Chinese companies investigated for attempting to recruit employees dismissed by DOGE

A "stealthy" network of Chinese companies is trying to hire former government employees who are victims of the latest cutbacks of the Trump administration. This was assured by the think tank Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD), in an exclusive report by Reuters.

Speaking to the news agency, the foundation's president, Max Lesser, claimed that behind some job searches were bidders who were "part of a broader network of fake consulting and headhunting firms targeting former government employees and AI researchers."

While there is little public information about those alleged shell companies, FDD claims that many of them share a website or are hosted on the same server.

One, called Wavemax Innovation, bluntly offered "Job Opportunities for Recently Laid-Off U.S. Government Employees." When Reuters reporters visited its address in Singapore, they found a vacant lot. It was also not listed in the company registry, nor did it respond to email inquiries.

After former US government officials

While Lesser said the practice was not uncommon in Chinese intelligence operations, he said what was "significant" was that the network focused on seeking to "exploit the financial vulnerabilities of former federal workers affected by recent mass layoffs."

The White House is currently pursuing a federal spending reduction campaign, led by Elon Musk's Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE). A recent Indeed report showed the impact of layoffs on job demand, recording a spike in searches by former employees of agencies pruned by DOGE. This mysterious network is allegedly trying to exploit this trend.

The FDD's discovery coincides with the publication of a U.S. intelligence report that assessed China as the biggest military threat to the United States. The Annual Threat Assessment describes a multifaceted operation to undermine U.S. global leadership, including various forms of espionage. The attempt to hire former government employees would fit into this framing.

Reuters acknowledges that it was unable to determine whether the companies under investigation have any ties to Beijing. A spokesman for the Chinese Embassy in Washington told the agency that they were unaware of their existence. Another from the White House offered a very different analysis: "Both active and former government employees must recognize the danger these governments pose and the importance of safeguarding government information," he told Reuters.

This is just one more example, he said, of the Chinese adversary trying to take advantage of "free and open system" in the United States to spy.