Former DOGE Insider Reveals What Musk’s Team Was Really Like

Morning Wire

Former DOGE staffer Tyler Hassen joins Morning Wire to discuss his experience inside Elon Musk's Department of Government Efficiency, detailing how he was recruited, the bureaucratic bloat he

Key takeaways

• Tyler Hassen was recruited to DOGE after reaching out through Mar-a-Lago contacts and was assigned to lead efficiency efforts at the Department of Interior under Secretary Doug Burgum.
• The Department of Interior alone operated 50 separate HR offices and employed over 4,000 personnel in HR and IT due to decades-old manual systems and massive staffing bloat.

Main topics

• DOGE recruitment and internal operations
• Federal bureaucratic bloat and IT inefficiency

Notable quotes

The debt doesn't care if you're Republican or Democrat. The debt just is building and compounding.

Conclusion

The episode provides an insider's defense of DOGE's methodology, reframing its legacy as a

Transcript preview

Speaker 4 (0:00) Okay, first, before we give you the facts of the day, Run, Hide, Fight! Infidels is streaming now only on Daily Wire. It's an ode to the great action movies of the 80s and 90s. There's even a love story which nobody expected. And you can support Daily Wire's mission to continue making movies that people actually want to watch. Go check it out. Speaker 4 (0:21) In the early days of President Trump's second term, the Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, was formed with the goal of reducing bureaucratic bloat and wasteful spending throughout the federal government. Speaker 1 (0:32) Headed up by Elon Musk, the organization became a lightning rod for controversy among media outlets, with many legacy networks questioning its authority within the hierarchy of the federal government. Speaker 4 (0:42) DOGE ceased operations in July of this year, but now a former member of the organization is publicly telling his story. in a new book titled Inside Doge. Speaker 1 (0:51) In this episode, we sit down with the author Tyler Hassan to discuss the success, failures, and long-term lessons from the Doge experiment. I'm Daily Wire Executive Editor John Bickley with Georgia Howe. This is a weekend edition of Morning Wire. Speaker 1 (1:07) You Speaker 3 (1:07) know those pieces in your closet that you find yourself reaching for over and over again? The sweater that works with everything, the jeans that you know will always fit, and the bag that you carry everywhere. These are the pieces that earn a permanent place in your wardrobe. That's exactly what Quince does so well. Quince makes elevated everyday essentials using premium materials like Mongolian cashmere, organic cotton, and premium stretch denim. The designs are timeless, thoughtfully crafted, and made to be worn again and again. This week, as it was getting colder, I found myself reaching for the organic cotton sweater jacket in navy every day. It was like I was Goldilocks. This sweater was too thick, this was too thin, but my Quince sweater was just right. Everything at Quince is priced 50 to 80 % less than similar brands. They work directly with ethical factories and cut out the middlemen. So you're paying for quality, not brand markup. Find the fall pieces you'll reach for most at Quince. Download the Quince app for app-exclusive offers or go to quince.com. Get free shipping on your order and 365 day returns. Now available in Canada and the UK too. And when Quince asks where you heard about them, let them know it was Morning Wire. It's the best way to support the show. Speaker 1 (2:12) Joining us now is the author of the book Inside Doge, Tyler Hassan. Tyler, thanks for coming on. Thank you. Thank you for having me on. So you've been very successful in your career. You've been an oil executive. You served in the Department of the Interior under Secretary Doug Burgum, who we've talked to too. You were tapped then to serve in Doge. How were you chosen and what were you doing within Doge? Well, so I Speaker 2 (2:37) woke up after the election and was really excited about the the focus on the deficit. The national debt has really bothered me. You know, when I graduated college, it was $8 trillion. Now today it's over $40 trillion. And so I kind of just reached out to some friends and said, do you know anyone that might be involved with this administration? Got in touch with someone at Mar-a-Lago, had a few interviews, then got connected with Elon's team and kind of ended up in DC. It was wild. And at first, you know, my wife thought I was a little bit crazy. And by the end of it, she was all on board, which was great. Speaker 4 (3:09) So what was it like actually working in the organization? Tell us about how it evolved and what your role was. Speaker 2 (3:17) Well, so I first started at SpaceX in the SpaceX office in D.C. with, you know, a bunch of engineers, a bunch of business leaders, and surprisingly, a bunch of women as well. You know, one of the things I talk about in my book, and, you know, a lot of people don't realize that how great these young patriots were and also how many women were involved because they didn't want to step into the spotlight. But so we were given opportunities to be Doge leads,