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.