In the middle of a war where Anthropic’s “Claude” AI is playing a central role in attacking Iran while also simultaneously being branded a supply chain risk that the Trump administration will remove within six months, Defense Secretary Whiskey Pete Hegseth has decided that it would be a great idea to have a 26-year-old DOGE bro run AI for the Pentagon.
Meet Gavin Kliger. Or, rather, let us reintroduce you to Gavin Kliger, who was one of the very first racist tweens hired to work for multibillionaire Elon Musk’s made-up Department of Government Efficiency. Kliger did spend a few years at an AI company, Databricks, but it might have been his Substack posts that really clinched the deal.
Young Gavin wrote such timeless odes as “The Curious Case of Matt Gaetz: How the Deep State Destroys Its Enemies,” and “Pete Hegseth as Secretary of Defense: The Warrior Washington Fears.”
To be fair to Kliger, Washington did indeed fear Hegseth—but probably not for the reasons Kliger meant.
Though he’s just a young’un, Kliger has already mastered the Trump administration’s communication style, a unique mixture of bellicosity and boasting that ultimately conveys nothing.
“My mission is to integrate the unparalleled innovation of America’s private sector with the Department’s operational expertise to rapidly deliver advanced AI capabilities to our warfighters,” he claimed in a statement announcing his hiring. “By driving pace-setting projects with wartime urgency, we will ensure cutting-edge technology translates into decisive battlefield advantages for the United States.”
Dude, no one talks like this.
Kliger also already has the white supremacist vibe that seems to be a requirement for a high-level position in the administration. As recently as January 2025, right before he came aboard with DOGE, Kliger was still sharing posts from extreme right-wing influencers Nick Fuentes and Andrew Tate.
Related | Elon Musk's DOGE dorks hit with more heinous revelations
Ever the overachiever, Kliger already developed the flexible morality that working in this administration requires, and a complete disregard for rules that don’t suit him. While Kliger oversaw the destruction of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, he also held $365,000 in shares of companies regulated by the CFPB, which is a no-no. His holdings included two companies, Apple and Tesla, that CFPB explicitly bars its employees from having.
This is a guy who loved overseeing the firing of 1,400 CFPB employees so much that he made the employees handling the firings stay up for 36 hours straight and screamed at them to go faster. Sounds like a terrific guy to work for.
Kliger was also the DOGE bro who sent an email to every employee of the United States Agency for International Development on a Sunday night telling them their building would be closed, and no one should report to work as part of Elon Musk’s wholesale destruction of USAID.
Related | Elon Musk announces destruction of US foreign aid agency
If screwing with those agencies wasn’t enough, Kliger was also at the IRS as part of DOGE’s efforts to get their mitts on taxpayer data.
So, Kliger is sort of a jackass-of-all-trades, to be dropped in wherever he is needed. However, no one can get around the fact that it’s ridiculous to have a 26-year-old dude with some vague software engineering background run the whole of AI for the Pentagon—in a time of war, no less.
But let’s face it: No one who is actually qualified for the job is evil or foolish enough to sign on under the Trump administration. So Gavin it is.
