Elon Musk may be leaving Washington D.C., but his DOGE initiative continues to rampage through the government, causing chaos wherever it goes. Case in point: Wired now reports that the initiative has hired a “young man with no government experience” to help revise federal regulations at the Department of Housing and Urban Development. That man, Christopher Sweet, hasn’t even completed his undergraduate degree yet, the outlet claims.
Wired cites internal emails to reveal Sweet’s onboarding at the agency: “I’d like to share with you that Chris Sweet has joined the HUD DOGE team with the title of special assistant, although a better title might be ‘Al computer programming quant analyst,’” an email sent by DOGE staffer Scott Lanmack reads. “With family roots from Brazil, Chris speaks Portuguese fluently. Please join me in welcoming Chris to HUD!”
Sweet’s role with the government will apparently involve an effort to use software to revise and downsize government regulations at the housing agency. The outlet writes:
Sweet’s primary role appears to be leading an effort to leverage artificial intelligence to review HUD’s regulations, compare them to the laws on which they are based, and identify areas where rules can be relaxed or removed altogether. (He has also been given read access to HUD’s data repository on public housing, known as the Public and Indian Housing Center Information Center, and its enterprise income verification systems, according to sources within the agency.)
Sweet’s recruitment is very much in line with DOGE’s overall modus operandi, which seems to be this: hire young, expendable tech nerds who don’t know what they’re doing, hurl them into legally sketchy activities that involve complex government processes, watch them flail and tell the public what a great job they’re doing. Indeed, DOGE’s army of pimply-faced government deconstructionists often seems so out of their depth that it’s a wonder that Washington D.C. isn’t literally on fire right now.
Speaking to reporters at the White House on Wednesday, Elon Musk admitted the initiative has fallen far short of his promise to cut $2 trillion in spending and had made many mistakes. “I think we’re probably getting things right 70-80% of the time,” he said. That’s not a great hit rate when millions of people’s lives depend on government programs.
All of it seems to support the working theory that DOGE isn’t really interested in making the government more efficient, but is actually trying to destroy a large number of agencies. Such a mandate would better align it with the policy blueprint laid out during Trump’s campaign: the right-wing libertarian Project 2025, which has sought to cut all but bare necessities of government.
Further supporting this theory is the fact that, despite DOGE’s apparent mission to cut government spending, the U.S. spent $220 billion more during Trump’s first 100 days compared to the spending rates during the same period in 2024.
