Modesto native, an Elon Musk insider, is at the center of the DOGE access controversy
A Modesto native is now senior adviser at the U.S. Office of Personnel Management. He’s part of an ongoing takeover of federal offices by Elon Musk insiders.
Brian Nils Bjelde was one of the first employees at SpaceX, a now $350 billion company owned by Musk. Originally hired as an aeronautics engineer in 2003, he has been working with Musk for over 20 years.
Now, Bjelde is a core member of the Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, an acronym meant to reference the meme cryptocurrency that Musk endorses.
Confusion for federal employees
OPM is the chief human resources agency and personnel policy manager for the federal government. According to the Federal News Network, Bjelde has a plan to cut 70% of its staff.
On Jan. 28, federal workers received from OPM an email titled “Fork In The Road,” offering a choice: leave with an eight-month severance package; accept new job requirements, which included “employees who are reliable, loyal, trustworthy”; or be terminated by Feb. 6.
A federal judge on Feb. 10 blocked the action to review its legality. Two days later, the OPM website said the deadline to choose was extended until further notice. But then, the next day on Feb. 13, it said, “The deferred resignation program is now closed.”
In California’s Congressional Districts 5 and 13, which make up the majority of Stanislaus County, there are about 11,760 civilian federal employees, according to a Congressional Research Services report published Dec. 20.
On Feb. 7, the U.S. The Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs requested a halt to Musk and his associates, including Bjelde by name, until they answer questions regarding when they became special government employees and what access they may have had to sensitive information like Social Security numbers, medical records and death benefits.
By Feb. 10, The National Active and Retired Federal Employees Association filed a lawsuit, followed by Electronic Frontier Foundation, and a class action lawsuit the next day on behalf of federal workers against Elon Musk and DOGE for access to confidential data. All of these cases as of the date of publication are ongoing.
As of Feb. 18, according to reporting by ABC, NASA has had 10% of its employees cut.
The White House has denied that Musk is the formal head of DOGE.
Before SpaceX, in Modesto
Bjelde was born in Modesto at Doctors Medical Hospital on July 4, 1980. His family has been in Modesto many years.
As a child, he said he took trips to Lake Tahoe to see the fireworks along the shoreline. In a 1999 Bee story about people born on Independence Day, he said, “When I was younger I used to think everyone was celebrating MY birthday. Maybe I still do.”
He went to Modesto private schools. In fifth grade, while attending Our Lady Fatima Elementary, he presented a conservation strategy to use less water. His idea, which involved bringing a bucket into the shower, collecting the water and using it to water plants, was published in The Bee.
Bjelde played soccer and golf at Central Catholic High School and took courses through Modesto Junior College to earn college credit before graduating.
Around the same time, Bjelde won multiple scholarships. He was one of the first to be awarded a scholarship and paid internship from E.&J. Gallo Winery in 1998.
Bjelde graduated from the University of Southern California, where he earned a bachelor’s degree in aerospace engineering in 2002 and a master’s in astronautical engineering. While at USC, he still lived part time in Riverbank.
In a quote from The Bee in 2011, he said he continued to return to Modesto for the holidays, stopping by a favorite taco truck. By then, he was working out of SpaceX’s Hawthorn office.
How he became VP of human resources at SpaceX
In an “Ask Me Anything” on Reddit in 2016, a Redditor asked how Bjelde went from being an engineer at SpaceX to its vice president of human resources — a role he still shows current on LinkedIn. Bjelde responded, “I was given the opportunity to lead HR and that was a challenge that I couldn’t pass up.”
He did not provide further details, but his LinkedIn page shows that just before his promotion to HR, he was managing director of its Food Services Group, a role he describes as “fueling the workforce!”
Bjelde consistently said in interviews and speeches that he wants to send people to Mars with the ultimate goal of making humans a “multiplanetary species.”
For the last 10 years, he’s been managing something more down-to-earth as VP of human resources at SpaceX. Bjelde was responsible for the implementation of the company’s Equal Employment Opportunity program, which was delegated to him by Musk. In that role, he was sued in a civil rights case for allegedly promoting a culture of sexual harassment, according to reporting by Bloomberg. This case is ongoing.
Zippia.com, a career research company, reported that only 14% of SpaceX’s employees are women, while 35.6% of NASA’s permanent workforce are women, according to a report from 2023. Musk referred to SpaceX as a “technological monastery” in 2021, referring to the lack of women at the company.
Prior to the lawsuit, in a faux sexual harassment-style video shown at a holiday party, Bjelde is shown having his rear slapped by a female coworker as she was apparently taught how to correctly hit him.
Separately, a former employee of SpaceX who spoke out about what she claimed was a culture of rampant misogyny and sexual harassment said that Bjelde told her he wasn’t aware of sexual harassment issues at the company.
Bjelde was on the Twitter Severance Administration Committee, which was responsible for the termination of approximately 80% of Twitter’s employees in 2021 after Musk took over the company now referred to as X.
In a complaint filed with the U.S. Department of Labor, complainants said Bjelde and/or Gwynne Shotwell told people at Twitter that they were being fired for signing an open letter speaking up about changes to the company.
Bjelde’s financial interests tied to federal funding include compensation of $1.8 million as part of a NASA grant awarded to SpaceX in 2017 and his investment in a company called Rain that in 2024 demonstrated autonomous Blackhawk helicopters to the Federal Emergency Management Agency, NASA and the U.S. military.
Now at the age of 44, he is a “special government employee” and senior adviser at OPM.
The Bee reached out to OPM’s press email and heard back Feb. 18 that Bjelde would not be available for comment for this article.
This story was originally published February 18, 2025 at 2:00 PM.
