A young member of Elon Musk's newly established Department of Government Efficiency (Doge) unit has stepped down following connections to a racist social media account.
Reports linked Marko Elez, 25, previously associated with Musk's SpaceX firm, to a now-deleted social media profile that endorsed racism and eugenics.
The White House confirmed Elez's resignation on Friday without providing reasons.
Musk acknowledged the departure by conducting a poll on X, his social media platform, questioning followers whether he should rehire the Doge employee who made "inappropriate statements via a now deleted pseudonym".
One previous post from the anonymous account in July stated, "Just for the record, I was racist before it was cool."
The account connected to Elez, as initially reported by the Wall Street Journal, featured a range of controversial comments authenticated by the BBC.
A September post on the account read, "You could not pay me to marry outside of my ethnicity," while another from the same month said, "Normalize Indian hate".
All the posts have now been removed.
By Friday morning, over 385,000 individuals had participated in Musk's poll regarding Mr. Elez's potential reinstatement, without explicitly naming him.
Currently, 78% of the votes have favored his re-employment.
In response to a user suggesting Musk should address Elez "about the racist stuff. Not cool," the billionaire concurred, "True."
Vice President JD Vance expressed on Tuesday that while he disagrees "with some of Elez's posts... I don't think stupid social media activity should ruin a kid's life."
"So I say bring him back," Vance added.
Elez's resignation occurs in the midst of increasing scrutiny of Doge, the government efficiency group initiated by Trump that has gained significant influence in the early stages of his second term.
Musk and his team have been vigorously working to reduce the size of the federal government.
Recently, a US judge obstructed one of these initiatives by pausing a program offering incentives to millions of federal workers to voluntarily resign this month.
Furthermore, Musk advocated for the abolishment of USAID, the government body overseeing international development. Nearly all but a few essential staff out of about 10,000 employees are slated to be placed on administrative leave at midnight on Friday, including thousands stationed abroad.