The email is reminiscent of one that Musk sent early in his Twitter days, demanding that employees email a one-page description of what they had accomplished the previous month and how it differed from their goals.
Rather than convening with Shedd in these meetings, TTS employees were instead surprised to be met with people they had never seen or worked with before.
“It was a very confusing call because I expected to be meeting you, and I was instead met by two people reluctant to identify themselves,” one TTS employee told Shedd in an open Slack channel, one of several reviewed by WIRED. “They had not seen the information I submitted in my form, so I was left trying to explain things without the visuals/links I had submitted,” one wrote.
“Also had the same exact experience,” another employee added. “The individual I had met with had no idea about the google form I submitted and when I did reference it, I was met with avoidance.”
In a Slack message to TTS staff on Thursday morning viewed by WIRED, Shedd apologized for the vague and sudden meeting invites, and for including unnamed individuals in the meetings who joined with Gmail addresses.
“They are each in the onboarding process of obtaining a GSA laptop and PIV card. I take full responsibility for the actions of each of them in the calls. I’ve asked them to start the calls with their first name and confirming that they are an advisor to me,” Shedd said in a screenshot of the Slack message viewed by WIRED.
Shedd told employees that the people on the calls were “vetted by me, and invited into the call.” He said they were physically present with him at the GSA headquarters, and that he had “badged them all into the building.” This implies that those joining the calls did not currently have official government IDs issued to agency staff.
At least two of these individuals appeared to be “college students with disturbingly high A-suite clearance,” one TTS source told WIRED. (A-suite clearances tie employees to the GSA administrator’s office.)
One person says they were brought into a review with Edward Coristine, a recent high school graduate who spent several months at Neuralink, Musk’s brain-computer interface company, whom WIRED has previously identified as a person working at the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) and reporting directly to its new chief of staff, the former xAI employee Amanda Scales. He has not responded to requests for comment from WIRED, and OPM has declined to comment.
“We do not have any additional personnel announcements at this time.” a GSA spokesperson told WIRED on Thursday.
It’s typical for TTS workers to work in tandem with other agencies across government, with many of their projects containing data external to GSA and subject to sensitivity agreements. Being required to share specific technical achievements, though, spooked some employees who feared they could breach these agreements.
“The team is correct in feeling nervous sharing details about other agencies in these calls and should continue to follow the normal guidance which is to not share sensitive information,” Shedd wrote in the GSA Slack on Thursday. “The point of these calls is to talk through interesting example problems/wins and dig into how that win was realized. A chance for you to brag about how you solved a problem.”
