Elon Musk’s D.O.G.E ally Tom Krause exposed for inefficient cost-cutting at other job

Tom Krause, Elon Musk’s go-to man for cost-cutting magic at the Department of Government Efficiency (D.O.G.E), has been slammed for his disastrous track record at Citrix Systems, where he is still an executive.

A Bloomberg editorial claims his ruthless job-slashing at Citrix led to many catastrophic security breaches. Now, the Treasury’s payment system, which processes 1.2 billion transactions annually, is within Tom’s purview under D.O.G.E, which is President Donald Trump’s plan to cut over $1 trillion in government spending.

The Democrats, like Michael Bloomberg, say Tom’s past is cause for serious concern. “What if he causes our federal data to be hacked by North Korea?” they probably worry. And apparently, they have reasons to worry.

Tom Krause turned Citrix into a hacker’s paradise

Log in to your remote work system, and there’s a good chance Citrix’s software powers it. With 400,000 clients, including the US Department of Defense, Citrix connects companies to their remote employees. But all that convenience comes with massive risks, especially when critical cybersecurity staff are cut off without a second thought.

In 2022, private equity companies Elliott Investment Management and Vista Equity Partners acquired Citrix for $16.5 billion, immediately drowning the company in debt. Tom was tasked with boosting profits by any means necessary. His playbook was to lay off staff and cut operating costs.

Citrix’s product security team, which once had 180 members, was cut by two-thirds under Tom’s leadership, allegedly leaving the company wide open to cyberattacks. By 2024, another 12% had been shown the door. Many of those laid off were senior engineers responsible for finding and fixing software vulnerabilities before hackers could exploit them.

According to Bloomberg, Tom also rejected proposals from the remaining cybersecurity team to preserve critical roles, opting instead to focus on trimming redundancies. Staff presented data showing how for every flaw Citrix disclosed publicly, they had privately fixed hundreds more behind the scenes.

Tom wasn’t interested. The security team shrank from 70 experienced engineers to a skeleton crew of inexperienced hires in India. The consequences hit hard. In 2023, the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) ranked two vulnerabilities in Citrix software as the most exploited by hackers globally.

The flaws allegedly allowed intruders to breach sensitive data across government networks and private corporations. CISA labeled the attack “Citrix Bleed” due to the massive data leaks that followed.

Tom’s Treasury role causes fears of government meltdown

Robert Metzger, a government contracting attorney, warned that Tom’s private equity mindset would be disastrous to the Treasury. “He will seek change first, and fast, with little regard for disruptive effects internally or dysfunctional impacts on the country or the outside world,” Metzger said.

His measure of success? Fewer federal employees and slashed budgets, regardless of whether critical missions collapse. Despite the chaos, Citrix’s parent company Cloud Software Group claimed it had made “fixing flaws its first, second, and third priorities.”

The company appointed new security officers from Broadcom and Cisco but refused to release audit results proving any improvements. Former employees reportedly said that cutting experienced engineers created gaps that no new hire could fill, especially in time to stop the bleeding.

When it comes to the government though, it seems Tom and Elon are losing the war a little bit, as a federal judge ruled against giving them access to any type of federal data on Saturday. Elon of course has expressed his disappointment in that, saying on X that: “When I asked if anyone at Treasury had a rough guess for what percentage of that number is unequivocal and obvious fraud, the consensus in the room was about half, so $50 billion per year or $1 billion per week!! This is utterly insane and must be addressed immediately.”

He added that no one in Treasury management cared enough to dig into this fraud and possibly even do something about it. “I do want to credit the working level people in Treasury who have wanted to do this for many years, but have been stopped by prior management,” said Elon.

Cryptopolitan Academy: FREE Web3 Resume Cheat Sheet - Download Now