U.S. Government organization and Initiative tasked with reducing federal spending
The Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE)[a] is an initiative by the second Trump administration within the federal government of the United States. Its stated objective is to modernize information technology, maximize productivity,[4] and cut excess regulations and spending.[5] It emerged from discussions between Donald Trump and Elon Musk in 2024,[6] and was officially established by executive order on January 20, 2025.
Members of DOGE have filled influential roles at federal agencies[7] that granted them enough control of information systems to terminate contracts from agencies targeted by Trump's executive orders,[8] with small businesses bearing the brunt of the cuts.[9] DOGE has facilitated mass layoffs and the dismantling of agencies and government funded organizations. It has also assisted with immigration crackdowns[10][11][12] and copied sensitive data from government databases.[13][14]
DOGE's status is unclear. Formerly designated as the U.S. Digital Service, USDS now abbreviates United States DOGE Service and comprises the United States DOGE Service Temporary Organization, scheduled to end on July 4, 2026.[15] Musk has said that DOGE is transparent,[16] while the Supreme Court has exempted it from disclosure.[17] DOGE's actions have been met with opposition and lawsuits.[18] Some critics have warned of a constitutional crisis,[19][20] while others have likened DOGE's actions to a coup.[21] The White House has claimed lawfulness.[22]
The role Musk had with DOGE is also unclear. The White House asserted he was senior advisor to the president,[23][24] denied he was making decisions,[25][26] and named Amy Gleason as acting administrator.[1] Trump insisted that Musk headed DOGE;[27] Theodore D. Chuang declared him de facto leader, likely needing Senate confirmation under the Appointments Clause.[28] In May, 2025, Musk announced plans to pivot away from DOGE;[29] he was working remotely around that time,[30] after compelling federal employees's return to office.[31][32] Musk left Washington on May 30, soon after his offboarding,[33][34] along with lieutenant Steve Davis, top adviser Katie Miller, and general counsel James Burnham.[33] Trump had maintained his support for Musk[35] until they clashed on June 5 over the Big Beautiful Bill. His administration reiterated its pledge to the DOGE objective,[36] and Russell Vought testified that DOGE was being "far more institutionalized".[37]
As of June 29, 2025[update], DOGE has claimed to have saved $190 billion.[38] An independent analysis estimated that DOGE savings will cost $135 billion;[39] the Internal Revenue Service predicted more than $500 billion in revenue loss due to "DOGE-driven" cuts.[40] Journalists found billions of dollars in misaccounting.[41][42] According to critics, DOGE redefined fraud to target federal employees and programs to build political support;[43] budget experts said DOGE cuts were driven more by political ideology than frugality.[44] Musk, DOGE, and the Trump administration have made multiple claims of having discovered significant fraud, many of which have not held up under scrutiny.[45][46][47]
Background Elon Musk and Donald Trump on a planeAfter financially backing Trump and other Republican Party politicians since 2023,[48][49] Musk became the largest individual donor of the 2024 election cycle.[50] He spent more than US$290 million in campaign contributions.[51] In September 2024, he described deregulation as the only path to his Mars colonization program.[52] In October, he appeared on Trump's stage with an "Occupy Mars" t-shirt.[53]
On September 5, 2024, Trump promised to the Economic Club of New York: "at the suggestion of Elon Musk [...] I will create a Government Efficiency Commission tasked with conducting a complete financial and performance audit of the entire federal government and making recommendations for drastic reforms."[54][55] Javier Milei revealed that, prior to the public declaration, Musk had called Federico Sturzenegger to discuss emulating his ministry's deregulation model in the United States.[56]
The New York Times compared the project to Theodore Roosevelt's Keep Commission, Ronald Reagan's Grace Commission, and Al Gore's National Partnership for Reinventing Government.[57]
EmergenceThe project emerged from a discussion in the summer of 2024 between Musk and Trump, where Musk floated the idea of a "government efficiency commission".[6][58][59] In August, Trump said that he would be open to giving Musk an advisory role.[60] The next day, an X user suggested "Department of Government Efficiency"; Musk replied "That is the perfect name",[61][62] and posted "I am willing to serve" with an AI-created image of him in front of a lectern marked "D.O.G.E."[63] The DOGE acronym refers to an internet meme of a Shiba Inu dog[64] and to Dogecoin, a meme coin that Musk promotes, making "Department of Government Efficiency" a backronym.[65][66]
Days after the election, a small group, including Musk, Vivek Ramaswamy, Howard Lutnick, and Brad Smith, started meeting at Mar-a-Lago.[62] On November 12, Trump announced that Musk and Ramaswamy would lead DOGE and analogized it to the Manhattan Project.[67][68] During an interview with Tucker Carlson on the same day, Musk proposed consolidating the 400 federal agencies: "99 [...] is more than enough".[69] Musk and Ramaswamy co-authored an op-ed in The Wall Street Journal three days later arguing for the need to reduce the size of government.[70]
At a Trump campaign rally in Madison Square Garden in October 2024, Musk said he thought DOGE could reduce federal spending by "at least" $2 trillion,[71] a figure higher than the 2023 discretionary spending budget.[72][73] At the first cabinet meeting of the second Trump administration in February, Musk remained optimistic that $1 trillion–15% of the budget–could be cut.[74][5] In April 2025, Musk stated that at that time $150 billion had been cut,[75] but this figure was disputed by fact-checkers,[76][77] and House DOGE caucus leader Blake Moore said on June 5 that Republican members always knew it was a "massive exaggeration".[78]
Self-deletion dateOn December 2, 2024, Ramaswamy posted that "Most government projects should come with a clear expiry date";[79] Musk replied that the final step of DOGE was "to delete itself".[80] Trump stated that the entity's work will "conclude" no later than July 4, 2026.[81] This termination will coincide with a "Great American Fair" that Trump has proposed for the 250th anniversary of the United States.[15] Trump called the promised results "the perfect gift to America".[82]
Trump's January 20 order on DOGE (E.O. 14158) created and divided DOGE into a permanent part and a temporary part.[4] What exactly the temporary part consists of has yet to be determined.
