DOGE whistleblower claims brakes were cut after post from Elon Musk
A federal employee who filed a whistleblower complaint against the Elon Musk-led Department of Government Efficiency said his car’s brake lines were cut last year just hours after Musk publicly accused him of lying.
The claim appears in a newly unsealed defamation lawsuit, filed on April 17, against the billionaire.
The whistleblower, Dan Berulis, an IT staffer with the National Labor Relations Board, filed a whistleblower complaint with Congress on April 14, 2025, after he said his department’s data was compromised by DOGE.
In his complaint, Berulis said that DOGE not only accessed the NLRB’s data without approval but began exfiltrating it as well. Berulis also said he witnessed login attempts from a Russian IP address just minutes after DOGE gained access.
DOGE, overseen by Musk, touted itself as an effort to reduce fraud, waste and abuse in the federal government. The initiative received criticism for its lack of oversight and its firing of thousands of federal employees. DOGE’s claims of cutting billions of dollars in federal spending have been mostly unverified.
Musk has not responded publicly to Berulis’ lawsuit.
A photo and a threat
The day after he filed the complaint, Berulis went public with his claims in an interview with NPR. Berulis told the outlet that while preparing to blow the whistle, a threatening note had been taped to the door of his home. He said it included a photograph, seemingly taken by drone, of him walking his dog.
On April 20, 2025, five days after the NPR story aired, Berulis was driving to visit family in Maryland when he discovered that his brakes weren’t working. Berulis said he was forced to drive his car off the road and into a stop sign to avoid a collision.
Berulis told Wired he believes that his brake lines were cut while his vehicle was in his driveway. According to a report Berulis filed with the police, a mechanic examined the vehicle and confirmed that the brake lines had in fact been tampered with.
The mechanic also found “that the driver-side front impact/airbag sensor had also been removed but noted that the remaining wires had been spliced together, completing the circuit in a manner that prevented the vehicle from detecting or logging the missing component, while also preventing the vehicle from activating its safety protocols, alerting the driver or engaging limp mode.”
‘A serious crime’
Berulis didn’t learn until later that just hours before the incident with his vehicle, Musk had accused him of lying about his whistleblower complaint in a post on X.
“Filing a deliberately false whistleblower claim is a serious crime,” Musk wrote.
Musk’s comment included a post from a popular right-wing figure who shared a photograph of Berulis alongside claims that his whistleblower complaint had been disproven.
Users responded with calls for Berulis’ prosecution. One wrote, “Snitches get stitches.”
Berulis stayed in a hotel that evening and then broke his lease and moved out of his home. He still questions how his address was discovered.
“I had just moved into that address three months prior,” Berulis told Wired. “The only people that had that address were my utilities and the [Office of Personal Managment], and the HR systems within my agency. I hadn’t even updated my bank, cell phone, my car registration, my license, all of it was not on that address yet.”
In his suit, Berulis said Musk’s followers “drew the implication” that he had committed a serious crime “as reflected in replies demanding prosecution, jail, harm or arrest.”
Despite the threats contained in replies to Musk, Berulis said X refused to remove the post after he reached out to the platform’s trust and safety team.
Although Berulis does not expect to win the lawsuit, he said he would use any monetary victory to aid other whistleblowers.
Round out your reading
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- Trump says the media isn’t covering one of his biggest accomplishments. We checked.
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- We’re building a new Straight Arrow. Help us shape our future by taking our survey.
Ella Rae Greene, Editor In Chief
