Airbnb co-founder and Musk's friend joins DOGE

Joe Gebbia, co-founder of Airbnb and close friend of Elon Musk, has joined the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE). In a post on X, he wrote that he will work to “improving the slow and paper-based retirement process,” The Verge reports.

"Since leaving my operating role at Airbnb in 2022, I’ve been looking for the next digital design challenge. And I can think of few more important ones than volunteering to improve the user experience within our government. If anyone else in good standing wants to help design beautiful, user-friendly digital products, reach out," Gebbia wrote.

Gebbia at DOGE will work to fix the problems that Elon Musk previously complained about. He believed that retirement took too long due to paper bureaucracy. The Human Resources Department recently processed the entire retirement application digitally for the first time, without printing a single sheet of paper and in two days instead of several weeks.

Although Gebbia left his position at Airbnb in 2022 to join Tesla's board, he remains a board member and a major shareholder in the service. Following the announcement, many users on Airbnb forums began demanding that the company sever all ties with the co-founder and are threatening a boycott.