Elon Musk, controversially charged with remaking government for President Donald Trump, said Friday he would rehire a young member of the newly formed Department of Government Efficiency after the man resigned Thursday over racist social media posts.

Musk’s move came after Vice President JD Vance called in a social media post for 25-year-old Marko Elez, who posted racist statements on social media as recently as September, to be brought back into DOGE.

Using a salute emoji, Musk responded to Vance’s post on X, saying, “He will be brought back. To err is human, to forgive divine.”

Elez was one of a , many connected to the Bay Area, who are amid billionaire presidential adviser Musk’s crusade to slash federal spending and purge programs and employees linked to diversity efforts.

team of young technology workerspenetrating government agencies

According to a Wednesday federal court filing in a lawsuit by labor groups against the U.S. Treasury Department over DOGE’s access to sensitive information, Elez is an engineer who has worked at Musk’s San Francisco company X, and at the SpaceX rocket company based in southern California, which Musk leads as CEO.

Elez resigned Thursday after the Wall Street Journal asked the White House about posts on a social media account linked to him, including a July statement that “I was racist before it was cool,” .

the newspaper reported