Antonio Gracias: DOGE updates, Voter fraud, Finding 'Big Balls' | All-In Live from Miami
Summary
- Antonio Gracias says the federal government makes Twitter look like “the JV league” beside “the NBA,” yet roughly 15% of $7 billion could be cut without touching core entitlements. He argues the obstacle is political will: every removed dollar comes from an NGO or “Beltway consultant,” while about 88% of departing employees accepted voluntary packages worth roughly nine months’ severance.
- DOGE’s operating thesis is that transparent service metrics matter more than financial compensation incentives. At Social Security, Gracias found an empty headquarters and a field office with 20 people waiting while only seven of 25 windows were staffed; through his and the interim administrator’s efforts, employees returned to offices, website-uptime metrics were published, and, he says, no field offices were closed.
- The talent model combines Elon Musk’s recruiting pull with a national mission. Gracias called the young recruits “10x engineers”: one left Harvard with two classes remaining, while another rising executive left KKR. He endorsed a third class of federal worker—alongside career and political staff—serving for 130 days as an SGE or for several years as an engineer.
- Manual sampling has found people from DHS work-authorization records who registered and voted, but Gracias carefully separated reported arrests and an indictment from his belief that they represent “the tip of the iceberg.” He said an engineer using SQL can identify roughly 10–20 cases per state in a day; he explicitly declined to estimate the iceberg’s total size.
- Gracias argues voter administration should pursue a “zero-defect system,” because every illegal ballot “nullifies the vote of an American citizen.” His proposed infrastructure is REAL ID plus the federal SAVE citizenship database; after API pricing reportedly rose from about $1 to $3 and change and states stopped using it, Secretary Noem signed a policy memo making access free.
- His immigration position couples a controlled border with sensible legal pathways for both skilled and unskilled labor. With roughly 7 million job openings and GDP framed as workers multiplied by productivity, he wants skilled immigration and practical work permits for farms, food service, and restaurants. “When a country opens its borders, this country loses its sovereignty,” he said, while adding “compassion” to his team’s values of focus, intensity, and discipline.
Deep dive
1. DOGE’s “trillion-dollar number” inside an “NBA” bureaucracy
Gracias’s baseline: “If Twitter was like the JV league, this is like the NBA.” He mapped the entire system from the border to benefits programs on a 40-foot board resembling a “spaghetti diagram,” making it the most complex thing he has encountered—and “much, much worse” than he expected.
The “trillion-dollar number,” he said, comes from applying an ordinary restructuring benchmark: almost any poorly run organization can “easy cut 15%.” On $7 billion of spending, Gracias believes that reduction is available without cutting core entitlements, provided there is political will to take money from NGOs and Beltway consultants.
Gracias said roughly 88% of people who left government took voluntary packages carrying about nine months’ severance. His larger concern is cultural—people in government have reported matters as serious as sex trafficking to inspectors general and seen “literally nothing” happen; the lasting contribution might be proving that “your voice matters.”
2. Public service improves when operating metrics become visible
At Social Security’s Woodlawn, Maryland headquarters, Gracias found a stadium-sized parking lot and offices nearly empty. A field office had about 20 customers waiting, seven employees at windows, and three shades half-lowered because staff were still handling phone calls under COVID-era operating arrangements.
Gracias and the interim administrator brought employees back to headquarters and field locations. Gracias insisted, “We haven’t closed one field office, not one,” and said reports of deteriorating service levels were false.
Chamath’s incentive question drew a non-financial answer: across 2.5 million government employees plus contractors, the middle of the distribution responds to incentives, so transparency and basic metrics should show people how they are doing. Social Security website uptime, Gracias said, improved after DOGE arrived; publishing the metrics lets engineers and citizens see whether performance is actually getting better.
3. A national mission is recruiting “10x engineers”
Gracias attributed DOGE’s recruiting flywheel partly to Musk’s leadership, but more fundamentally to a rare chance to make “an extraordinary difference to the country.” The recruits bring friends, and the mission compounds the pool of technical talent.
His examples were concrete: Ethan left Harvard with two classes remaining; the young engineers were “10x engineers” he said any of them would be thrilled to have in their companies; and a rising KKR executive left his private-sector trajectory to serve. Gracias said he did not say a word during their televised interview.
Sacks’s account of Musk’s method: he notices unsolicited solutions in emails or posts, routes them to people who can vet whether they work, and does not prejudge candidates by school or credentials. Gracias then endorsed a third federal employment category—short-duration public servants whose 130-day or multi-year tours could improve government while binding citizens through shared service.
4. Hand sampling found voting cases without measuring the full problem
The investigation is “pick and shovel,” not AI-driven data mining: engineers query DHS work-authorization records, compare names with state voter rolls, then send candidates to Homeland Security Investigations. HSI checks voter records and the cards signed when people vote, using subpoenas where needed.
Sacks described the reported cases as people who legally obtained Social Security numbers through work authorization and then registered and voted in 2020 and/or 2024; Gracias reported three arrests and one indictment. The indicted Iraqi national had voted in New York, served prison time after shooting off a man’s hand, incurred roughly $60,000–$70,000 in Medicaid benefits, and, Gracias thought, was in Iraq based on his Facebook activity and IP address.
Sacks’s question—was this extensive mining or evidence of massive fraud?—produced a careful distinction. Gracias separated the hand-sampled findings from his opinion that they are “the tip of the iceberg,” while saying, “how big the iceberg is, I don’t know.” An engineer can nevertheless surface roughly 10–20 cases per state in one day of sampling.
Gracias rejected tolerating even a small baseline of fraud: “Every vote that is cast illegally in America nullifies the vote of an American citizen.” His “zero-defect system” combines REAL ID with SAVE, the federal citizenship database; Secretary Noem has signed a policy memo making SAVE access free after higher per-call pricing reportedly drove states away.
5. Border control and more legal immigration belong in the same system
Gracias called himself “an enormous fan of immigration,” grounding that position in his parents arriving with nothing and building an American life. His economic premise is equally direct: GDP is workers multiplied by productivity, and roughly 7 million open jobs mean the country needs more people working.
His proposed split is skilled immigration matched to needed occupations plus sensible permits for unskilled labor in farming, food, and restaurants. Existing programs such as H-2A traverse disconnected systems at DHS, State, and Labor; DOGE hopes to leave behind sensible answers for both the illegal problem and legal pathways.
Jason pressed him on deportations, due process, and the administration’s internal divide. Gracias’s line was categorical but two-sided: “When a country opens its borders, this country loses its sovereignty,” while controlled legal immigration should be a proper process through which people who are great for the country and believe in its values can come in and have a chance to become citizens. His team’s added value is “compassion.”