Saturday 08 / February / 2025
Washington DC: A fresh row has erupted in the US after Elon Musk announced that he would rehire a former Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) employee, Marko Elez, who had been previously fired for posting racist comments, The Hill reported.
According to The Hill, Elez resigned on Thursday (US local time) after The Wall Street Journal (WSJ) revealed several racist posts made from a now-deleted account. One post from September said, "Normalize Indian hate," while another post reportedly read, "You could not pay me to marry outside of my ethnicity."
In a poll on X, Elon Musk asked, "Bring back @DOGE staffer who made inappropriate statements via a now deleted pseudonym?" to which 78 per cent of people responded with a yes.
Musk made his decision to rehire Elez after US Vice President JD Vance quoted Musk's post on X. In his post, Musk wrote, "He will be brought back. To err is human, to forgive divine."
Vance, while expressing disagreement with some of Elez's posts, said, "I don't think stupid social media activity should ruin a kid's life," and argued for giving Elez a second chance, stating he should only be fired "if he's a bad dude or a terrible member of the team."
VP Vance's comments gained attention due to his wife, Usha Vance, being of Indian origin. Usha Vance, an Indian-American lawyer, is the first Indian-American Second Lady of the United States. She is the daughter of Indian immigrants who trace their roots to Andhra Pradesh. Usha, born and brought up in the US, completed her education at prestigious institutions such as Cambridge and Yale University.
However, Vance's remarks faced criticism from Indian-American Congressman Ro Khanna, who questioned whether Elez would apologize for his post saying "Normalize Indian hate" before being rehired.
In response, VP Vance defended his position, stating that it was not racist trolls on the internet who threaten his kids, but rather a culture that "denies grace to people who make mistakes."
In a continuation of his remarks, VP Vance highlighted how his kids would develop views over the course of their lives where, "They will develop views that they later think are wrong or even gross. I made mistakes as a kid, and thank God I grew up in a culture that encouraged me to grow and learn and feel remorse when I screwed up and offer grace when others did."
In his reply to Vice President, Congressman Khanna insisted that while grace is not being denied to people who make mistakes, but reiterated his earlier stance saying, "If you are going to rehire someone to represent you & the USA, why not insist he apologize for saying "Normalise Indian hate?"
Khanna has previously addressed issues of racism against people of Indian origin. In December last year, he criticized those targeting Indian-born Sriram Krishnan, who was appointed Senior Policy Advisor for Artificial Intelligence at the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy by former President Donald Trump.
