Elon Musk’s DOGE Building Trump’s Gold Card System

Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency is shifting resources to a Donald Trump proposal near and dear to real estate’s heart: the gold card.

Engineers from DOGE are working with the State Department, the Department of Homeland Security and United States Citizenship and Immigration Services to build a website and application process for the $5 million special visas, the New York Times reported. Trump unveiled the gold card in February, but a process to obtain one has yet to open.

It’s a change of pace for members of DOGE to work on a revenue-generating project rather than a cost-cutting expenditure. Those working on it include Marko Elez — who was fired after being linked to racist posts on X before Trump and Vice President JD Vance demanded his reinstatement — and Edward Coristine, best known online as “Big Balls.”

Another person involved in the gold card development is Airbnb co-founder Joe Gebbia, whose recruitment to DOGE led to a firestorm from some hosts of the short-term rental company.

The gold card is expected to replace the EB-5 visa, which gave permanent residence to foreign individuals who invested in U.S. businesses. It became a favorite investment vehicle for real estate, raising $4 billion last year alone.

EB-5 — once referred to as the “crack cocaine of real estate financing” — was created by Congress in 1990 to grant visas to foreign investors who spend about $1 million and employ at least 10 people in the country.

But the program has also been considered vulnerable to fraud, with allegations of misrepresentation of investment opportunities, falsifying documents and misallocating investor funds.

Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick claimed on a recent podcast that he sold 1,000 gold card visas the day before, claiming they grant permanent residence, rather than citizenship. No money has reportedly changed hands, though.

Lutnick and Trump have both claimed at various points in the past month that the program would be launched “very soon” or within two weeks.

— Holden Walter-Warner