Ramaswamy steps away Trump and Musk discuss DOGE in the Oval Office, February 2025.After the second presidential inauguration of Trump on January 20, the White House confirmed that Ramaswamy would not join DOGE.[83] The announcement came after reports surfaced about internal friction between Ramaswamy and DOGE staff.[84] A Republican strategist stated that Ramaswamy was wanted out of D.C. after his X post on how Americans "venerated mediocrity over excellence".[85] Sources close to Ramaswamy said that he left DOGE to focus on his upcoming campaign for governor of Ohio.[86]
Early claims of fraudOn November 12, 2024, Trump announced that DOGE will work with the Office of Management and Budget to address what he called "massive waste and fraud" in government spending.[67] Less than a week into his presidency, Trump dismissed 17 inspectors general, whose job was to audit federal agencies.[87][88] Some of these inspectors were leading investigations, pending legal action against Elon Musk's companies.[89]
During his speech to a join session of Congress, Trump brought up DOGE, March 2025Trump said DOGE discovered "billions and billions of dollars in waste, fraud and abuse".[90] Musk suggested that 20 million people received Social Security past age 100, which he later called "the biggest fraud in history"; that claim rests on a misunderstanding of the database.[91][92][93] Karoline Leavitt asserted the day after that the DOGE Subcommittee discovered $2.7 trillion in improper Medicaid and Medicare payments to people overseas. Musk shared the claim on his social. Since then the claim has been refuted.[94] Two judges rebuked the Trump administration a few days later for alleging fraud without evidence.[95][96]
In his Joint Congressional Address on March 4, 2025, Trump repeated Musk's claim about people of implausible ages receiving social security benefits.[97] In March 2025, Musk suggested that those who criticize DOGE are fraudsters.[98][99]
StructureOn January 20, 2025, Trump established by executive order the "U.S. Department of Government Efficiency".[100] Specifically, he announced a DOGE structure that consists of: (a) the U.S. Digital Service (USDS) as the U.S. DOGE Service; (b) the U.S. DOGE Service Temporary Organization, an entity within USDS intended to terminate on July 4, 2026; and (c) DOGE teams that coordinate with other agencies. The new USDS is declared to have "full and prompt access to all unclassified agency records, software systems and IT systems" to the "maximum extent consistent with law".[4] Trump later issued many other executive orders that mention DOGE.
DOGE TeamsThe first executive order (E.O. 14158) introduced the concept of a "DOGE team" and called for the implementation of an unspecified DOGE agenda.[b] Such team consists of at least four employees and typically includes a team lead, one engineer, one human resources specialist, and one attorney. Members of DOGE teams, who may be special government employees, are embedded in all federal agencies and are determined by agency heads, in consultation with the USDS administrator (E.O. 14158 Sect. 3c).[4][101]
New career appointments at each federal agency are to be made in consultation with the agency's DOGE team lead, who also plays a role in determining whether career appointment vacancies will be filled. The team lead provides the USDS administrator with a monthly hiring report (E.O. 14210, 3b).[102]
Executive order 14222 Sect. 3a tasks DOGE teams with assisting agencies in the elaboration of "a centralized technological system" to record every payment issued by the agency, along with justification by the employee who approved it; this system shall also give agency heads a kill switch to override decisions.[103][104]
USDS administratorThe USDS administrator, a position currently held on an acting basis by Amy Gleason, reports to the White House Chief of Staff.[105] The administrator also heads the DOGE temporary organization. The administrator's work includes heading a government-wide software modernization initiative. The listed responsibilities include working with agency heads both to promote the interoperability of agency systems and to enable USDS access to unclassified agency records and systems.[4] The administrator is also tasked (with others) with developing a federal hiring plan for agency heads and providing advice regarding its implementation.[106] Within 240 days of February 11, 2025, the administrator is to provide the president with a report about the implementation of his workforce optimization initiative, including "a recommendation as to whether any of its provisions should be extended, modified, or terminated."[102]
Trump has issued several executive orders mentioning DOGE, either to constitute it, to establish its mandate, or to ask agencies to cooperate with its members:
The network of the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) consists of personnel, allies, and Elon Musk associates appointed during the second presidency of Donald Trump to implement his government efficiency initiative. DOGE's leadership is ambiguous: while Amy Gleason was named Acting Administrator[113] and Steve Davis reportedly managed daily operations,[114] Elon Musk (formerly an official special government employee with limited formal authority) has been described by Trump as being "in charge",[115] and a court has declared him the "DOGE leader".[116] In April 2025, Musk declared he would work on DOGE remotely,[117] months after declaring his intent to ban remote work for federal workers.[118] Musk and Davis left DOGE at the end of May.[119][120]
Musk said in March 2025 that there are around 100 employees and that he planned to double the staff.
[121]Many of the employees, informally called "DOGE kids", are
software engineersaged between 19 and 24 and without prior government experience.
[122]At least 23 DOGE officials are making cuts at agencies that regulate where they previously worked.
[123]The broader network also includes allies from
Silicon Valley, the Trump administration and conservative legal circles.
[124]Roughly 40 DOGE members are currently or were previously employed by Musk and
his companies.
[124][123]DOGE's structure has not officially been published,
[113]and the identity of DOGE members was revealed by
investigative journalists, which Musk described as
doxxing.
[125]DOGE's workforce is controversial, with concerns over its transparency, potential conflicts of interest,
[126][127] information security,
[128]and members' past conduct or affiliations.
[129][122]Many DOGE members made financial contributions to the Trump campaign.
