Three men entered San Francisco’s City Hall on February 14 stating they were officials with the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) and demanded access to city officials’ computers.
But neither officials with DOGE nor the Trump administration had any involvement in the altercation, which was later determined to be a stunt pulled off by online pranksters impersonating DOGE employees. The San Francisco Sheriff’s Office confirmed that the men were not DOGE officials, and Danny Mullen, a YouTuber with more than 845,000 subscribers on the platform, uploaded a video on February 24, titled, “Fake DOGE Prank in San Francisco (Liberal Meltdown).” The 29-minute video depicts Mullen, fellow influencer Leandro Dottavio, and a cameraman entering and wandering into both the San Francisco City Hall and Unified School District buildings, directing city employees to hand over information and instructing one official to insert Mullen’s thumb drive into her laptop.
Some internet users have posted clips of Mullen’s video, seemingly mistaking the online pranksters for authentic DOGE officials. An X account with more than 1 million followers, “Community Notes and Violations,” which has no official affiliation with the X platform, tweeted a clip of the video. While the clip features the pranksters identifying themselves as DOGE officials, the X account did not mention they were not real DOGE employees. On TikTok, one user with more than 100,000 followers—“Coach Chitown,” a self-described “life engagement coach”—also posted a clip of the video, with the added text, “Elon Musk’s DOGE employees raid government employees offices.” “Y’all won’t believe this s—. Government employee offices was raided this week by DOGE,” he said in the video. He quoted one of the DOGE impersonators, incorrectly identifying him as an actual DOGE employee. “Bradley from DOGE said, ‘I don’t need consent in Trump’s America.’ But hey, this is what America voted for. Now you ain’t got no choice but to stick it out.”
The same day that the pranksters entered the city government buildings, the San Francisco Sheriff’s Office said in a statement that they were investigating the incident, adding, “We do not believe the individuals requesting access to City files were representatives from DOGE.” Four days later on February 18, the office provided an update on its investigation. “Upon review of City Hall surveillance footage, it appears that the men were wearing DOGECOIN (a cryptocurrency) t-shirts and non-descriptive hats.” It added, “The men [impersonating DOGE officials] were verbally aggressive, insulted staff, and were unable to produce any formal identification; employees, therefore, did not comply with the men’s requests.”
Nearly a week later, Mullen uploaded the video of his prank onto YouTube. “Elon Musk’s DOGE is terrorizing public sector employees,” Mullen said at the beginning of the 29-minute video. “Hopefully we have the credentials and the swagger as we go into City Hall and try and try to make things more efficient.” They also displayed clearly fake ID cards that featured profanity and graphic content.
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