Former McKinsey business analyst hired to Musk’s DOGE ‘nerd army’
Elon Musk has hired recent graduate Kendall Lindemann, a former McKinsey & Company business analyst, to the growing team at DOGE, though the young recent graduate has little professional experience to show for – much like the rest of the youthful team.
Lindemann is latest new members of Elon Musk’s DOGE team. DOGE (the Department of Government Efficiency) is now an official US government agency after an executive order from newly-reelected president Donald Trump handed Musk sweeping powers to reform parts of the government.
Joining McKinsey & Company shortly after graduating, Lindemann worked as a business analyst for about a year and a half before moving on to join healthcare investment firm Russell Street Ventures.
Russell Street Ventures is headed by Brad Smith, who is another senior figure in DOGE and was “effectively running it during the Trump transition effort,” according to reporting from the New York Times. Clearly, the young graduate may have gotten a referral from her boss.
Graduating with a Bachelor of Science from the University of Tennessee in 2022, Lindemann has precious little work experience. But at 24 years old, she is essentially a senior in the DOGE ‘nerd army’, with some of the other Musk hires as young as 19 – and one even reportedly still in college.
Lindemann has been vocal about her strong Christian faith on social media. And indeed, perhaps divine intervention is the only way to explain her ascension to the top levels of government with next to no experience, considering so far no one in the Trump administration has bothered to explain DOGE’s hiring process.
“The Lord has been my #1 source of strength, peace, and provision throughout college,” said wrote Lindemann in a graduation post on LinkedIn.
“In the highs and in the lows, He has sustained me and given me a hope that transcends my circumstances. I am confident He will continue to be faithful in this next season of my life!”
And though she may be a good Christian, she now finds herself in rather questionable company at DOGE, to put it lightly.
Another one of Musk’s DOGE appointees is Edward Coristine, a 19-year-old high school graduate who dropped out of college. He was previously known online as ‘Big Balls,’ and is now a senior adviser at the State Department’s Bureau of Diplomatic Technology.
“Who the hell voted for – excuse the phrase – a guy who calls himself Big Balls, a 19-year-old kid going in there and trying to fire cancer researchers and scientists and teachers and agricultural specialists? It’s appalling,” said Paul Begala, a former political adviser for President Bill Clinton, on a CNN program.
But perhaps the most controversial DOGE hire to date has been 25-year-old Marko Elez. As a former employee of SpaceX, he made a series of racist or otherwise highly offensive remarks on social media.
Those posts, verified by various media outlets, included quips like: “Just for the record, I was racist before it was cool,” and “normalize Indian hate.”
“You could not pay me to marry outside of my ethnicity,” read another.
The posts have since been deleted, and though Elez resigned after the posts surfaced and drew criticism, Musk has announced on his social media site ‘X’ that he will rehire him.