[130] Working conditionsOn February 2, 2025, Musk said on X that DOGE workers were putting in 120 hours a week.[131] This was questioned for leaving dangerously little time to sleep.[132] In May 2025 a DOGE worker told Jesse Watters "There's one group of people who really have a shot at success, and it's the people here. They're up until 2 am, Monday to Sunday. DOGE does not recognize weekends."[133]
Some DOGE workers appear to live at least part time at the office. At the headquarters of the General Services Administration (GSA), DOGE converted a number of offices on the sixth floor into sleeping quarters.[134] Anonymous GSA staff have alleged that the family of at least one DOGE staffer was living on the sixth floor.[135] Musk told multiple people he had slept at GSA.[136] The Associated Press obtained photos of Starlink transceivers, wired to the top floor of the headquarters.[137]
BudgetAt the time of its announcement, DOGE's budget was unknown, and several of the employees were expected to be unpaid volunteers.[138] By February 20, 2025, DOGE's budget was nearly $40 million. DOGE's funding has come from other federal agencies in the form of transfer payments allowed by the Economy Act. This form of payment implies that DOGE has been treated like a federal agency by the Trump administration.[2] Government experts writing in the Yale Journal on Regulation underline the dilemma: "The Trump administration's view is untenable. USDS is either an agency or it is not. And if USDS, as seems apparent, is doing more than advising the President and is instead wielding independent authority, then it faces a more fundamental challenge to its existence: no statute created USDS or vested it with the power it now appears to wield".[139]
DOGE has asked the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) to pay for 20 full-time DOGE employees at the highest federal pay grade to modernize its information systems; the terms stipulate that OPM must pay each month in advance, and give DOGE access to its data and systems, as well as provide "operational and technical support". At the current employment rates, this would mean $4.1 million for the work between January 20 and July 4, 2026.[140][needs update]
At least three DOGE employees are drawing salaries from the General Services Administration (GSA): Jeremy Lewin ($167,000), Kyle Schutt ($195,200), and Nate Cavanaugh ($120,500). According to DOGE's website, the average GSA employee has been at the agency for 13 years and makes $128,565.[141]
According to Wired, as of June 2025, potential recruits were being told that a DOGE salary ranged between $120,000 and $195,000.[142]
An agreement between the Department of Labor (DOL) and USDS, backdated to the inauguration day, would reportedly pay $1.3 million for the work equivalent of four DOGE members, so about 10% more per employee than the top annual career civil servant salary.[143]
To cover for DOGE costs during its first week, $6.75 million was apportioned to DOGE from the Information Technology Oversight and Reform (ITOR) account that funded the legacy United States Digital Service (USDS).[144] Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D-CT) observed that this was "nearly twice the annual salaries and expenses budget of the White House". DOGE also has a Treasury account, separate from ITOR.[145] From January 30 to February 8, DOGE's budget had more than doubled to $14.4 million; filings show that the added $7.7 million was reserved "for anticipated reimbursements from agencies in support of Software Modernization Initiative".[146]
Politico reported that the U.S. DOGE Service (USDS), the agency where DOGE is embedded, had 89 employees in the 2025, and planned to increase staff to 150 in 2026. Official documents revealed that for the 2025 fiscal year, USDS had a budget of $20 million, and requested a $45 million for fiscal 2026.[147]
Purpose Musk swings the "Chainsaw for Bureaucracy" at CPAC 2025.Proponents of DOGE have described it as a project to make the government smaller and more efficient by cutting government spending and downsizing the federal workforce.[70][148][149][150] Critics have described DOGE as a project to make the federal government conform to the Trump administration's political ideology.[44][151] DOGE has outlined a plan to purge federal agencies of diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI). The plan calls for large-scale firing, including removal of any employee deemed DEI-adjacent.[152] While executing its plan, DOGE has gained pervasive access to government data.[153] Its takeover of federal infrastructure is such that it holds information about American citizens, public properties, scientific datasets, official websites, financial records, classified material, and federal contracts; it gained the capacity to terminate programs, destroy data, and contact every federal employee, including judges.[154] DOGE's agenda maps onto Project 2025 goals.[155]
Controlling US government digital systemsDOGE has attempted to control, at times successfully, US government digital systems.[62] Three weeks into the second Trump presidency, TechCrunch observed that DOGE had "gained unprecedented access to a swath of U.S. government departments—including agencies responsible for managing data on millions of federal employees and a system that handles $6 trillion in payments to Americans."[156]
Chief information officerThe role of chief information officers (CIO) has not been consistently implemented across government departments and time. CIO positions have been filled through political and career appointments.[157][158] On February 4, 2025, OPM recommended that CIOs be filled via political appointment.[158][159][160] The following CIOs are either connected to Musk or Peter Thiel: the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) has Gregory Barbaccia, from Palantir; OPM has Greg Hogan, from SpaceX; DOE has Ryan Riedel, from SpaceX;[161] the Social Security Administration (SSA) has Michael Russo.[157]
Office of Personnel Management (OPM)By Trump's first day in office, DOGE member Amanda Scales was chief of staff at the Office of Personnel Management (OPM).[162] OPM manages more than $1 trillion in assets, retirement funds, health and life insurance benefits for federal employees and their spouses;[158] it also provides custody to service records of 2.1 million workers and citizens who have applied for federal jobs, and maintains an email list of nearly every federal employee.[163] DOGE revoked database access to senior OPM staff on January 30, 2025.[162][164]
General Services Administration (GSA)Musk lieutenant Steve Davis and other DOGE team members have been occupying a level of the GSA headquarters since February 2;[165][135] the agency has been described as "a choke point for all agencies" by Steven Schooner, a George Washington University law school professor who specializes in government contracting.[166] The agency holds data about federal real estate, procurement, and information infrastructure; according to a former director, it holds "incredible amounts of sensitive or proprietary business information that [businesses] had to share with the government in order to get a contract or take some action".[154] It manages the SmartPay system, the largest government charge card and commercial payment program in the world.[167] It also oversees the Federal Procurement Data System (FPDS), which details every contract action over $3,000; DOGE has had the power to modify its records since before February 14, the day they promised "receipts".[168]
On February 18, 2025, Steven Reilly resigned from leading the engineering of notify.gov after the new GSA director Thomas Shedd requested administrator access to the service along with 20 other GSA systems.[169][170]
