Sahil Lavingia
A tech founder who created the site Gumroad, Sahil Lavingia showed up late to DOGE, with the goal of helping veterans at the VA. Despite displaying a remarkable and sometimes frankly infuriating naivete about both DOGE’s real mission and how civic technology operated before, his blog post about his experiences has given us the best view of how DOGE actually operated. Sadly, it’s also what got him fired from the “most transparent organization in government.” More recently, the IRS apparently hired him back into government in November, at the direction of Sam Corcos, reportedly as a career employee in the nonpartisan civil service. He reportedly is working on online accounts at the IRS.
Positions
| Position | Notes |
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| VA |
Sources
fired 5/09/25
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| IRS |
Source
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Events
| Date | Event |
|---|---|
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3/25/25
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Source
Directory
Tech staffers and contractors noticed a new DOGE staffer, Sahil Lavingia, was pushing code to a repo in the VA’s Github instance. He also appeared to be using an AI tool to write code. This later turns out to be code that is reviewing contracts to be terminated.
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5/08/25
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Source
Report
Fast Company runs an interview with Sahil Lavingia, who is promptly fired by DOGE the following day.
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6/06/25
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Source
Report
ProPublica analyzes public code by Sahil Lavingia for an AI-powered tool to evaluate contracts at the VA and determine which ones are “munchable” (meaning they should be canceled). The analysis finds the AI was given poor instructions and lacks context to correctly make these decisions.
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6/25/25
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Source
Oversight
Democratic Congressman Mark Takano sends an angry letter to Secretary Collins of the VA demanding answers about DOGE activities including if they have installed spyware on agency machines, if they have been piloting AI, and if they have accessed medical records. He also asks for detailed information on DOGE staff at the agency.
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12/08/25
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Source
Official
Sahil Lavingia shares a revision to the IRS homepage’s look and feel which makes it look more like LinkedIn or similar. Design critics note that it has 3 different Sign In buttons, which Sahil states it will save the user time depending on where their cursor is.
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