6 young people shake America, Musk reveals mysterious DOGE team, average age 22, giving up 7-figure salaries to save America

Source: Chinese Life Network

Since Donald Trump officially took office, just two weeks have passed, and the "Department of Government Efficiency" (DOGE), led by Musk, has jumped from a mysterious agency to the focus of global media. What has brought it into the spotlight is a shocking move—shutting down the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), which has a history of over 60 years.

As its name suggests, DOGE is centered around the core concept of "streamlining and efficiency," and its operational approach is highly disruptive. The entire department consists of six young individuals aged between 19 and 25, among whom three are still in college. They have been directly entrusted with significant responsibilities, taking on key engineering roles and tasked with reducing government costs. For Musk, this young elite team is not only the core strength of DOGE but also a testing ground for future reforms in government operations.

According to WIRED magazine, 19-year-old Edward Coristine is the youngest among this group of "young faces," and he is engaged in reforming the U.S. corporate sector and long-standing government institutions. His specific responsibilities are not yet clear, but he has been hailed as an "expert" in his field.

Additionally, 21-year-old Akash Bobba, 22-year-old Ethan Shaotran, and 23-year-old Luke Farritor are also part of the team. Reports indicate that they have received "A-suite level clearance," meaning they can work in top-level government offices and have access to all physical spaces and IT systems.

The oldest among them is 25-year-old Gavin Kliger, a Berkeley graduate. Although he has not been identified as having the highest level of clearance, he has already proven to wield significant power.

Finally, Gautier Cole Killian has been appointed as a member of the Digital Government Expert Group (DOGE) and is reportedly still a "volunteer" at this stage.

After widespread media criticism regarding the youth of these appointees yesterday, Musk issued a statement on these appointments.

Musk wrote on X: "It must be acknowledged that the media reports stating DOGE has the best software engineers in the world are indeed true."

25-Year-Old Gavin Kliger

According to The New York Times, 25-year-old Kliger is the account holder of a controversial internal email from USAID.

This Berkeley graduate issued a directive to all USAID employees, instructing them not to return to the Washington headquarters on Monday.

Meanwhile, up to 600 staff members reported being locked out of their work computer systems and unable to access the office platform normally. This situation is strikingly similar to the mass account bans and access restrictions that occurred during Elon Musk's acquisition of Twitter (now X).

After the incident, Kliger published a paid article on Substack titled "Why Choose DOGE? Why I Gave Up a Seven-Figure Salary to Save America."

23-Year-Old Luke Farritor

Luke Farritor has a prior connection with Musk, having interned at SpaceX before landing his new job.

Luke dropped out of the University of Nebraska to work for Nat Friedman, the Silicon Valley entrepreneur behind GitHub.

After the announcement of Friedman being appointed as Secretary of Energy and Environment, he stated that Luke is a "national treasure."

In 2024, this young man gained acclaim for using artificial intelligence to help decipher a scroll from the ancient city of Pompeii, which had been severely damaged. Scientists have been trying to crack this document for centuries but have failed, and Luke won a portion of a $700,000 prize for his efforts.

19-Year-Old Edward Coristine

The youngest member of Musk's elite team is just 19 years old and is a student at Northeastern University in Boston.

Reportedly, last summer, Coristine interned at Musk's Neuralink for three months after graduating from high school. His role in DOGE is not well-known, but he is listed as an "expert."

WIRED cited sources saying that Coristine has been calling department staff to have them 'review the code they wrote and justify their work.'

Reports indicate that he appeared on a conference call with General Services Administration staff, but the staff did not know who he was or why he was there.

Coristine was born into a business family and is the heir to his father's popcorn brand, Lesser Evil. He was a team member of that brand. Reports suggest that until recently, Coristine was using a social media account named "@EdwardBigBaller."

21-Year-Old Akash Bobba

Bobba is another "expert" in the department and is still studying at the University of California, Berkeley. According to a now-deleted former LinkedIn account, Bobba was an investment engineering intern at a hedge fund.

Previously, he also interned at Meta and Palantir (founded by 2016 MAGA donor Peter Thiel). Just six years ago, Bobba was an organizer for the local Model United Nations at the Princeton border in New Jersey. His father is a computer science scholar.

22-Year-Old Ethan Shaotran

Shaotran founded Energize AI, a company that provides scheduling assistants for professionals. This startup received a $100,000 grant from OpenAI in 2023.

The 22-year-old stated last September that he is a senior at Harvard University and is reportedly researching self-driving cars in the school's computing lab.

Musk is trying to develop self-driving cars at Tesla's headquarters, which has made headlines.

Shaotran is also a member of the Harvard Mountaineering Club and has served as a dive master during a break in Hawaii.

He also has a unique connection to Musk, having participated in Musk's xAI "hackathon." He and his team used xAI's Grok to create plausible answers to a hypothetical question, ultimately finishing as runners-up.

24-Year-Old Gautier Cole Killian

Killian previously worked as an engineer at Jump Trading, a company specializing in high-frequency financial trading and algorithms. Reports indicate that he is now a "volunteer" in the Digital Government Office, but his specific position remains unclear.

This 24-year-old graduated from McGill University.

Their rise marks an unprecedented experiment—transforming a massive government institution with an extremely streamlined and highly technical team. Whether this will lead to a revolution in administrative management that completely overturns the traditional bureaucratic system or merely be a brief and controversial political spectacle remains to be seen.