Department of Treasury (USDT) Donald Trump comments on Elon Musk's access to payment systems, February 2025.On January 21, David Lebryk denied DOGE access to USDT systems. Newly confirmed Treasury secretary Scott Bessent overruled that decision later that day, and Lebryk resigned.[7][171] He was replaced by Tom Krause, a DOGE member[172] who kept his role of CEO at the Cloud Software Group.[173]
On February 13, DOGE entered the Internal Revenue Service (IRS),[174] whose parent agency is the Department of Treasury. Two days later, DOGE was seeking access to the Integrated Data Retrieval System.[175] USDT (through IRS) has names, addresses, social security numbers from taxpayers, their income and net worth, bank information for direct deposits, itemization details such as charitable donations, bankruptcy history or identity theft.[14]
Social and Security Administration (SSA)On February 18, Michelle King either stepped down from her role as SSA acting commissioner[176] or was fired.[177] She was replaced by Leland Dudek, an employee of the agency who, days earlier, had written on LinkedIn about being put on leave due to his communications with DOGE about SSA operations.[178][179] Chief of staff Tiffany Flick also retired, after having "witnessed a disregard for critical processes", and accusing DOGE member Michael Russo of supporting DOGE's incorrect claims about dead people receiving benefits.[180][181] SSA's systems contain: records of lifetime wages and earnings, social security and bank account numbers, the type and amount of benefits individuals received, citizenship status, disability and medical information.[14][182]
Purging diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI)In December 2024, Musk tweeted: "DEI must DIE".[183] An internal DOGE report obtained by the Washington Post on February 15, 2025, outlined a three phase process by which it would lead a DEI purge within the federal government:[184]
Records show that those who were workshopping the plan include: Stephanie Holmes, former Jones Day lawyer specialized in anti-DEI corporate work; Anthony Armstrong, who helped Musk acquire Twitter; Brian Bjelde, longtime SpaceX employee; Noah Peters, involved in Project 2025; and Adam Ramada, a venture capitalist turned DOGE Team lead.[186]
Promoting its missionAt an Oval Office press conference on February 11, 2025, Musk pledged to make DOGE's actions "maximally transparent" and to publish them on a government website.[187] Doge.gov went live the next day: the main page showed DOGE's tweets, a "follow on X" ad,[188] and a few tabs;[168] waste.gov was made private after DOGE got caught using a blog theme with the word "diverse", a Trump policy violation.[189][190] Days later, hackers posted mocking messages on Doge.gov.[191][192] A National Reconnaissance Office spokesperson stated that, while not being classified, the information headcount and wage data of its staff, posted on doge.gov, was not intended for public release.[193][194] DOGE promised "receipts" by Valentine's Day; they appeared on February 17, as search results from the FPDS showing contract terminations.[9] At the end of February, doge.gov did not "provide names and contact information for the officials and employees associated with its work, an organizational chart or a calendar of past and upcoming activity", according to Bloomberg News.[195]
DOGE has extended its public relations beyond contract updates. After its first official action, DOGE's X account showed proof that it took down the Chief Diversity Officers Executive Council website, and added: "Progress"; Musk quoted the tweet and said: "It begins".[196] Musk and DOGE promoted multiple conspiracy theories about fraud and federal employees, such as baseless claims that Democrats were giving money to illegal immigrants or that many federal employees did not exist.[197] It has been boosting anti-DEI policies,[198] and at times acted as message carrier.[199] DOGE member Antonio Gracias appeared on Fox and Friends, a podcast hosted by David Sacks, and at a town hall rally held by Musk in Wisconsin[200] to claim that undocumented immigrants were abusing Social Security and committing voter fraud.[201][202] According to the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, undocumented immigrants contribute more than $25 billion annually to Social Security, which they are ineligible to receive benefits from.[203] The DOGE account has retweeted and commented on similar accusations.[204][205] DOGE leaders Steve Davis, Joe Gebbia, Aram Moghaddassi, Brad Smith, Anthony Armstrong, Tom Krause, and Tyler Hassen appeared on Fox News alongside Musk to defend DOGE's mission.[206]
At the Qatar Economic Forum on May 21, Musk reiterated that DOGE was transparent, for it published "any action that is a function of DOGE" on its official website or social.[207] On the same day, the Trump administration asked the Supreme Court to exempt DOGE from the Freedom of Information Act.[208]
On the May version of its website, DOGE promoted savings on an "Agency Deregulation Leaderboard", resulting from various deregulation efforts.[209]
Emulating Project 2025In the op-ed presenting the DOGE plan, Musk and Ramaswamy promised to work "closely" with the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), and described the decisions of "unelected bureaucrats" as "antidemocratic".[70] On his first day in office, Trump restored Schedule F to speed up firing;[210] earlier he nominated its champion, Russell Vought, to lead OMB.[211] Vought founded the Center for Renewing America (CRA), where he drafted executive orders, regulations, memos, and served as an advisor for Project 2025.[212][213][214] In multiple speeches, Vought swore to put career civil servants "in trauma".[215]
Vice President JD Vance observed that DOGE matters less for saving money than for "making the bureaucracy responsive to the elected president".[216] Vance shares a longstanding collaboration with Kevin Roberts, one of the architects of Project 2025.[217] Ed Kilgore described Vought as the "glue" that ties Musk and Republicans, saying that "OMB can exchange intel with DOGE on potential targets in the bureaucracy, while OMB will definitely guide congressional Republicans as they put together massive budget-reconciliation and appropriations bills".[218] Wired and The New York Times reported that Vought helped Musk find his way into the bureaucracy.[219][220] Paul Winfree, Trump's director of budget policy during his first administration, characterized the relationship between Musk and Vought: "When Elon Musk says something, everybody responds to it. The government is not like that [...] You need people like Russ and, quite frankly, the people who Russ has been bringing into OMB as well, who are staffers who do know how to, in fact, push changes through government institutions."[221] Musk mentioned using DOGE to impound funds, a tactic Vought discussed many times in his CRA papers.[222]
Critics and proponents alike have noted parallels between the policies advocated for in Project 2025 and DOGE's stated goals and actions. Nine of the fifteen agencies DOGE first targeted had been identified by Project 2025 for elimination or downsizing; Bill Hoagland, former Republican staffer and director of the Senate Budget Committee for more than 20 years, considers that the DOGE playbook "has not been for the dollar savings, but more for the philosophical and ideological differences conservatives have with the work these agencies do".[44] Jill Filipovic opined that "the mass firings, the power grabs, and the agency shutterings are not just Musk's doing. They were planned and proposed well before Trump was even elected, right there for everyone to see, in Project 2025."[223] The BBC suggests that, by unifying decision chains so that Trump controls independent agencies, DOGE allows Trump to implement the unitary executive theory advocated in Project 2025.[224] NPR noted that "many of the actions that Musk took, that his DOGE group took were foreshadowed in Project 2025."[225]
