Elon Musk’s DOGE and his team of geniuses have caused outcry across the nation over their access to American’s Social Security and other private payment data.
While Musk has said the Department of Government Efficiency is only auditing the federal government for signs of fraud and waste, the public sees it as a national security threat.
However, a top cybersecurity expert told DailyMail.com that DOGE is a necessary solution to fix a decrepit government computer system that’s fallen decades behind the times.
Cybersecurity guru James Knight said: ‘It’s a mess. It’s an absolute mess. A lot of these systems shouldn’t be on the Internet. There needs to be accountability, and there needs to be that that drive to improve.’
According to President Trump in March, around 100 people currently work for DOGE, with many of them being in the middle or very beginning of their careers as software developers, Supreme Court clerks, consultants, or corporate financiers.
‘They’re doing a fantastic job. These are some of the brightest minds, and I think, no matter what side somebody is politically, coming up with efficiencies in any area is certainly a fantastic idea,’ Knight said.
Despite receiving praise from some in the tech industry like Knight, violent protests disrupting the billionaire’s businesses have pushed President Trump to admit that Musk will need to return to the private sector and oversee his companies in the near future.
Although the president said each federal agency would keep working with the DOGE team, there’s already speculation that the workers streamlining America’s computer systems will disappear too – leaving the US in the same tech mess it’s been in.
Reports that Elon Musk would be immediately stepping down from his leadership position in DOGE began swirling in early April
The White House has already pushed back on Musk quitting his budget-slashing role in Washington, with Trump saying he wants the Tesla and SpaceX CEO in charge ‘as long as possible.’
Knight said it would be a major mistake for the DOGE team to completely shut down after Musk’s suspected departure, as the young ‘whiz kids’ may be the key to unlocking a digital renaissance in 2025.
The cyber warfare expert told DailyMail.com these are the right people to not only find ways to cut government costs but also upgrade a decades-old computer infrastructure on the verge of catastrophe.
DOGE was officially signed into existence on January 20, 2025 by executive order of President Trump, with a mission to ‘modernize Federal technology and software to maximize governmental efficiency and productivity’ by July 4, 2026.
According to Knight, however, that process could drag on for years without Musk and his ‘tech support’ staff at the helm to push through the desperately needed changes.
‘They’re dealing with decades-old systems. If they can update that, make it secure, it will be cheaper. It’ll run better operationally and it’ll make it make it a lot more secure from hackers,’ Knight explained.
‘It’s not going to be easy. It’s very going to be very difficult. But these are experts… savants that are the brightest and the best,’ he continued.
As of April 4, DOGE reported that their cost-cutting measures have saved taxpayers $140 billion.
Much of this savings comes from canceling diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) contracts, auditing government credit card use, and reducing fraudulent spending – such as social security payments to individuals listed as being over 150 years-old.
However, the DOGE experts assigned to various agencies throughout Washington have also cut down on mind-boggling expenses for repairs to the government’s cyber systems.
This includes one DOGE employee discovering the US Department of Veterans Affairs was ‘paying ~$380,000/month for minor website modifications.’
‘That contract has not been renewed and the same work is now being executed by 1 internal VA software engineer spending ~10 hours/week,’ DOGE wrote on their blog.
Cyber warfare expert James Knight told DailyMail.com that he has full confidence in Elon Musk’s ability to streamline the US government’s outdated digital networks
Despite finding a fortune in government waste, the DOGE staff has drawn intense criticism in just two months – mainly because many people don’t know who they are.
Musk and the White House have been slammed by political opponents for the unconventional recruitment of the DOGE team (largely through X), the lack of transparency in the process, and their unprecedented access to sensitive government systems.
Moreover, actions like terminating thousands of IRS employees, canceling over 1,000 government contracts, and targeting agencies like USAID for closure have disrupted services nationwide and brought lawsuits from both Democrats and federal unions.
Still, industry experts like Knight see the positive in having a group of outsiders break up the federal bureaucracy.
