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Meet the 24-year-old Ottawa software engineer who runs a MAGA bot
Saihajpreet Singh's bots are waging an online battle against progressive politicians in the U.S.
Author of the article:Matteo Cimellaro
Published Aug 06, 2025 • Last updated 15 hours ago • 4 minute read
Former Carleton University student Saihajpreet Singh is a 24-year-old software engineer who has designed a MAGA bot on X.
Former Carleton University student Saihajpreet Singh is a 24-year-old software engineer who has designed a MAGA bot on X.
If you’ve been on the social media site X recently to wade into the debate over the New York City mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani, you may have come across CityDeskNYC.
The account, which is run by an artificial intelligence bot, spits out more than 1,000 posts a day, responding to mentions of the Democratic nominee for mayor. The posts disparage Mamdani and his proposed policies while praising some of his political opponents.
But the person behind the bot isn’t in New York City, or even in the United States. He lives in Ottawa.
Saihajpreet Singh is a 24-year-old software engineer who graduated from Carleton University two years ago and CityDeskNYC is just one of his AI bots looking to reshape political public relations.
Last year, Singh, who has been coding since he was seven years old, built an AI bot called DOGEai that posts around 2,000 times a day on X, with a right-wing MAGA flair and an output no human could match. DOGEai, which has amassed more than 127,000 followers, has criticized Democrats and applauded Donald Trump and his supporters, attracting retweets by the American president and his former ally Elon Musk.
For Singh, CityDeskNYC is a proof of concept AI bot that he hopes to monetize by eventually selling it to Mamdani’s political opponents.
“Many people hate me,” Singh told the Ottawa Citizen.
Singh’s accounts are part of an army of AI bots that have created an information ecosystem in support of Trump and the Republican Party on X. In the lead-up to last year’s presidential election, researchers at Clemson University identified a network of more than 680 AI-generated bot accounts on X that were pushing Trump’s agenda.
Singh, who moved to Ottawa in 2019 from Minnesota, claims he is not a propagandist, but a “technologist” who wants to show how AI can be leveraged for public relations. He said he would be open to working for campaigns across the political spectrum.
He added that he “does not discriminate” and that “the technology can help anyone.” But his known accounts have targeted progressive politicians and sought to aid conservative ones so far.
AI bot master as a side hustle
Singh first launched the AI behind DOGEai as a way to scrutinize legislation that was working its way through Congress during the latter half of then-president Joe Biden’s term in office, when the Democrats controlled the Senate and Republicans held the House.
Singh, whose family and friends live in the United States, said he originally asked the AI to break down a 1,500-page spending bill introduced in 2024. He posed simple questions about how the bill would spend money and impact citizens.
But Singh and the friends who worked with him on the project thought the data they got back was “boring” and dry.
“So, we were like, what if we make this humorous and have things have a particular stance on particular topics, right?” Singh said.
That’s when DOGEai was born on X. Singh also later created a Substack newsletter with posts every few days of AI-generated political cartoons.
Saihajpreet Singhhas launched multiple AI bots looking to support conservative politicians in the U.S.
Saihajpreet Singh has launched multiple AI bots looking to support conservative politicians in the U.S.
The response was explosive, Singh said. The posts on DOGEai soon reached millions of impressions each day with help from Musk and Trump.
“Even the sitting president retweeted one of the posts from DOGEai, so the scale is pretty big,” he said. “I was just shocked when I saw that happen.”
Singh said that the AI bots are his side projects and he currently works as the head of growth and product engineering at a software company called the Guild. He is also a growth engineer for Anyscale, an AI company.
Running the bots is not cheap at around $9,000 to $10,000 in operational costs a month, according to Singh.
He said he has received racist comments and death threats “every couple days” for creating DOGEai. But it’s not stopping Singh, who is “actively exploring” other social media sites such as TikTok, Instagram and Threads.
The future of bots in political public relations
Singh said that his bots rely heavily on social media, where many voters get their information.
Still, he does not think such AI bots should be used exclusively for political campaigns, even though both of his projects revolve around American politics.
“It’s a tool for public relations teams. It can help you scale your operations like never before, right?” Singh said.
“With this kind of thing, (you) can get influences that you want, you can send your message to the world.”
Singh said he has received interest from political campaigns and public relations firms about his bots.
“There’s interest from every part of the world on this type of thing,” Singh said. “You can see the scale of this thing, how good it can get, as long as we have good guard rails.”
torontosun.com
Saihajpreet Singh's bots are waging an online battle against progressive politicians in the U.S.