Actions within the federal governmentBy the end of January, DOGE had installed officials of their choosing at the top of agencies controlling critical parts of the government:[7] the Office of Personnel Management (OPM), the United States Digital Service (USDS), and the General Services Administration (GSA).[165] Several leaders of these organizations resigned or were dismissed following clashes with DOGE, to be replaced by DOGE members.[226] Access to information systems across the bureaucracy allowed DOGE to trace and sometimes cease flows of money.[62] DOGE coordinated with the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) to dismantle the Agency for International Development (USAID). Their bigger targets remain the Treasury (USDT),[172] the Social Security Administration (SSA),[179] and Health and Human Services (HHS):[227] spendings by HHS amount to 31%, by SSA to 16%, and by USDT to 15% of the federal budget[228]—almost two thirds of all government expenses.[229][230] In a lawsuit featuring DOGE's culture of secrecy, Judge Christopher R. Cooper found that it has "obtained unprecedented access to sensitive personal and classified data and payment systems across federal agencies", and that it "appears to have the power [...] to drastically reshape and even eliminate them wholesale" without congressional input.[231][232][233] The Government Accountability Office (GAO) has been auditing DOGE since March over its data handling at various cabinet-level agencies.[234] Professional auditors have been asked by Wired to evaluate DOGE's audit, and one of them said: "It's a heist, stealing a vast amount of government data."[235]
Administration of federal databasesAt the SSA, DOGE demanded access to databases with information about any holder of a Social Security number; Michael Russo, along with Steve Davis, pressured top officials to give Akash Bobba access to "everything, including source code".[236] On March 28, Wired reported that DOGE is putting together a team to migrate the SSA's base code from COBOL to a more modern programming language, with the goal of achieving this in a matter of months; most experts say it should take several years to do and test this safely.[237][238] The Washington Post reported that DOGE and the Homeland Security Department had been behind the Social Security Administration's action, on April 8, of falsely listing over 6,000 living immigrants in their database of dead people, after DOGE made efforts to use information from the Social Security Administration against immigrants; two days later, guards escorted out senior SSA executive Greg Pearre, who clashed with DOGE member Scott Coulter.[239] In response to a court decision that prevented DOGE from accessing SSA systems, Leland Dudek, an SSA top official and DOGE member, has been threatening to shut down the agency: "Really, I want to turn it off and let the courts figure out how they want to run a federal agency".[240]
At HHS, DOGE member Luke Farritor was made administrator of grants.gov on March 29; one week later grant posting permissions were removed from federal officials, who were instructed to send grant notices to a DOGE-managed email address.[241] National Institutes of Health (NIH) employees have been told that DOGE will review and approve Notice of Funding Opportunities (NOFO).[227] The principal deputy assistant secretary for operations declared in a February 13 sworn statement that DOGE employees grafted to the agency have full access to all unclassified agency records and are tasked, among other things, with the obligation to destroy or erase copied HHS data or information when no longer needed for official purposes.[242]
At the Department of Interior (DOI), Wired has reported that DOGE members Tyler Hassen, Stephanie Holmes, and Katrine Trampe have been seeking unfettered access to DOI's payroll, human resources, and credentialing systems, like the Federal Personnel and Payroll System (FPPS); they also sought permission to create, pause, and delete email accounts. The chief information and information security officers and the associate solicitor at the DOI were placed on leave on March 28, and told they were being investigated for workplace behavior.[243]
At the United States Customs and Border Protection (CBP), DOGE registered trumpcard.gov, and a Trump card visa has appeared on immigration forms; Wired reported that DOGE members Marko Elez and Edward Coristine worked on the project.[244]
Data collectionAccording to Wired, DOGE shifted focus by April 2025, to data collection and the exfiltration of sensitive information from government agencies to private databases.[13] Whistleblowers alleged an attempt to build a "master database" on American citizens. Democrats raised concerns over potential cybersecurity and privacy law violations.[10][245] The Privacy Act of 1974 has been cited in up to fourteen lawsuits pertaining to DOGE access to data that could contain sensitive personal data.[246][247] Several of these lawsuits sought restraining orders and some were temporarily successful.[248][249] Democratic congressional representative Gerry Connolly stated "I am concerned that DOGE is moving personal information across agencies without the notification required under the Privacy Act or related laws, such that the American people are wholly unaware their data is being manipulated in this way."[247] On March 18, due to the lawsuits, Rep. Lori Trahan announced an effort to modernize and update the Privacy Act to address growing concerns about government surveillance, unvetted access, and misuse.[246] The Trump administration has asked the Supreme Court to grant DOGE access to social security data.[250]
At the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB), a whistleblower, Daniel Berulis, has revealed that the security to prevent access from unauthorized mobile device systems has been momentarily disabled. Temporary superusers transferred NRLB data (including lawyers contact information) and erased their trace afterwards. During extraction, they left the system exposed to public entry. Berulis noticed that DOGE member Jordan Wick was publicly working on a backdoor software days before entering NLRB;[251] earlier Wick posted to his code repository several tools seemingly related to his DOGE work.[252] Login attempts from an IP address in Russia were made minutes after DOGE gained control of the systems, using the username and password of an account created by DOGE. After Berulis and his team requested help to investigate the breach, he was sent an envelope with a threatening letter and pictures taken by drone of him walking his dog.[251]
At the Department of Homeland Security, sources told Wired that DOGE is building a master database that connect SSA data, IRS data, biometric data, and voting records; DOGE members Edward Coristine, Kyle Schutt, Aram Moghaddassi, and Payton Rehling have been granted access to United States Immigration and Naturalization Service data, which contain information on refugees, asylum seeker, naturalized citizens, and Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals recipients.[10]
On June 25, a judge ruled that a DOGE's access to OPM database was unjustified.[253] The Washington Post reported that DOGE has access to more than seven agency databases containing sensitive trade and contractual information.[254] The scope of DOGE access raises serious conflict‑of‑interest concerns about potential sharing of government information with Musk’s companies.[254]
Artificial Intelligence (AI) deploymentOn February 3, Thomas Shedd announced in an all-hands meeting that GSA would operate "like a startup software company", switching to an "AI-first strategy" including writing software with "AI coding agents". Shedd floated plans to use AI to analyze government contracts, deploy vibe coding agents to federal workers, and turn GSA into a model AI agency.[255][256] In the same week, the Washington Post reported that DOGE has deployed AI at the Department of Education (ED) to probe for DEI programs and employee spendings;[257] DOGE members at ED include Brooks Morgan, Alexandra Beynon, and Adam Ramada.[258]
