DOGE alumni have leveraged their government experience, raising at least half a billion dollars for firms spanning cyberwarfare, AI and data centers, a Post analysis found.
Etienne Note: So DOGE inserted folks into the top spots at the Pentagon and other “government” agencies who meet everyone, understand the issues, then bail out and start venture funded companies that will go to win billions in “government” contracts benefiting the DOGE and “government” insiders that will likely be early investors. Sounds completely legit…
By Faiz Siddiqui, Elizabeth Dwoskin and Meryl Kornfield, The Washington Post
Last year, billionaire Elon Musk unleashed a small army of Silicon Valley techies to drain what he called the “swamp” of Washington — wielding the U.S. DOGE Service to slash at a bureaucracy they argued was bloated and corrupt.
But today, many of his former DOGE foot soldiers have leveraged their government stints to fuel private-sector ambitions: building companies that tap government largesse or that deploy knowledge they garnered during their brief tenures in Washington.A Washington Post analysis found that roughly two dozen former DOGE staffers have parlayed their government experience into relevant private-sector jobs or investments — becoming founders, securing CEO positions or senior executive roles, amassing large stakes in start-ups looking to win government contracts or approvals, or taking the skills developed at DOGE to the private sector. Though several of the businesses are only months old, with little public activity, at least six DOGE alumni have registered on Sam.gov, a government contracting portal examined by The Post.
The migration of former staffers from DOGE — short for the Department of Government Efficiency — into the private sector has prompted a burst of funding for their businesses. Start-ups founded by, or with key investment from, DOGE alumni have raised at least half a billion dollars in funding, according to an analysis of government data, investor research platforms and venture capital funding disclosures, paired with lists of confirmed DOGE members compiled by The Post, the New York Times and ProPublica.
They have built a cottage industry of ambitious but largely untested businesses, often helmed by inexperienced founders, sometimes drawing initial valuations in the billions of dollars.Despite DOGE’s shaky track record on trimming the federal budget, the private sector has come to see experience with the group as a valuable commodity, said Jeff Hauser, executive director of the Revolving Door Project, a nonprofit-sponsored organization that advocates for government work to serve the public interest.“They have enormous juice,” he said of ex-DOGE members, adding that they effectively combine two coveted power centers — Silicon Valley knowledge and government connections — leading to a dynamic where technologists with intimate, albeit limited knowledge of government functions and sometimes hyper-partisan viewpoints are in demand.“The student has become the master,” Hauser said.The start-ups include a host of firms focused on cybersecurity and defense technology, as well as ventures dedicated to helping businesses across America deploy artificial intelligence tools.
Among the largest is Cathedral, an AI-enabled cybersecurity firm, founded by Gavin Kliger and Luke Farritor. Valued by investors at $1.4 billion, Cathedral aims to sell to both corporate America and government agencies, including the Pentagon, according to a person familiar with the business, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the firm has not made its operations public.Kliger joined the Pentagon in 2025 and served as the Defense Department’s chief data officer until April 2026, according to his LinkedIn. He began fundraising for Cathedral by May. A Pentagon instruction issued in 2020, during the first Trump administration, said senior employees are barred from seeking government contracts for up to two years after serving. But fundraising for start-ups intending to seek government work would probably fall into a gray area, Hauser said.
Cathedral declined to comment. The Pentagon did not respond to a request for comment.Farritor, who has since left the company but still owns shares and “remains close,” the person said, served in roles across the Energy Department, the Health and Human Services Department and the General Services Administration during DOGE’s initial six-month blitz.The co-founders of Special, a start-up that aims to “transform critical American industries” through AI, said in a company announcement that its founders were “motivated to extend the ethos of our work at DOGE back into the private sector.”Special did not respond to a request for comment.A former senior government ethics official said the large investment garnered by ex-DOGE members exceeds any example of trading on government experience he’s previously seen.
Before the second Trump administration, many DOGE members were relative unknowns in Silicon Valley and unlikely to draw major investment.“It has the appearance that they found a new way to monetize government service that is far beyond anything lobbyists ever dreamed of,” said Norm Eisen, who served as a White House ethics lawyer during the Obama administration and chairs a group that has filed numerous lawsuits challenging DOGE and its authority.The revolving door that rewards public service with private-sector windfalls is a long-running and oft-criticized facet of federal work. An entire industry of executives, advisers and K Street lobbyists has leveraged experience in government for profit.But those former officials often bring deep subject-matter experience and long track records, far exceeding the months-long government tenures allowed for the many DOGE members serving as special government employees.While DOGE faced widespread public disapproval and fell far short of Musk’s promised $2 trillion in cuts, alumni have pitched their government experience as an asset to investors, said four people familiar with the pitches from Cathedral and Special, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe private conversations.Some investors view the founders’ time working in the tight-knit, pressurized environment of DOGE as an asset, according to one of the people, who compared it to undergoing training in efficiency.
