Luke Farritor

Luke Farritor
Farritor in 2023
EducationUniversity of Nebraska–Lincoln (dropped out)
OccupationSoftware engineer
EmployerDepartment of Government Efficiency
FatherShane Farritor

Luke Farritor (born 2001/2002)[1] is an American software engineer who is working since 2025 at the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE).[2][3]

Early life and education

Farritor is the son of Shane Farritor, a University of Nebraska–Lincoln professor from Ravenna, Nebraska.[4] At 19, he produced Soundtracks for the Present Future at the Contemporary arts center of Nebraska, an installation in collaboration with artist Charley Friedman featuring 59 guitars and mandolins controlled via computer.[5]

Farritor interned at SpaceX in 2023.[6] That year, he won a $40,000 prize from the Vesuvius Challenge for using artificial intelligence to uncover ten letters from one of the Herculaneum Papyri scrolls.[7][8] Farritor's AI program segmented images of the carbonized scroll into 100 pixels by 100 pixels to determine the characters written in ink.[9][6][10] In February 2024, Farritor and two other competitors he had teamed up with won the $700,000 grand prize for revealing more than 2,000 additional characters.[11][12]

Farritor studied computer science at the University of Nebraska–Lincoln, before dropping out to become a Thiel Fellow in 2024.[13][14]

Career

See also: Department of Government Efficiency § DOGE workforce

In 2025, Farritor joined Elon Musk's Department of Government Efficiency. He is among a group of 19–24 year olds at the agency.[15] Farritor currently holds a General Services Administration (GSA) email and A-suite level clearance, with access to all GSA physical spaces and IT systems, according to Wired.[15] He is also an executive engineer in the office of the secretary of Health and Human Services.[1] CNN reported on February 6, 2025, that Energy Secretary Chris Wright had that day granted Farritor access to the department's computer systems.[16] In this position, Farritor manually vetoed payments to the HIV/AIDS relief program PEPFAR, even after some payments had been approved by White House officials and Secretary of State Marco Rubio.[17][18][19]

Farritor became a full time government employee effective May 31, 2025 at a General Schedule (US civil service pay scale) grade of GS-15 (the top grade).[20]

See also

References

  1. ^ a b Swan, Jonathan; Schleifer, Theodore; Haberman, Maggie; Conger, Kate; Mac, Ryan; Ngo, Madeleine (February 3, 2025). "Inside Musk's Aggressive Incursion Into the Federal Government". The New York Times. Retrieved February 4, 2025.
  2. ^ Schrage, Scott (February 5, 2024). "Farritor named co-winner of $700,000 prize for ID'ing scroll passages". Nebraska Today. University of Nebraska. Retrieved February 3, 2025.
  3. ^ Alms, Natalie (January 30, 2025). "Musk visits and asserts growing influence at GSA". Nextgov. Retrieved February 3, 2025.
  4. ^ White, Steve (February 5, 2025). "Nebraska tech prodigy reportedly joins Elon Musk's DOGE project". Nebraska Television Network. Retrieved February 17, 2025.
  5. ^ Berfield, Susan; Murphy, Margi; Leopold, Jason. "Portrait of a Young DOGE Coder Dismantling America's Institutions". Bloomberg.com. Retrieved August 9, 2025.
  6. ^ a b Steinberg, Julia (February 16, 2024). "The 22-Year-Old Who Unlocked the Secrets of Ancient Rome". The Free Press. Retrieved February 3, 2025.
  7. ^ Henshall, Will (October 21, 2023). "Inside the AI-Powered Race to Decode Ancient Roman Scrolls". Time. Retrieved February 3, 2025.
  8. ^ Wade, Nicholas (October 12, 2023). "Scrolls That Survived Vesuvius Divulge Their First Word". The New York Times. Retrieved October 13, 2023.
  9. ^ "First word discovered in unopened Herculaneum scroll by 21yo computer science student". scrollprize.org. Vesuvius Challenge. October 12, 2023. Retrieved October 13, 2023.
  10. ^ Sample, Ian (October 12, 2023). "Researchers use AI to read word on ancient scroll burned by Vesuvius". The Guardian. Retrieved October 13, 2023.
  11. ^ "Vesuvius Challenge 2023 Grand Prize awarded: we can read the first scroll!". scrollprize.org. Vesuvius Challenge. February 5, 2024. Retrieved February 12, 2025.
  12. ^ Montgomery, David (October 15, 2024). "How AI is revealing lost secrets of the Roman Empire". National Geographic. Retrieved February 12, 2025.
  13. ^ Dunker, Chris (February 5, 2024). "UNL student shares grand prize for translating scroll buried at Pompeii". Lincoln Journal Star. Retrieved February 3, 2025.
  14. ^ "Thiel Foundation Announces Next Thiel Fellow Class". Business Wire (Press release). March 21, 2024. Archived from the original on November 29, 2024. Retrieved February 3, 2025.
  15. ^ a b Elliott, Vittoria (February 2, 2025). "The Young, Inexperienced Engineers Aiding Elon Musk's Government Takeover". Wired. ISSN 1059-1028. Archived from the original on February 2, 2025. Retrieved February 3, 2025.
  16. ^ Nilsen, Ella (February 6, 2025). "Trump energy secretary allowed 23-year-old DOGE rep to access IT systems over objections from general counsel". CNN.
  17. ^ Bai, Matt (February 24, 2025). "The blinding contempt of the DOGE bros". The Washington Post. Archived from the original on February 24, 2025.
  18. ^ Mathis-Lilley, Ben (February 26, 2025). "I Think It's Bad That Nazi-Adjacent Youths Might Be Overruling the President and Secretary of State". Slate. ISSN 1091-2339. Retrieved March 2, 2025.
  19. ^ "Emergency Humanitarian Waiver to Foreign Assistance Pause". United States Department of State (Press release). Retrieved March 2, 2025.
  20. ^ Kelly, Makena (June 4, 2025). "'Big Balls' Is Officially a Full-Time Government Employee". WIRED. Retrieved July 29, 2025.
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