On March 7, DOGE deployed its proprietary AI chatbot, intended to help workers with daily tasks, to 1,500 workers at GSA.[259] On March 19, GSA acting administrator and DOGE member Stephen Ehikian showed a demo of the AI to employees.[260] In April, Christopher Sweet was tasked with rewriting the Department of Housing and Urban Development's rules and regulations using AI; employees were told that the AI model crawls through the Code of Federal Regulations (eCFR), and is refined by the agency to be deployed through the government; Jacob Altik is also involved in the project.[261]
EPA employee communications were monitored by AI for DEI terminology, anti-Trump, or anti-Musk sentiment.[262][263]
On May 22, Wired reported that it viewed materials showing that DOGE members within the OPM reviewed and classified "Fork in the Road" responses using AI.[264]
Wired reported that employees at the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) observed attempts by Sahil Lavingia to use the AI tool OpenHands to write code for the department's systems.[265] A ProPublica investigation published June 6, 2025 found that Sahil Lavingia had written, with the assistance of AI, code for an outdated AI model that identified more than 2,000 contracts at the VA as nonessential. According to ProPublica, the AI hallucinated some flagged contracts to be worth orders of magnitude more than they were. Experts consulted by ProPublica, as well as Lavingia, said the code was flawed. At the time of the investigation, at least two dozen of the flagged contracts had been canceled.[266] Lavingia also said that another DOGE employee was involved in making the AI more "aggressive" in terminating contracts; VA stood behind its AI cutting program.[267]
According to digital governance researcher Nai Lee Kalema, AI enables DOGE's streamlining of federal government, and accelerates algorithmic governance.[268]
Downsizing of the federal workforce Comparison of changes in federal civilian employment starting from the December before each president began their term. X-axis is scaled for relative time in office.[269]As of May 2, 2025, the federal civilian workforce has shrunk by 26,000 roles since the beginning of Trump's second term, excluding the U.S. Postal Service. In total 260,000 federal employees have taken the buyout, retired early or been fired.[269]
Hiring freeze and firingTrump issued a memorandum titled Hiring Freeze on his first day in office. The memo asks the OMB director to submit a plan to reduce the size of the federal workforce, in consultation with the director of OPM and "the Administrator of the United States DOGE Service".[270] The next day, Charles Ezell, the acting administrator of OPM, ordered federal agencies to close their DEI programs by 5 PM EST the following day.[271] Scott Kupor was nominated to fill Ezell's role on a permanent basis.[272][273] Ezell asked employees to report those who would hide programs "by using coded or imprecise language".[274] On January 27, a memo was sent instructing OPM employees to work on-site full-time.[275] Investigative journalist Molly White found that metadata on some of these memos indicated that they were ghostwritten by Noah Peters and Thomas Shenk, both with Project 2025 ties; Peters is also a DOGE member.[276]
Ezell sent a memo to federal agencies on the first day of Trump's second term reminding them that they can bypass the Merit System Protection Board rights when terminating new hires. He then gave them the work week to send Amanda Scales a list of all probationary employees.[162][277] On February 13, 2025, OPM advised agencies to terminate most of an estimated 200,000 probationary workers.[278][279][280] Following the guidance, layoffs cascaded across HHS,[279][281] the Federal Aviation Administration,[282] and the National Nuclear Security Administration.[283]
"Fork in the road" and "Five things" emailsDOGE used OPM systems to create the hr@opm.gov address and email all federal employees.[284] On January 28, OPM introduced the 2025 US federal deferred resignation program, in which federal employees who resigned by February 6 would receive salary and benefits until September 30.[285] The program was introduced in an email with the same subject line, "Fork in the road" which Musk used shortly after taking over Twitter.[286][287][288] By the deadline, roughly 75,000 employees had taken the offer.[289] A PDF version of the offer added that workers who accept the buyout offer need to waive their right to legal action.[290]
On February 22, Musk posted on X ordering federal workers to summarize their weekly accomplishments, warning that noncompliance would be seen as resignation.[291][292] Shortly after, OPM emailed employees requesting five bullet point summaries,[291] reportedly without notifying Cabinet officials and agency leaders in advance.[293] The Department of Defense ordered staff and the United States Armed Forces to ignore Musk's request;[294] the FBI and State Department told their employees not to respond;[295] NASA employees were advised to delay their response;[296] HHS explicitly warned employees not to participate in the email request, due to the fact that replies might be "read by malign foreign actors."[297] Two days later, OPM stated that responding to the initial email was voluntary; however, Musk tweeted that if employees still refused to respond, it would "result in termination".[298]
A second "Fork on the road" buyout offer has been sent to Peace Corps employees.[299]
Mass layoffsOn January 31, Brian Bjelde, senior advisor and DOGE member, told career supervisors that the target was to cut 70% of OPM workforce.[163] GSA acting administrator and DOGE member Stephen Ehikian warned two weeks later that he would apply Reduction In Force (RIF) measures to the agency.[300] On March 7, DOGE deployed its proprietary AI chatbot, intended to help workers with daily tasks, to 1,500 workers at GSA.[301] The deployment came after Thomas Shedd fired around 90 technologists and announced that the GSA branch he supervises would shrink by 50 percent.[302] Among them was the 18F team, which Shedd deemed "non-essential".[303]
Riccardo Biasini has been[when?] modifying autorif in OPM's code repository, a program (as the name suggests) intended to automatize the Reduction in Force (RIF) process.[304][305]
Coordination to shut down operationsOn February 1, members of DOGE gained access to some of USAID's classified information.[306][307] Two security chiefs at USAID attempted to deny DOGE members access to the classified material because they did not meet the requirements to access it; however, the security chiefs were then placed on leave.[306] On February 24, the Washington Post reported that Luke Farritor and Gavin Kliger manually blocked multiple times payments for life critical programs that Secretary of State Marco Rubio had approved by decree.[308][309][310] On March 18, DOGE member Jeremy Lewin was appointed as a deputy administrator in USAID;[311] Lewin wrote a memo on March 28 to discontinue USAID's mission, after a judge explicitly ordered that he and DOGE should be barred from making further cuts at the agency.[312][313]
On February 6, CFPB staff were told by email that DOGE members (including Nikhil Rajpal, Gavin Kliger, and Chris Young) entered the agency building and would require access to CFPB data, systems, and equipment.[314] The next evening, Russ Vought became acting head of the bureau.[315] He ordered all work be stopped and the Washington DC office to be closed.[316][317] A mass firing in mid April attempted to reduce the bureau's headcount by approximately 86%, but it has been halted in court.[318][319] Kliger conducted the mass layoffs, which included the ethics lawyers who warned him against holding $715,000 from companies in conflict with CFPB.[320]
