Musk Connections: Silicon Valley CEO who has been described as a “Musk ally”
Other Corporate Affiliations: CEO of Cloud Software Group; President of Broadcom Software
DOGE Deployment: Fiscal Assistant Secretary of the Treasury
- As Fiscal Assistant Secretary of the Treasury, Krause currently occupies the highest career position at the Treasury (despite not being a career staffer at Treasury). Krause is responsible for the Bureau of Fiscal Service, which houses the federal government’s financial infrastructure.
- As early as January 24, Krause—at that point still lacking a formal role at Treasury—requested access to the Treasury Department’s payments system (often called the nation’s “checkbook”) so that he and Marko Elez could illegally freeze foreign aid. Elez, a DOGE engineer, resigned on February 7 over his racist posts, though it appears that he has since been rehired.
- Before Krause was installed in his current position, a federal judge ordered that he could access the Treasury’s payments system, though in “read-only” mode. It is unclear whether Krause has more extensive privileges in his current role.
KRAUSE OVERSAW STEEP LAYOFFS, UPTICK IN HACKS AT SOFTWARE COMPANY
- Krause was brought on as CEO of Cloud Software Group, which owns Citrix Systems, in 2022 by two private equity firms who sought to steeply cut costs at their then new acquisition. In his first year at the company, he laid off 15% of Citrix’s staff; he laid off another 12% in his second year.
- After Krause’s cuts—which some employees warned would go badly—Citrix’s products were subject to two major hacks. At least two vulnerabilities in Citrix software discovered in 2023 were known to be used in ransomware attacks. In his DOGE role, Krause was given access to Treasury data concerning nearly all federal payments, ranging from Social Security to payments to government contractors.
- According to Bloomberg, as of February 10, Krause is planning to keep his role as CEO of Cloud Software Group while he participates in the DOGE efforts.
KRAUSE WORKED FOR BROADCOM—SANCTIONED BY THE FTC FOR ANTICOMPETITIVE PRACTICES IN 2021—AND WAS KEY IN A MERGER THAT RESULTED IN SKYROCKETING SOFTWARE PRICES
- In July 2021, the FTC charged Broadcom with “illegally monopolizing markets for semiconductor components used to deliver television and broadband internet services.” In a final order in November 2021, Broadcom was prohibited from engaging in a number of anticompetitive practices, such as retaliating against its customers for doing business with competitors. Krause was President of Broadcom Software Group from December 2020 to September 2022.
- Krause was a key figure in the acquisition of VMware by Broadcom, a merger large enough to earn a “second request” investigation from the FTC. The acquisition eventually went through, and it led to astronomical price increases for VMware customers—as Krause had seemingly planned.
FORMER EMPLOYEE ON CLOUD SOFTWARE GROUP UNDER KRAUSE: “THEY SAW PEOPLE AS EXPENDABLE.”
- ABC News interviewed a number of people who worked at Cloud Software Group under Krause. One employee told the outlet, “There was a whittling away of the things that made you feel like you were a valued employee and then finally ‘Oh, now we’re going to start eliminating jobs.’ They saw people as expendable.”
- Multiple ex-employees told ABC that under Krause, managers were required to rate employees’ performance on a scale of one to three. One manager said that they were required to give a low rating to at least one employee—“even if I thought they didn’t really deserve a low score.”
As Elon Musk’s DOGE continues to tear through agencies with little oversight or transparency, the Revolving Door Project is publishing profiles of reported DOGE employees: who they are, where they came from, and any conflicts of interest that might make their unfettered access to the federal government dangerous to the public. Read them all here.