BREAKING: RETALIATION! A DOGE whistleblower had his brake lines cut the day after Elon Musk called him a criminal on X — and he's now suing for defamation.
Dan Berulis did everything right. He saw something alarming, filed a proper Congressional whistleblower complaint, and went public through legitimate channels. Then someone taped threatening photos of him walking his dog to his front door. Then Elon Musk called him a criminal to 200 million followers. Then his brake lines were cut.
Berulis was an IT staffer at the National Labor Relations Board who filed a whistleblower complaint in April 2025, alleging that DOGE had accessed the agency's systems and appeared to be exfiltrating data — and that minutes after DOGE accessed those systems, login attempts appeared from a Russian IP address.
Five days after he went public, on Easter Sunday, Musk reshared a post from a right-wing influencer claiming Berulis' complaint was false, writing: "Filing a deliberately false whistleblower claim is a serious crime." Musk's followers responded by calling for Berulis's prosecution, arrest, and harm. One wrote, "Snitches get stitches."
The next morning, Berulis got in his car. His brakes didn't work. He ran off the road into a stop sign. A mechanic later found his brake lines had been cut — and that a safety sensor had also been removed and its wires carefully spliced to prevent the car from detecting the missing component or alerting the driver.
Fingerprints were found on the car. The police case is now "inactive."
Berulis never went back to his home. He moved out, stayed in hotels, and has lived carefully ever since.
He is now suing Musk for defamation — knowing, in his own words, that it's "kicking the hornet's nest" against someone with nearly unlimited resources. If he wins, he says he'll use the proceeds to defend other whistleblowers.
"I'm not expecting to win this. The asymmetry here is real," Berulis said. "But I am trying to get something positive out of it."
One more detail that should terrify everyone: Berulis had moved to his address just three months before the threatening note appeared. He hadn't updated his bank, his phone, his car registration, or his driver's license. The only entities that had his new address were his utilities and the Office of Personnel Management — one of the first agencies DOGE accessed.
The atrocities that DOGE inflicted upon the US government may have faded from the immediate consciousness of most people, but the fallout continues. Let’s hope that this whistleblower sees the justice he deserves.
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