DOGE entered the Department of Education in early February[321] and accessed internal databases with student information.[322] Its team used AI to investigate the department's sensitive financial data.[323] It then announced that $900 million worth of contracts were cut. These contracts were mostly from the Institute of Education Sciences which is responsible for researching education outcomes in public schools.[324] According to anonymous sources in the education department, DOGE members pushed high ranking Department of Education officials out of their own offices and set up white noise machines to muffle their conversations. DODGE's demands were seen as arbitrary such as cutting 80% of the funding for the web infrastructure supporting student loan applications.[325] On February 12, mass firings began; Linda McMahon, wrestling mogul turned secretary of education, said she would like the Department of Education "to be closed immediately" because it "is a big con job".[326] By March 11, almost half of the Department of Education workforce had been fired.[327]
The United States Institute of Peace (USIP) is a nonprofit created by congress.[328][329][330] Trump fired most of USIP's governing board on March 14, and the remaining three members of the board fired George Moose.[331] On March 17, Inter-Con Security allowed DOGE to enter the Institute for Peace (USIP) with their police escort. Inter-Con vice president Derrick Hanna informed USIP that DOGE had contacted them and "threatened all of their federal contracts if they did not permit entry for DOGE".[332] USIP filed a lawsuit against DOGE, claiming that they "have plundered the offices in an effort to access and gain control of the Institute's infrastructure, including sensitive computer systems"; the filing showed photos of financial documents placed in a bin labeled "shred", and an USIP logo ripped down from the wall.[333] Court documents filed on March 31 revealed that Nate Cavanaugh, a DOGE member who acts as the Institute of Peace (USIP) surrogate president, was instructed to transfer USIP's assets—including its real estate—to the GSA. In a letter to Stephen Ehikian of the GSA, Cavanaugh sought an exemption from having to reimburse the value of the building, estimated at $500 million, which would entail the GSA receiving the building for free.[334]
Executive branch shakeupOn February 26, Trump issued an executive order that includes the immediate disposal of surplus federal property and reduce non-essential travel; the first agencies to be targeted were international organizations and educational institutions.[335] Two days later, DOGE put a $1 spending limit on the SmartPay cards of GSA, OPM, CFPB, and USAID employees.[167] Shortly after the limit was extended to 24,000 cards across 14 agencies, and one week later 146,000 cards across 16 agencies were frozen.[336] Weeks before Trump's executive order, employees from various agencies complained about loss of Wi-Fi, lack of furniture, room, and bathroom products.[337]
Real assets selloffOn March 4, the GSA published a list of 443 properties to be sold, including headquarters, courthouses, and 47 SSA offices .[338][339] That list was edited the same day to remove about 120 properties and then taken off the GSA website the next day.[340] The public list included a previously undisclosed "highly sensitive federal complex in Springfield, Virginia" where the CIA conducts clandestine operations.[341]
RecontractingAt the Department of the Treasury (USDT), DOGE member Sam Corcos will lead the creation of an Application Programming Interface (API) for IRS data, using Foundry, a platform developed by Palantir.[342] Earlier, Wired revealed that two DOGE members, Corcos and Gavin Kliger, were planning to run a hackathon with the goal of creating an API to interconnect all IRS databases.[343]
In March, DOGE installed a Starlink user terminal at the White House complex, raising conflict of interest concerns due to Starlink being a subsidiary of Musk-owned SpaceX. In response the White House said that the terminal was donated by Starlink and approved by legal counsel and the United States Secret Service.[344][345] GSA subscribed to Starlink for its Washington offices in mid-February.[346] In the same week, Musk confirmed that SpaceX had a lease agreement with the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA).[347]
OutsourcingOn April 17, ProPublica reported multiple meetings between GSA and Ramp to outsource the SmartPay credit card program; Ramp's backers include Peter Thiel and Jared Kushner.[348] Ramp has confirmed to TechCrunch it was participating in a Request for information process.[349]
PrivatizationDuring a Morgan Stanley conference, Musk said that "we should privatize anything that can reasonably be privatized", naming USPS and Amtrak as examples.[350]
During a private meeting, DOGE member Leland Dudek proposed to outsource Social Security customer service.[179] Experts have warned that the SSA is on a path of privatization.[351]
Facing difficulties processing federal retirement applications and reductions in force while laying off personnel, OPM has awarded a one-year contract to Workday, Inc.[352]
DeregulationOn June 27, Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) staffers told the Washington Post that a DOGE team was dispatched to the agency with the goal of revising or eliminating 47 regulations by July 4.[353]
Savings announcements Columbia University's Armstrong Hall, where GISS was located;[354] Tom's Diner below.DOGE announced contracts, grants and leases termination on its website.[355] Federal government contracts are often awarded as cost-plus contracts where the total price will be determined at a later date.[citation needed] To estimate its savings, DOGE uses the total potential value of these contracts, which federal contracting experts say is an unrealistic overestimate of planned spending.[356] Former Republican budget experts said the cuts were driven by political ideology more than frugality.[44] Announcements include:
Many terminated contracts have not been disclosed by DOGE.[355] After two weeks, hundreds of claimed savings have been scrubbed from its "wall", including large items; Martha Gimbel, director of The Budget Lab at Yale, doubted the wall's reliability.[373] On March 13, journalists discovered that DOGE removed federal identification numbers from the publicly available source code, making their receipts hard to verify;[374] a White House official invoked security to justify DOGE's opacity.[375] On March 26, DOGE has removed USAID contract details due to "legal reason"; about 45% of the items disappeared from their website, according to CBS News.[376] By May 13, DOGE removed 31 contracts from its Savings tracker one week after the New York Times reported that 43 of the contracts they audited have been restored.[377]
DOGE's initial reported savings was inaccurate due to counting contracts multiple times, listing contracts that have already been paid as savings, and misrepresenting potential savings based on contract limits rather than actual spending.[42][41][8] About a third of the 2,300 contract terminations released on February 24 would not save the government any money.[378][379] Richard L. Revesz noted that DOGE's "Agency Deregulation Leaderboard" savings ignored the additional costs deregulating health care, finance and energy would put on citizens, especially low income people.[380]
Actions outside of the federal governmentOn April 11, 2025, DOGE contacted the independently-funded Vera Institute of Justice to discuss placing a DOGE team inside the organization; DOGE was subsequently informed that Vera no longer received federal funding after the earlier termination of their federal contracts by the Department of Justice.[381]
On April 17, DOGE members met with leaders of the National Gallery of Art (NGA) to discuss its tax exemption status.[382]
