How DOGE Set Up a Shadow X Account for a Government Agency

Less than two weeks after Donald Park and Edward Coristine, two members of the so-called Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), entered the Small Business Administration (SBA), a new account appeared on X: @DOGE_SBA.

The SBA has had an official X account since 2010. It frequently posts updates and reshares posts from the agency’s administrator, former Republican senator Kelly Loeffler.

But according to documents obtained under a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request and shared exclusively with WIRED, it was a member of DOGE itself that started and ran the new X account. Not only did DOGE seemingly do so without involving the government workers who normally manage an agency’s external communications, but in at least one case, they appeared to accept a complaint from a potential whistleblower over direct message. It is yet another example of how DOGE has operated as a seemingly separate and unaccountable body within government agencies.

According to sources familiar with government operations, social media accounts, as well as other public-facing channels, have typically been managed by an agency’s communications staff. An SBA social media manager, though, appeared to be completely unaware of the account. In an email on March 6, he emailed his colleagues with a link to the @DOGE_SBA X account, writing, “How did I not see this before?”

According to an email dated February 16, Park, one of the two DOGE operatives at SBA, appears to have set up the @DOGE_SBA account, receiving an email confirmation from X for adding a phone number, which was redacted, to their account. (After Musk purchased the company, he changed its policies to allow only premium subscribers to use two-factor identification via SMS.)

On that same day, the account pinned a repost of one shared by the DOGE X account, asking the public for help identifying instances of waste, fraud, abuse. “Please DM insight for reducing waste, fraud, and abuse, along with any helpful insights or awesome ideas, to the relevant DOGE affiliates,” the post read. A tab labeled “Affiliates” on the DOGE X page lists 32 X accounts for the DOGE missions at various agencies, including the Department of Homeland Security, the Social Security Administration, the Department of Housing and Urban Development, and the SBA, among others.

“Help us fight fraud, waste, and abuse to benefit US taxpayers and small businesses across America. DMs are open!” the DOGE_SBA account wrote in its first and only post, echoing DOGE’s X account, which still regularly posts about how the so-called agency has been saving the government money by canceling contracts and services.

Park, Coristine, the SBA, and its communications team did not respond to requests for comment.

A former US government public affairs official, who spoke to WIRED on the condition of anonymity to protect their identity, says that it would be highly unusual for a government employee to be running any kind of front-facing social media account without the knowledge of the public affairs staff.

“Social media has always been sort of highly contested territory in government agencies. As it was becoming a bigger and bigger thing, more and more people wanted to use it, other people within a department would see it as a means of control,” they say. “In terms of DOGE, we all saw DOGE come in and do things that they had no right to do.”