CNN says that in late January, two people from Elon Musk’s DOGE team flew to California in a failed attempt to get water from a big pump system to help put out the fires in Los Angeles.
Tyler Hassen and Bryton Shang are said to have fixed the problem themselves after putting pressure on the Bureau of Reclamation to turn on the pumps at the Jones Pumping Plant near Tracy, California. This was done even though the plant was meant to send water to farmers in California’s Central Valley, not Los Angeles.
The real reason for the trip, though, seemed to be to get a picture of the two of them turning the water back on. Sadly, their plan didn’t work out very well.
Shang wasn’t working for the government at the time, so he couldn’t get into the control room of the building. Meanwhile, Hassen’s plans didn’t work because the pumps weren’t working because the power was going out. The DOGE employees didn’t give up, though. They took a picture in front of a map of the plant and praised the Bureau for “getting the pumps back online.”
Since California is about to start a dry season, experts said the whole project was pointless and a waste of money. After DOGE’s visit, President Trump told the U.S. Army Corps to let 2.2 billion gallons of water out of two dams in Central California. This caused farmlands to flood. No matter what, Trump praised the release, saying it would help stop more deaths from happening.
