RAGE=
Retire
All
Government
Employees
www.thenerdreich.com
The Point: In 2022, one of Peter Thiel's favorite thinkers envisioned a second Trump Administration in which the federal government would be run by a “CEO” who was not Trump and laid out a playbook for how it might work. Elon Musk is following it.
The Back Story: In 2012, Curtis Yarvin — Peter Thiel’s “house philosopher”—called for something he dubbed RAGE: Retire All Government Employees. The idea: Take over the United States government and gut the federal bureaucracy. Then, replace civil servants with political loyalists who would answer to a CEO-type leader Yarvin likened to a dictator.
“If Americans want to change their government, they’re going to have to get over their dictator phobia,” he said.
Yarvin, a software programmer, framed this as a “reboot” of government.
Elon Musk’s DOGE is just a rebranded version of RAGE. He demands mass resignations, locks career employees out of their offices, threatens to delete entire departments, and seizes total control of sensitive government systems and programs. DOGE = RAGE, masked in the bland language of “efficiency.”
But Musk’s reliance on Yarvin’s playbook runs deeper.
In an essay dated April 2022, Yarvin updated RAGE to something he described as a “butterfly revolution.” In an essay on his paywalled Substack, he imagined a second Trump presidency in which Trump would enable a radical government transformation. The proposal will sound familiar to anyone who has watched Musk wreak havoc on the United States Government (USG) over the past three weeks.
Wrote Yarvin:
Retire
All
Government
Employees
'Reboot' Revealed: Elon Musk's CEO-Dictator Playbook
In 2022, one of Peter Thiel's favorite thinkers envisioned a second Trump Administration in which the federal government would be run by a “CEO”
www.thenerdreich.com
The Point: In 2022, one of Peter Thiel's favorite thinkers envisioned a second Trump Administration in which the federal government would be run by a “CEO” who was not Trump and laid out a playbook for how it might work. Elon Musk is following it.
The Back Story: In 2012, Curtis Yarvin — Peter Thiel’s “house philosopher”—called for something he dubbed RAGE: Retire All Government Employees. The idea: Take over the United States government and gut the federal bureaucracy. Then, replace civil servants with political loyalists who would answer to a CEO-type leader Yarvin likened to a dictator.
“If Americans want to change their government, they’re going to have to get over their dictator phobia,” he said.
Yarvin, a software programmer, framed this as a “reboot” of government.
Elon Musk’s DOGE is just a rebranded version of RAGE. He demands mass resignations, locks career employees out of their offices, threatens to delete entire departments, and seizes total control of sensitive government systems and programs. DOGE = RAGE, masked in the bland language of “efficiency.”
But Musk’s reliance on Yarvin’s playbook runs deeper.
In an essay dated April 2022, Yarvin updated RAGE to something he described as a “butterfly revolution.” In an essay on his paywalled Substack, he imagined a second Trump presidency in which Trump would enable a radical government transformation. The proposal will sound familiar to anyone who has watched Musk wreak havoc on the United States Government (USG) over the past three weeks.
Wrote Yarvin:
Real life malevolent revenge of the nerds. 
You are describing ever large scale capitalist in this country. Folks in the oil industry did a great job making the world dependent while burying alternative modes of energy. You don't find it interesting in 2025 cars are still barely going 40 mpg. We've gone from solid brick homes to plywood and sidings and very little creativity in designs. I can go on but you get the point. You are correct but the tech industry has done what every large industry had been doing.
