DOGE’s Gift to the Chinese Communist Party

If Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency has a core competency, it’s scandalizing the nation over the wasteful and fruitless government programs the Government Accountability Office identifies on an annual basis, albeit with fewer social media posts accusing the executors of those programs of criminal malfeasance. One of the modestly funded initiatives that has recently captured Musk’s attention, the National Endowment for Democracy, has whipped Musk into a familiar social media frenzy.

NED is “RIFE with CORRUPTION,” he wrote, singling out GOP Senator Todd Young, who sits on the State Department–backed NGO’s board. The agency and its members are guilty of “crimes,” he added of the “scam” it perpetrates — citing the evidence compiled by X’s artificial intelligence tool, Grok. Among the offenses NED has supposedly committed, its “CIA-like operations” raise “concerns about its true purpose and methods.” Indeed, the outfit has “historical ties to the CIA” and funds “anti-government protests” designed to “destabilize countries.” It even backs “color revolutions” — all of which indicate that the organization wields “a strategic use of democracy promotion for geopolitical gain.”

About the Author

Noah Rothman

Noah Rothman is a senior writer at National Review. His third book, Blood and Progress: A Century of Left-Wing Violence, was published by Hachette in May 2026.

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If Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency has a core competency, it’s scandalizing the nation over the wasteful and fruitless government programs the Government Accountability Office identifies on an annual basis, albeit with fewer social media posts accusing the executors of those programs of criminal malfeasance. One of the modestly funded initiatives that has recently captured Musk’s attention, the National Endowment for Democracy, has whipped Musk into a familiar social media frenzy.

NED is “RIFE with CORRUPTION,” he wrote, singling out GOP Senator Todd Young, who sits on the State Department–backed NGO’s board. The agency and its members are guilty of “crimes,” he added of the “scam” it perpetrates — citing the evidence compiled by X’s artificial intelligence tool, Grok. Among the offenses NED has supposedly committed, its “CIA-like operations” raise “concerns about its true purpose and methods.” Indeed, the outfit has “historical ties to the CIA” and funds “anti-government protests” designed to “destabilize countries.” It even backs “color revolutions” — all of which indicate that the organization wields “a strategic use of democracy promotion for geopolitical gain.”

About the Author

Noah Rothman

Noah Rothman is a senior writer at National Review. His third book, Blood and Progress: A Century of Left-Wing Violence, was published by Hachette in May 2026.