Author of the article:Matteo Cimellaro
Published Aug 06, 2025 • Last updated 15 hours ago • 4 minute read
Former Carleton University student Saihajpreet Singh is a 24-year-old software engineer who has designed a MAGA bot on X.
Former Carleton University student Saihajpreet Singh is a 24-year-old software engineer who has designed a MAGA bot on X.
If you’ve been on the social media site X recently to wade into the debate over the New York City mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani, you may have come across CityDeskNYC.
The account, which is run by an artificial intelligence bot, spits out more than 1,000 posts a day, responding to mentions of the Democratic nominee for mayor. The posts disparage Mamdani and his proposed policies while praising some of his political opponents.
But the person behind the bot isn’t in New York City, or even in the United States. He lives in Ottawa.
Saihajpreet Singh is a 24-year-old software engineer who graduated from Carleton University two years ago and CityDeskNYC is just one of his AI bots looking to reshape political public relations.
Last year, Singh, who has been coding since he was seven years old, built an AI bot called DOGEai that posts around 2,000 times a day on X, with a right-wing MAGA flair and an output no human could match. DOGEai, which has amassed more than 127,000 followers, has criticized Democrats and applauded Donald Trump and his supporters, attracting retweets by the American president and his former ally Elon Musk.
For Singh, CityDeskNYC is a proof of concept AI bot that he hopes to monetize by eventually selling it to Mamdani’s political opponents.
“Many people hate me,” Singh told the Ottawa Citizen.
Singh’s accounts are part of an army of AI bots that have created an information ecosystem in support of Trump and the Republican Party on X. In the lead-up to last year’s presidential election, researchers at Clemson University identified a network of more than 680 AI-generated bot accounts on X that were pushing Trump’s agenda.
Singh, who moved to Ottawa in 2019 from Minnesota, claims he is not a propagandist, but a “technologist” who wants to show how AI can be leveraged for public relations. He said he would be open to working for campaigns across the political spectrum.
He added that he “does not discriminate” and that “the technology can help anyone.” But his known accounts have targeted progressive politicians and sought to aid conservative ones so far.
AI bot master as a side hustle
Singh first launched the AI behind DOGEai as a way to scrutinize legislation that was working its way through Congress during the latter half of then-president Joe Biden’s term in office, when the Democrats controlled the Senate and Republicans held the House.
Singh, whose family and friends live in the United States, said he originally asked the AI to break down a 1,500-page spending bill introduced in 2024. He posed simple questions about how the bill would spend money and impact citizens.
But Singh and the friends who worked with him on the project thought the data they got back was “boring” and dry.
“So, we were like, what if we make this humorous and have things have a particular stance on particular topics, right?” Singh said.
That’s when DOGEai was born on X. Singh also later created a Substack newsletter with posts every few days of AI-generated political cartoons.
Saihajpreet Singhhas launched multiple AI bots looking to support conservative politicians in the U.S.
Saihajpreet Singh has launched multiple AI bots looking to support conservative politicians in the U.S.
The response was explosive, Singh said. The posts on DOGEai soon reached millions of impressions each day with help from Musk and Trump.
“Even the sitting president retweeted one of the posts from DOGEai, so the scale is pretty big,” he said. “I was just shocked when I saw that happen.”
Singh said that the AI bots are his side projects and he currently works as the head of growth and product engineering at a software company called the Guild. He is also a growth engineer for Anyscale, an AI company.
Running the bots is not cheap at around $9,000 to $10,000 in operational costs a month, according to Singh.
He said he has received racist comments and death threats “every couple days” for creating DOGEai. But it’s not stopping Singh, who is “actively exploring” other social media sites such as TikTok, Instagram and Threads.
The future of bots in political public relations
Singh said that his bots rely heavily on social media, where many voters get their information.
Still, he does not think such AI bots should be used exclusively for political campaigns, even though both of his projects revolve around American politics.
“It’s a tool for public relations teams. It can help you scale your operations like never before, right?” Singh said.
“With this kind of thing, (you) can get influences that you want, you can send your message to the world.”
Singh said he has received interest from political campaigns and public relations firms about his bots.
“There’s interest from every part of the world on this type of thing,” Singh said. “You can see the scale of this thing, how good it can get, as long as we have good guard rails.”
Meet the 24-year-old Ottawa software engineer who runs a MAGA bot
The bots were created to flood X with pro-MAGA messages, attracting attention from Donald Trump and Elon Musk.