In a viral social media post, former Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) head Elon Musk exposed how the biased leaders of the Social Security Administration (SSA) fired one of their workers for helping to clean up corruption.
For context, DOGE was established by President Trump in one of his first executive orders and charged with ending endemic fraud and waste in the federal government. While many government bureaucrats have fought tooth and nail against DOGE, some brave government employees have devoted themselves to helping the department fight corruption.
Such was shown when the Daily Wire published several quotes from Leland Dudek, who was let go for helping DOGE, according to their article. Dudek said, “They want to fire me for cooperating with DOGE,” adding, “I confess. I helped DOGE understand SSA. I mailed myself publicly accessible documents and explained them to DOGE. I confess. I moved contractor money around to add data science resources to my anti-fraud team. I confess. I asked where the fat was and is in our contracts so we can make the right tough choices.”
Concluding his remarks, he added, “I confess. I bullied agency executives, shared executive contact information, and circumvented the chain of command to connect DOGE with the people who get stuff done. Everything I have ever done is in service to our country, our beneficiaries, and our agency.”
Enraged by the news of his firing, Billy Gribbin, a spokesman for Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah), stated, “I hope we see more of this. There are many good civil servants who have been quietly frustrated for years with politically-motivated mismanagement who possess an encyclopedic knowledge of the problems with their agencies. Put them in charge, hand them scalpels and flamethrowers.”
Reacting to the article, conservative influencer Luke Rosiak took to X on February 19, 2025, saying, “At 4:30pm, Leland Dudek’s boss put him on leave for helping DOGE find fraud. “They want to fire me,” he wrote. “I confess. I helped DOGE understand SSA.” Within hours, it was his boss who was fired, and the longtime SSA waste-watcher was elevated to lead the whole agency.”
Quoting Rosiak’s post, Elon Musk said, “There ARE good people in the government who want to eliminate fraud & waste. Amazingly, Leland was fired by Social Security Administration upper management for helping @DOGE find taxpayer savings. Can you believe that?? Thanks to President Trump, Leland was brought back right away and now HE is upper management 😎 Promote good players, exit bad players. That’s the right thing to do.”
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In the comments under Musk’s tweet, conservatives rallied behind the tech genius. One length comment said, “Such attacks on Musk say nothing about him and everything about the people attacking him. The SEC and court system were weaponized against Musk simply because he bought Twitter and stopped censoring the people the CIA and FBI (and Congressional Dems and even Republicans) wanted to be censored. Musk has contributed more to the re-industrialization of America than anyone else.”
Continuing the same user wrote, “Without him we would have no space program to speak of, no profitable EV production, no scalable energy storage for grid balancing, and bleak prospects for keeping up with China in the AI race (and thus bleak prospects for future defense capabilities.) He should be considered a national treasure, particularly by those who consider renewable energy to be a priority.”
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