Indian-origin Akash Bobba’s ex-classmate defends him amid OpenAI employee’s ‘babies are in charge of our money’ post

Indian-origin Akash Bobba is a member of DOGE, headed by Elon Musk. The 22-year-old has reportedly been granted a top-level security clearance.

The newly formed Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) under Donald Trump’s administration, headed by Elon Musk, has been controversial since it was founded. In a new development, people are now questioning the age and experience of Musk's team members, one of whom is 22-year-old Indian-origin engineer Akash Bobba. A recent post by an OpenAI employee about him and others in Musk’s team prompted a flurry of supportive comments from social media users. Among them is a former college mate of Bobba who wrote, “I trust him with everything I own.”

Akash Bobba is part of a team of six engineers between 19 and 24 years old employed by Musk for his new agency DOGE. (X/@tariquesha1)

“Babies are in charge of our money”

Aidan McLaughlin, whose LinkedIn bio says he works for OpenAI, wrote, “Wait my moot is running the treasury what.” He also shared a visual with pictures of Elon Musk’s DOGE team members. The words, “Who are these little boys? And why are they in charge of our money?” are also written on the photo.

The visual also says, “The US Treasury pays for Social Security, Medicare, Grants, Federal salaries. And is usually run by grown-ups. Mamas, come get your babies out of our government.”

The share has prompted a response from Charis Zhang, co-founder of Grata AI. He recollected a story about Bobba from his college days. “Let me tell you something about Akash. During a project at Berkeley, I accidentally deleted our entire codebase 2 days before the deadline. I panicked. Akash just stared at the screen, shrugged, and rewrote everything from scratch in one night—better than before. We submitted early and got first in the class. Many such stories. I trust him with everything I own,” Zhang wrote.

Take a look at the post here:

Who are the members of Elon Musk’s DOGE?

As reported by Firstpost, the team includes Akash Bobba, 19-year-old Edward Coristine, 23-year-old Luke Farritor, Gautier Cole Killian, Gavin Kliger, and Ethan Shaotran.

When the identities of the DOGE members were revealed on social media, Musk took to X to express his anger. “You have committed a crime,” he wrote. The account that initially posted the members' names was later suspended, and the post was deleted.