A liberal podcaster just branded President Trump’s cost-cutting team at the Department of Government Efficiency a “cult,” blaming Elon Musk personally for turning young staffers into loyal followers who allegedly punished anyone who questioned the mission.
Story Snapshot
- Podcaster Scott Galloway called DOGE workers members of a “cult” during a November 12, 2026 episode of his show.
- Galloway cited author Michael Lewis’s account describing DOGE staffers as rewarding loyalty and firing dissenters.
- A January 2026 court filing claims Social Security Administration records on roughly 1,000 Americans were sent to Musk’s team.
- A Government Accountability Office report reviewed DOGE personnel and ethics activity but could not fully verify compliance.
- Conservative voices, including a former DOGE spokesperson, pushed back hard on the “cult” framing.
Galloway Levels the Cult Charge
Scott Galloway did not hold back on his Prof G Pod. He said: “I hold Elon Musk responsible for this. That effectively these men were inculcated into a cult that had a large vein of contempt and cruelty amongst their cult leader and that they took the bait.” The comment landed during a wider conversation about DOGE’s culture inside the Trump administration’s government efficiency push, and it quickly spread across social media as a flashpoint in the ongoing fight over Musk’s legacy in Washington.
Galloway built his claim partly on author Michael Lewis, who appeared on the same podcast. Lewis described DOGE staffers as mostly young male engineers who “led with cruelty and contempt rather than curiosity.” He said they treated federal agencies like startups and got rewarded for loyalty, while those who pushed back got shown the door.
A Fired Employee and a Pointed Example
One name came up as proof of that pattern: Sahil Lovenia. According to the interview summary, Lovenia questioned DOGE’s whole premise and told Fast Company the government “is not as inefficient as I thought.” He was reportedly fired soon after. It’s one case, not a full personnel file, but it’s the kind of anecdote Galloway leaned on to paint DOGE as an echo chamber rather than a genuine reform effort.
Social Security Data Concerns Add Fuel
Beyond the “cult” label, there’s a harder fact on the table. The Social Security Administration reportedly told a federal court on January 16, 2026, that DOGE employees tried to send sensitive personal records to an outside advocacy group. The filing claims confidential information on about 1,000 Americans went to Musk’s workers. That’s a real privacy concern worth scrutiny, whatever anyone thinks of Galloway’s cult rhetoric. Protecting Americans’ Social Security data should never depend on trusting anyone’s good intentions.
What the Watchdog Actually Found
The Government Accountability Office released a formal review, GAO-26-108403, in August 2026 and updated it in October. It examined court filings, agency records, and administration statements about DOGE personnel and ethics activity. The report didn’t call DOGE a cult. It focused on tracking who worked there, what positions they held, and whether ethics rules were followed, leaving plenty of unanswered questions about scope and oversight rather than drawing conclusions about workplace culture.
Pushback From the Right
Former DOGE spokesperson Katie Miller fired back on social media, arguing DOGE “assembled some of the smartest American minds to save taxpayer money from fraud” and reduce the size of government. That message captures the core conservative defense: DOGE existed to cut waste, not to brainwash anyone, and reducing bloated bureaucracy is a policy win, not evidence of cultish behavior.
Commenters online made the same point Twitchy highlighted — cutting government fraud does not automatically make a team a cult. Galloway has a long history of sparring with Musk publicly, which gives his critics an easy argument that personal animus, not hard evidence, is driving the “cult” label. Still, the Social Security filing and the GAO review remain real documents worth watching as Congress and the courts sort out exactly what happened inside DOGE.
For conservatives who backed DOGE as a long-overdue check on federal waste, the real story isn’t a podcaster’s name-calling. It’s whether oversight agencies finish the job of confirming DOGE followed the rules while cutting the fat out of Washington — the mission voters sent President Trump back to the White House to finish.
Sources:
twitchy.com, gao.gov, blumify.io, larson.house.gov
