Over the course of a six hour long or so deposition, Justin Fox, a former investment banker turned DOGE bro, refused to define what he believes counts as DEI; admitted he used ChatGPT to scan government contracts for terms such as “Black” and “homosexual” but not “white” or “caucasian;” and said that one of the grants he helped slash was “not for the benefit of humankind” before walking that claim back.
I watched all of Fox’s deposition from start to finish. The terse exchanges, the circular arguments, the pregnant pauses, all of it. The videos, available publicly on YouTube, were released as part of a lawsuit by the Modern Language Association, American Council of Learned Societies, and American Historical Association. They provide fascinating, or perhaps horrifying, insight into the thinking of someone inside DOGE. Even with Fox’s inability to answer seemingly easy questions, the responses are still illustrative of the recklessness and hamfisted nature of a group of young, inexperienced people who caused massive damage across the U.S. government, leading to negative consequences outside of it. DOGE as an organization has been linked to 300,000 deaths due to its cuts and multiple significant data breaches. All the while, DOGE did not actually reduce the government’s deficit.
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