. | |
| On Thursday, a US judge threw up a roadblock to one of those initiatives, halting a plan to offer incentives to millions of federal workers to voluntarily resign this month. | |
| Musk has championed an effort to dismantle USAID, the government agency responsible for international development. | |
| All but a handful of essential staff - from a workforce of about 10,000 people - are set to be put on administrative leave at midnight on Friday, including thousands based overseas. | |
| Watch: Trump says Musk’s Doge will review defence and education spending |