Meet @DataRepublican: AI Star of DOGE’s Waste Fight

From Utah Coder to Government Watchdog

Meet Jennica Pounds, the deaf software engineer from Utah behind the X handle @DataRepublican. She’s a driving force in the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), a 2025 initiative launched by President Donald Trump and spearheaded by Elon Musk. Pounds uses artificial intelligence to spotlight federal waste, a mission that’s taken her from election data breakdowns in 2020 to reshaping government spending. She said AI is like 'David’s slingshot' against bureaucratic giants, a belief tested after Rolling Stone unmasked her identity on February 26.

Building Tools to Track Tax Dollars

Pounds’ story with @DataRepublican started with mapping voting patterns, but DOGE shifted her focus to federal funds. She found grant IDs—public but hard-to-search—key to tracking nonprofit payments. Her site, DataRepublican.com, launched in 2025 with a 'reverse index' tool, tracing cash flows to groups like Global Refuge, a faith-based immigrant charity. On January 21, she flagged $229 million in payments to Global Refuge for DOGE. Two weeks later, Musk confirmed DOGE was 'rapidly shutting down' those funds, proving her tools’ real-world punch.

Facing the Fallout of Fame

Her anonymity ended with Rolling Stone’s doxxing, linked to a deaf community tip on Facebook. Pounds quit her job at Upstart, an AI lending firm, to focus on DOGE, but the exposure brought threats. Her husband's distillery, Spirits of the Wasatch, took a hit with bad reviews, forcing them to pull their sons from school and move to Florida temporarily. Yet she stands firm, saying, 'It’s about confronting corruption and unchecked power,' a resolve that defines @DataRepublican’s ethos.

AI-Powered Insights for All

At @DataRepublican, Pounds wields AI to untangle federal spending’s mess. A 2023 USAID report pegs its annual budget at $50.1 billion, but transparency is spotty. Her site maps political donations and NGO salaries, like tying Bill Kristol’s Defending Democracy Together to USAID funds through nested nonprofits—a claim Rolling Stone questioned but didn’t debunk. Musk has shared her X posts 24 times in three weeks, while Senator Mike Lee called her a 'gift to America' on X, showing her growing clout.

Making Waves with DOGE

Pounds’ data fuels DOGE’s cuts, like an 83% USAID reduction and $105 billion in contested savings. Critics have challenged DOGE’s legal footing, but Pounds sees waste as a bipartisan issue. A 2022 GAO report backs her up, noting $281 billion in improper federal payments over 10 years. Her tools give citizens what she calls a 'full picture' of spending, living her mantra: 'Data does not equal transparency.' It’s why @DataRepublican matters.

A Personal Fight for Accountability

The stakes got personal post-doxxing. Threats rolled in, but support from figures like Ed Martin, interim U.S. Attorney for D.C., kept her going. On X, she’s open about her deafness and autism, explaining expressive dysphasia shapes her words, per a February 26 social media post. She says DOGE is about a 'financially sustainable' future. Her husband's distillery rebounded after supporters fought back, a 'miraculous' win she celebrated on X on March 21.