On Monday, while tech billionaires like Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg sat on stage for President Donald Trump’s inauguration, dozens of founders were at parties all across DC, trying to get an audience with the new president’s inner circle.
To hear them tell it, it wasn’t all that hard. Valar Atomics founder Isaiah Taylor spent the weekend party hopping, rubbing shoulders with Sean Spicer or conservative podcaster Jordan Peterson. Taylor’s company wants to use nuclear power to generate synthetic hydrocarbon fuel. He even scored three separate invites to Mar-A-Lago in the last month by sending a two-page document on changes he’d like to see to nuclear regulations to anyone he knew with DC connections. “People are like, ‘please tell me, how do we fix this? We need to build things again,’” he said of the administration.
His story was surprisingly common. All throughout America’s capital, founders enjoyed the fruits of their industry’s political jockeying. They watched Snoop Dogg at David Sacks’ Crypto Ball, attended a wee-hours crypto rave sponsored by the Milady NFT group, and dressed up for a “Coronation Ball” hosted by a publishing company associated with Curtis Yarvin, the controversial thought leader cited by both Marc Andreessen and Peter Thiel.
Tyler Sweatt, CEO of defense tech startup Second Front Systems, said a huge frustration he’s had with the federal government has been bureaucratic opacity. Founders often can’t even figure out who to contact in the government, much less secure a huge contract.
But Sweatt left events like the vice presidential dinner and Trump’s pre-inauguration candlelight dinner feeling like the country might be entering a rare moment where the federal government, big tech and the startup ecosystem are aligned — and where the shroud surrounding the government’s inner workings might be lifted. “Apolitically, that’s pretty freaking interesting for what could we do as a country,” he said.
At a watch party hosted by conservative organization American Moment, the congressional staffers wore suits with red ties and tech workers wore sneakers. Jacob Martin, general partner of crypto fund 2 Punks Capital and co-founder of gaming guild Ready Player DAO kept watching for news that Trump had immediately pardoned Silk Road’s infamous founder Ross Ulbricht, currently serving life in prison. He did not, despite having promised to do so at a Libertarian convention in May.
Martin also lamented missing his chance to buy the Trump meme coin when it launched at Sacks’ Crypto Ball, a time when top crypto donors were away from their computers. Trading on the coin soon soared. “I could have bought. But I didn’t, because it was clearly a scam, right?” Martin laughed. “There were people who made hundreds of millions on it.”
He hopes the Trump administration can make it so “people are able to utilize blockchain technology to make better things, launch tokens when necessary, and not have to worry about jail time.”
Several founders felt Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency will open the floodgates for startups to pitch the government on their products in order to fulfill its promise of making the government more efficient. James Layfield, chief sales officer of Samplify.ai, which helps companies identify redundant software, created a website called “DogeProof.com.’ The concept, he said, is to offer up Samplify.ai’s products to government agencies for free, so they can rid themselves of extraneous subscriptions before Musk comes along to slash their costs.
Layfield pitched it to Florida Representative Byron Donalds at an inauguration ball, and said he seemed intrigued. “The whole experience has been incredibly rewarding to just see how open people are to this possibility,” he said.
Meanwhile, Rabi Alam, founder of Counter Health, hopes that DOGE might support his company’s mission to streamline the healthcare system while keeping the quality of care high. First, though, like everyone in the country, he’s got to figure out what exactly DOGE is. Luckily, Alam scored an invite to the Inauguration Ball, where he intended to scout some DOGE employees. “I’d like to get some of what I’ll call finer granularity and more color on what the approach is,” he said.
If this weekend shows anything, it’s that the hardest challenge founders will face, between balls and Mar-A-Lago trips, might just be staying focused on their day job. “There’s people who are trying to be in the right room,” Taylor said. “And there are people trying to get the work done.”
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Half of DOGE’s leadership team has been booted from the organization, reportedly at the behest of the other half.
The Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), an advisory commission spearheaded by billionaire Elon Musk recommending deep cuts to federal agencies, could soon become more official, should an executive order signed by President Donald Trump pass legal muster.
On Monday evening, Trump signed an order that renames the U.S. Digital Service (USDS), which was created in 2014 by former President Barack Obama to “change [the] government’s approach to technology,” as the U.S. DOGE Service (USDS). (Note the identical acronyms.)
The USDS is set to have around 20 employees, Trump said during the executive order signing ceremony. Despite its name, it isn’t a federal executive department, which would require an act of Congress to create.
The executive order instructs U.S. agency heads to consult with USDS to form “DOGE Teams” of “at least” four employees within their agency within 30 days. Teams will typically include a DOGE Team lead, engineer, HR specialist, and attorney, per the executive order, and work with the USDS and agency in which they’re housed to implement Trump’s DOGE plan.
Among other things, the executive order establishes a “software modernization” plan to improve government network infrastructure and IT systems, and gives the USDS access to “unclassified” agency records, software systems, and IT systems “consistent with law.”
The executive order also creates a temporary organization, the U.S. DOGE Service Temporary Organization, dedicated to “advancing [President Trump’s] 18-month DOGE agenda.” The organization is set to terminate on July 4, 2026.
Trump previously said that DOGE’s work must be completed by “no later” than July 4, 2026 — before the Ohio gubernatorial election in November 2026.
It remains to be seen whether the executive order survives coming courtroom battles. No fewer than three lawsuits have been filed in federal court alleging that the Musk-led DOGE violates the transparency requirements of the Federal Advisory Committee Act (FACA), a 1972 law that requires federal advisory committees to hold meetings publicly and represent “balanced” perspectives.
Trump announced DOGE, which was to be co-led by Musk and entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy, late last year. Ramaswamy has since left DOGE after reportedly clashing with Musk, and is said to be planning to announce a run for Ohio governor next week.
Musk has suggested that DOGE could help to cut the U.S. federal budget by up to $2 trillion through measures such as reducing waste, abolishing redundant agencies, and downsizing the federal workforce. He has since backtracked on that goal, however, and many experts believe it to be unrealistic.
According to The Wall Street Journal, the Trump team and officials from DOGE have inquired about abolishing the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC), and combining and restructuring the FDIC, Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC), and Federal Reserve. Separately, Musk has also proposed eliminating the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB), the agency charged with implementing and enforcing consumer protection laws and issuing guidance for consumer financial institutions.
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