โI dropped out of Harvard and came here to serve my country, and itโs been unfortunate to see lost friendships,โ the staffer says.
A staffer of the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) said on May 1 that he dropped out of Harvard University to join the advisory commission and described losing friends and facing social ostracization at his former school afterward.
DOGE leader Elon Musk and his team sat down with Fox News host Jesse Watters for an interview that aired on Thursday evening, discussing some of their findings after auditing various federal agencies.
One DOGE member, Ethan, said he dropped out of Harvard University to join the advisory commission, which President Donald Trump created by executive order earlier this year to find waste, fraud, and abuse in the federal government.
Ethan said he has received threats and lost friends after joining DOGE.
โYoung folks of [DOGE] have gotten email threats from reporters and the public alike. Speaking for myself, I dropped out of Harvard and came here to serve my country, and itโs been unfortunate to see lost friendships,โ he said.
โMost of campus hates me now, but I think fundamentally, I hope, people realize through conversations like this that reform is genuinely needed.โ
Earlier this year, a source familiar with DOGEโs operationsโwho spoke on the condition of anonymity due to not having authorization to speak with the mediaโtold The Epoch Times that several young members of the DOGE team had faced threats after various reports revealed their names to the public.
The source said that federal law enforcement had been dispatched to protect family members of DOGE staffers after their names were leaked to the press.
Some anonymous users on the social platform Bluesky had made posts disclosing DOGE employeesโ names and faces, and in one post, the words โDead or Alive.โ
Rep. Derrick Van Orden (R-Wis.), who leads the House DOGE Caucusโs defense and veteransโ affairs portfolio, told The Epoch Times that โif those people broke the law by doxxing these folks and doing that and threatening them, they should be thrown into prison.โ
โI donโt mean jail. I donโt mean a fine,โ he added. โPeople that are doing these death threats need to go to prison, or itโs not going to stop.โ
U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia Ed Martin wrote in a public letter to Musk and DOGE recruiter Steve Davis that those โdiscovered to have broken the law or even acted simply unethicallyโ against the advisory commission would be pursued โto the end of the Earthโ in the name of accountability.
Byย Jacob Burgย andย Nathan Worcester