He Blew the Whistle on DOGE. Then His Brakes Were Cut

On April 14, 2025, Dan Berulis, an IT staffer astatine the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB), filed a Congressional whistleblower ailment with an bonzer and urgent claim: The alleged Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) had seemingly compromised the agency’s information and appeared to beryllium exfiltrating it retired of the NLRB entirely. Additionally, Berulis claimed that specified minutes aft DOGE members had accessed the agency’s data, determination appeared to beryllium login attempts from an IP code successful Russia.

At the time, DOGE teams, orchestrated by billionaire Elon Musk, were sweeping crossed government, firing national workers, and accessing delicate information and method systems with nary oversight and small transparency.

The pursuing day, Berulis went nationalist successful an NPR nonfiction with his sanction and claims. In it, helium claimed that successful the pb up to his Congressional disclosure, a threatening enactment had been taped to his door, including photos of him walking his canine that appeared to person been taken by a drone. Berulis was already frightened that speaking retired had made him a target.

In a caller defamation lawsuit, filed by Berulis successful a DC tribunal connected April 17 and made nationalist this week, Berulis alleges that Musk himself made him a people of further unit by falsely stating that Berulis’ whistleblower assertion against DOGE was fake. The ailment was initially filed nether seal due to the fact that Berulis maintains a information clearance that requires pre-publication reappraisal of thing related to his enactment with the government.

Five days aft the NPR communicative went live, connected Easter Sunday, April 20, 2025, Berulis got successful his car to thrust to Maryland to marque a last-minute sojourn to his uncle, opting to instrumentality section roads alternatively of the large road nearby. Within astir 5 minutes of leaving his house, Berulis realized thing was wrong. As helium approached a halt motion astatine an intersection, his car wouldn’t dilatory down. He ran disconnected the roadworthy and into the sign. When helium examined his car, helium recovered thing that terrified him: His brake lines had been cut.

Unbeknownst to Berulis astatine the time, the nighttime before, connected April 19, astatine 8:06 pm, Musk had reshared an X station from right-wing influencer Mario Nawfal, claiming that DOGE had been “cleared” and that radical were asking the the Department of Justice to analyse Berulis. Musk shared Nawfal’s post, writing, “Filing a deliberately mendacious whistleblower assertion is simply a superior crime.” The communicative had primitively been circulated by @amuse, an relationship that has regularly shared misleading claims and misinformation and is followed by influential radical similar Musk and Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. The @amuse station included Berulis’ sanction and photograph.

According to a constabulary study viewed by WIRED, erstwhile a constabulary serviceman from Prince William County arrived astatine the scene, Berulis’ lawyer from Whistleblower Aid, Andrew Bakaj, who had helped Berulis record his Congressional ailment astir DOGE, was besides connected the scene.

Berulis, who recovered retired astir Musk’s tweet aft the accident, thought backmost to the threatening enactment that had been posted connected his doorway earlier that month.

According to the suit, Musk’s “readers drew the implication” that Berulis had committed a superior crime, “as reflected successful replies demanding prosecution, jail, harm, oregon arrest,” and this enactment him astatine “increased hazard of carnal harm.” In the replies to the post, which remains online, respective users called for Berulis to beryllium prosecuted. One idiosyncratic wrote, “Snitches get stitches”.

“The correlation was evident to me, with the timing,” helium says. Berulis besides began to interest astir however precisely whoever had been threatening him knew wherever helium lived.