It’s “less about what they got done in the time they had” than the mindsetthey developed from being part of DOGE, the person said: Looking deeply into government, “what did they see about what could be built or fixed?”As former DOGE officials have moved into the private sector, they have formed an increasingly interconnected business network, investing in and working with one another. Two of Cathedral’s board members, venture capitalists Marc Andreessen of Andreessen Horowitz and Sequoia’s Shaun Maguire, are allies of President Donald Trump who helped advise DOGE.“I believe DOGE will be looked back upon as a generationally important program, and the Cathedral founders were some of its most talented builders,” Maguire said in a text message. Andreessen Horowitz, which has also invested in Special, declined to comment.Special — founded by former DOGE members Nate Cavanaugh and Justin Fox — has drawn investment from at least seven former DOGE staffers or associates, according to a post from Andreessen Horowitz.
One of its investors, Banner VC, was founded by former DOGE members Adam Ramada and Brooks Morgan. The venture capital firm has raised nearly $300 million to date, according to Crunchbase.
Representatives of Banner VC did not respond to requests for comment.Blitz Industries, founded by former DOGE member Ethan Shaotran, is registered to bid for government contract awards on Sam.gov. A LinkedIn page for Shaotran says he is “Rapidly hiring!”While some firms now helmed by DOGE alumni have existed for years, a Post analysis of investor-focused sites, including Crunchbase and Pitchbook, and fundraising data, including Crunchbase’s Heat Score, found that the companies began attracting more investment interest after their leaders’ time in DOGE, leaving them flush with capital.After former DOGE member Stephen Ehikian was appointed CEO in September 2025 of C3 AI, an AI software company targeted to federal and private customers, its stock increased by about 20 percent in the following weeks. In December, the company announced that the Department of Health and Human Services had selected C3 to power AI enterprise software, in what Ehikian called in a news release “a major step toward a modern, AI-ready architecture for national health data.”C3 did not respond to a request for comment.Others were able to pivot their careers post-DOGE, taking on high-level roles in areas where they had little experience.After Tyler Hassen, a former DOGE staffer appointed to the Department of Interior, was named CEO of a cleaning supply company in June, the business announced a shift to focus on providing infrastructure and permitting for data center buildouts.
It soon unveiled a new name, Zone Frontier, and announced a $100 million public offering. Alex Spiro, who has served as Musk’s attorney, was appointed as the chairman of its board of directors.Hassen, a former oil executive without tech experience before joining DOGE, said in an earlier interview with The Post that he was inspired by his time working with AI in the government to bring that experience to the private sector.Some DOGE alumni have found themselves working in spaces dependent on government approvals.
Unlike other DOGE members, Elie Mishory joined the cost-cutting group with prior government experience, including nearly two years in senior roles at the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission, according to his LinkedIn profile.
In June, Mishory took a job as chief regulatory and legal affairs officer for Novig, a sports prediction market company backed by start-up incubator Y Combinator and venture capital firm Lux Capital, which is also a Cathedral investor.Novig’s regulatory approval from the Commodity Futures Trading Commission was touted in an August news release as “among the fastest in CFTC history.” In the release, Mishory said the certification was “approved in record time.”Novig did not respond to a request for comment.For some investors, however, the DOGE connection carries a potential downside: It could draw scrutiny if Democrats regain control of Congress, according to two of the people familiar with DOGE investment pitches.Investors have advised some of the founders to prepare for a potential midterm sweep by seeking to avoid the appearance of impropriety or hyper-partisanship, according to the two people.“Everything has been done fairly, cleanly, openly, transparently and assuming that anyone could be the poster child … for congressional ethics targets,” said one of the people.Hauser, of the Revolving Door Project, said government ethics rules were designed around long-tenured employees, without anticipating the outcomes of the temporary work arrangements afforded to many in DOGE.
Though short, these stints allowed them to learn intimate details about the agencies in which they served.“Washington is kind of vulnerable to this because a lot of our ethics laws were built in the 1970s [and] haven’t been updated since,” Hauser said. “There’s going to need to be a serial reconsideration of ethics laws.”
