The US Treasury has brought in at least two people connected to the so-called Department of Government Efficiency, according to people familiar with the matter: Tom Krause, the chief executive of Cloud Software Group Inc. and Marko Elez, an engineer who has worked for SpaceX and social-media platform X.
It’s unclear if Krause has stepped away from his role as CEO of Fort Lauderdale, Florida-based Cloud Software Group to work with DOGE in his new job at the Treasury, or if he’s doing both jobs at the same time. A Cloud Software Group spokesman declined to comment.
A Marko Elez graduated from Rutgers University in 2021 with a bachelor degree in computer science, according to Megan Florance, a spokesperson for the New Jersey university.
The pair were later formally brought on at Treasury, although their exact roles are unclear to much of the department’s staff, the person said. Since joining, they have aimed to meet with staff who perform the hands-on management of the government payments system and database, according to a person familiar with the matter.
Last week, Krause and Elez traveled to a federal facility in Kansas City to meet with the agency staff there responsible for the payment system, according to that person.
They also sought access to the underlying code, the person said — alarming some Treasury staff, because the operation of this infrastructure is tightly controlled due to its critical position in the US financial system. It’s unclear whether the duo have obtained direct access to the code and why they would want it, according to people familiar with the situation.
A longtime technology executive, in 2022 Krause was hired away from Palo Alto, California-based semiconductor maker Broadcom Inc., where he served as chief financial officer and president of the company’s software group, to lead Cloud Software Group, a newly created tech giant that was born out of the $16.5 billion acquisition that year of Citrix Systems Inc. by private equity firms Elliott Investment Management LP and Vista Equity Partners LLC.
Krause’s job at Cloud Software Group was to merge Citrix, a maker of widely used remote-access software and cybersecurity technologies whose uneven financial results had made it a target for a private equity takeover, with a smaller company called Tibco Software — and to deeply cut their expenses. As is the case with many leveraged buyouts, Citrix’s new owners loaded the company with billions of dollars in debt to finance the transaction and mass job cuts soon followed.
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