Nadiem Comes Clean on the "Mas Menteri Core Team" WhatsApp Group, Denies It Was Used to Discuss Chromebooks

JAKARTA, KOMPAS.com - Former Minister of Education, Culture, Research, and Technology, Nadiem Makarim, explained the formation of a WhatsApp group that has drawn attention in the trial of the alleged corruption case involving the procurement of Chromebook-based laptops at the Jakarta Corruption Court on Monday (11/5/2026). In the trial, the public prosecutors mentioned the existence of the “Mas Menteri Core Team” and “Education Council” groups, which were reportedly formed before Nadiem was inaugurated as minister. Both groups consist of several of Nadiem’s friends, three of whom are Jurist Tan, Najeela Shihab, and Fiona Handayani. Responding to this, Nadiem denied the assumption that the group was formed to discuss the procurement of Chromebooks or specific projects at the Ministry of Education, Culture, Research, and Technology. “I was so shocked when this case started, that the Prosecutor’s Office announced that in that WhatsApp group, before becoming minister, they had discussed the procurement of ICT or Chromebooks, which turned out not to have happened at all and there were no chats about it,” Nadiem said. Nadiem explained that the group was formed after he received information that he had a strong chance of becoming the Minister of Education. He admitted to starting to seek out individuals considered competent in the fields of education and government. “If I am a responsible person, if I am someone who wants to prepare myself, of course I must seek out experts in education and government,” he said. “Who are those names? They are the people in that group,” Nadiem continued. According to Nadiem, the group was formed to discuss the general direction of education policy, not the procurement of specific projects. “In that group, we discussed the broad outlines of policies that are considered able to address the biggest problems in our education system policy at that time,” he said. “In the chats, it is clear that we discussed the curriculum, we discussed digitalisation strategies,” Nadiem stated. “What is digitalisation? It is the development of applications, and so on,” he added. In the trial, Nadiem also mentioned that the majority of the group members have backgrounds in education and government with good reputations. “From education backgrounds, government, and also very clean and idealistic reputations, they were gathered in that group,” Nadiem said. “So that is the reason why the group was built,” he added.