‘It seems to me that they do have expertise. They seem to have skills in analytics and the logical basis of trying to sort through looking for any fraud or waste,’ the cyber expert told DailyMail.com.
Meanwhile, more members of the secretive DOGE team are finally coming forward to reveal themselves and what they’re learning from their audits of the government.
Sam Corcos, 36, a DOGE advisor to the Internal Revenue Service (IRS), recently did a televised interview to report on his cost-cutting efforts.
He and the rest of Musk’s young team have also been heavily criticized for their age, inexperience in government, and allegedly unvetted access to private taxpayer information.
DOGE advisor Sam Corcos said that the US government is decades behind schedule and billions of dollars over budget in their efforts to modernize their digital technology
Edward Coristine, 19, one of the youngest of Elon Musk’s baby-faced ‘tech support’ staff at DOGE waging war on the federal bureaucracy
Unlike Corcos, many are in their late teens to mid-20s, with resumes emphasizing coding skills over public administration experience.
Several have worked for Musk-led companies, like Tesla and SpaceX prior to taking these government positions.
That includes Gavin Kliger, a 25-year-old software engineer who previously worked at Twitter (now X). He was tasked with auditing the US Department of Agriculture.
Edward Coristine, a 19-year-old prodigy who built multiple tech start-ups, became a lightning rod for DOGE critics over the his raunchy LinkedIn moniker, Big Balls.
Musk made the teen senior adviser at the State Department’s Bureau of Diplomatic Technology and Office of Personnel Management, sparking backlash because of Coristine’s firing from cybersecurity firm Path Networks for allegedly leaking internal information to competitors.
‘There are people who come in, I can tell you that haven’t got that many years, but they are absolute geniuses,’ Knight said.
‘They’re savants. Their intelligence is off the scale. Their youth doesn’t seem to be affecting anything,’ he added, talking about the DOGE staff.
As for what the team is finding through their work, Corcos recently said that efforts to modernize the tax agency’s systems are 30 years behind schedule and $15 billion over budget.
‘Typically, in industry, this takes a few years, maybe a few hundred million dollars,’ Corcos said during an interview with The Ingraham Angle host Laura Ingraham on March 20.
‘We’re now 35 years into this program. If you ask them now, it’s five years away, and it’s been five years away since 1990,’ the DOGE advisor, software developer, and CEO continued.
Musk recruited Corcos and other tech experts to audit the government and recommend major cost cuts to improve efficiency
James Knight, a veteran pen tester, explained that federal computer systems need to be taken off the internet to protect government information from hackers
Knight, a pen tester for DigitalWarfare.com, works with companies and even government agencies to test their cyber defenses.
Organizations hire pen testers to break through their security (on purpose) in order to see where they’re vulnerable.
Sometimes, that also means trying to physically break into the client’s building to see if security around their computers and servers can keep cybercriminals from literally stealing their secrets.
When it comes to what the expert with three decades of experience said DOGE needs to focus on after removing the ‘absolute incompetence’ in Washington, Knight focused on the disturbing ease of access hackers have to critical federal systems.
Knight said that one of the biggest problems facing America is the fact that so many government systems are on the internet that shouldn’t be.
The cyber expert said one of the first things Musk’s efficiency teams at DOGE need to recommend is air gapping many of the key systems the federal government currently has connected to the internet.
Air gapping physically isolates computers and servers from unsecured networks, like the internet.
They’re not connected through cables, Wi-Fi, or any other means that could allow remote access. Simply put, if the system isn’t online, hackers can’t reach it through the internet.
Confirming Knight’s point, Corcos explained that government agencies like the IRS have been using the same old mainframes that major US banks used for years in the 1990s.
The only difference is nearly all of those banks quickly upgraded their computer systems to modern technology for a fraction of the price the US government is still paying – and the job isn’t close to being done.
While Knight explained that a process this complex could take years to fully implement, he added that no one should bet against Musk to come up with a plan to get it done within the next year or so – if he stays around long enough to see it through.
