The UAE has been trying to recruit Pentagon workers displaced by DOGE to move to Abu Dhabi to work on AI for the UAE's military. A UAE brigadier general met last month with two former staffers of the Defense Digital Service who have worked on US classified projects and tried to recruit them and their entire DDS team to move to Abu Dhabi. The general was apparently given permission by the Pentagon to recruit the members of Defense Digital Service -- who resigned enmasse from their jobs last month due to DOGE --- despite warnings last year from US spy agencies and federal lawmakers that the UAE could share AI tech with China and despite the UAE's disturbing history of recruitment of US workers. Remember Dark Matter when the UAE recruited former NSA operators/analysts to work on cybersecurity jobs only to have them help UAE spy agencies hack other nations, members of the royal family and dissidents and journalists? One of the people from the UAE who assisted with the recruiting of DDS workers has ties to Dark Matter. Here's my story:

https://www.zetter-zeroday.com/uae-recruiting-us-personnel-displaced-by-doge-to-work-on-ai-for-its-military/

@kimzetter could you EIL5 (or give link(s)) what DOGE specifically does to get ppl fired? AFAICT they can't make HR decisions on Pentagons behalf, right?

@buherator Did you read the story? I didn't say DOGE fired them. I said they resigned enmasse after being displaced by DOGE

@kimzetter I didn't say you said that. The article have this line though:

"As federal agencies, *under the direction of DOGE*, continue to fire thousands of workers"

Also I read phrases like:
- "driven out"
- "pushed out"
- "sidelined" (in the Politico article)

I'm curious how this all looks in practice, incl. what formal authority DOGE has (e.g. can they formally direct agencies to do things?). Based on previous discussions my current understanding is that DOGE has no formal power, while people with actual power (e.g. management in agencies) make dumb decisions because DOGE looked them the wrong way.

I hope I am wrong. Based on the general quality of your reporting I hope you could explain the situation better or point me to some good resource.

@buherator DOGE comes in and designates projects to be canceled. In the early days, they were designating people to be eliminated and projects to be canceled without consulting with heads of agencies or cabinet secretaries. Weeks after that started occurring, cabinet secretaries began pushing back saying only they had the authority to do this. So now DOGE designates to agencies what needs to be cut, and agencies follow their direction

@kimzetter Thank you! So DOGE still doesn't have the authority but lower-ranking staff basically obey their requests that don't align with cabinet secretaries or agency heads? Why don't they just go full-on Cheryll on these requests?