Evidence from an April court case showed that DOGE member and former Tesla employee Tarak Makecha sent the Justice Department directives to terminate contracts with the Acacia Center for Justice.[383]
On April 29, DOGE member Nate Cavanaugh contacted two members from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB) board to embed a DOGE team; CPB is a non-profit corporation independent from the federal government.[384]
Response Anti-Musk protest at the Berkeley, California Tesla showroomThe actions of the DOGE have attracted reactions from officials, scholars, and citizens. While a majority supports the creation of an agency dedicated to efficiency efforts, most opinion polls show opposition to DOGE and Elon Musk.[385] Representatives created task forces to support DOGE efforts to cut waste. Countrywide protests have been organized to oppose mass layoffs, service cuts, privatization, and data extraction;[386] United States Digital Service employees have resigned in protest.[387] Various groups have sued DOGE, Musk, and the Trump administration. "Elon Musk defends DOGE in Oval Office as Trump orders agencies to comply with cuts - CBS News". February 12, 2025. Retrieved June 20, 2025. Supporters have emphasized the need for efficiency and fiscal responsibility; they have expressed hope that DOGE will cut down on wasteful spending. Unitary executive theory advocates argue that the bureaucracy forms a "fourth branch of government" that should be bent to the President's will.[388] Critics have spoken of a corporate coup of the US government by an entity they deem unaccountable and unconstitutional.[389] Security experts have pointed to national security and cybersecurity risks created by DOGE teams rushing into critical infrastructure. Potential conflicts of interest have been raised about Musk and his associates:[390] with government contracts[391] that clash with federal regulators,[392] which DOGE is trying to slash.[393] The administration suggested that Musk would recuse himself if his interests conflicted.[394] DOGE has been accused of pursuing a symbolic culture war rather than targeting wasteful spendings.[395] Multi-billion-dollar mistakes have been reported in savings DOGE claimed.[396]
LawsuitsThe Trump administration is the subject of more than 200 lawsuits, many of them involving DOGE.[397] There are multiple lawsuits concerning the downsizing of federal organizations such as USAID,[398][399] and privacy and security concerns related to the accessing of computer systems and records across the government.[400]
Judges and journalists have struggled to define DOGE;[401] members of the Trump administration have given conflicting accounts of its authority and leadership.[402] Trump has tried to exempt DOGE from disclosing its internal documentation.[403] In court, DOGE has argued that it is not a government agency; a federal judge found that DOGE is indeed one.[404][405]
John Yoo has suggested that presenting Musk as a presidential advisor may provide him "legal insulation" over DOGE actions.[406] Josh Blackman concurred: "So long as an actual government official is pushing the 'cancel' button, I don't know that Musk is holding any actual substantial authority."[407] Judge Theodore D. Chuang still declared that Musk has "played a leading role" in actions taken by DOGE at USAID, by tweeting on February 2 and 3 about events for which there is a trace in the proper chain of command days later.[408]
Impact on the publicGovernment organization and management experts noted that the DOGE effort "appears to go beyond IT and HR initiatives to include areas such as procurement, real property, and substantive agency operations".[144] Some experts warn that the actions could negatively impact the economy and markets and may be "leaving taxpayers with an enormous bill and federal agencies in operational disarray".[409][410]
Treasury Department and IRS officials have predicted a decrease of more than 10 percent in tax receipts by the April 15 deadline in 2025—more than $500 billion in lost federal revenue; they noted that "DOGE-driven workforce reductions" were a factor.[40] Non-profit The Partnership for Public Service estimated in April 2025 that the DOGE effort will cost taxpayers over $135 billion in 2025 due to productivity losses, paid leave, and the costs of dismissing and re-hiring employees.[411] This estimate did not include the costs of lawsuits or lower tax collections by the IRS.[39]
DOGE canceled at least $100 million worth of affordable housing contracts to nonprofits in February 2025 after trawling their websites for DEI terminology. According to Shaun Donovan, former secretary of HUD, that "decision will raise costs for families, hobble the creation of affordable homes, forfeit local jobs, and sap opportunity from thousands of communities in all 50 states."[412]
On March 25, 2025, services at the Social Security Administration (SSA) were reportedly breaking down; there were multiple website crashes, call waiting times were two times longer than previous years, there was a 24% call answer rate, and an attrition rate at a Portland field office was described as "off the charts".[413] On April 7, Gizmodo reported that SSA servers crashed after DOGE members updated their verification software without testing if it could handle load surges.[414] On June 20, the Washington Post reported that SSA has stopped disclosing benefits process time, call wait time, callback wait time, number of callers waiting on hold, and number of callers waiting on callback.[415]
As of May 30, 2025[update], the Trump administration's pause and termination of foreign aid programs — conducted with the assistance of DOGE —[416][417] has led to an estimated 300,000 deaths, according to public health professor Brooke Nichols's Impact Counter.[417] A Lancet study projected by 2030 an additional 14 million all-age deaths, including more than 4 million children younger than age 5 years.[418]
See alsotoday it's Doge and I'm going to ask Elon to tell you a little bit about it (0m40s)
Trump announced the DOGE in a statement on Tuesday, describing it as an effort to "slash excess regulations, cut wasteful expenditures, and restructure Federal Agencies."
Musk at one point suggested Trump should form a new presidential commission focused on "government efficiency" and appoint him to it. Trump immediately replied, "I'd love it."
Musk has sought to exert sweeping control over the inner workings of the U.S. government, installing longtime surrogates at several agencies, including the OPM, and the General Services Administration (GSA), which manages real estate.
The postal involvement is the latest push by the Trump administration to repurpose federal agencies and their data in a bid to boost immigration enforcement. Within the past month, the U.S. DOGE Service, Trump's government efficiency office, has won permission to access sensitive immigration case data at the Justice Department, sought Medicare claims data to help U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement find the addresses of undocumented immigrants, and initiated efforts at the Department of Housing and Urban Development to locate and evict immigrants from public housing.
A deal [DOGE] recently signed with the Department of Homeland Security provides sensitive information about undocumented immigrants [...] DOGE representatives across government agencies—from the Department of Housing and Urban Development to the Social Security Administration—are putting data that is normally cordoned off in service of identifying undocumented immigrants [...] DOGE has gained access to sensitive data about immigrants and farm workers. [A] whistleblower at the National Labor Relations Board claims that staffers observed spikes in data leaving the agency after DOGE got access to its systems, with destinations unknown.
And so, although a handful of conservative intellectuals, including the budget wonk Brian Riedl of the Manhattan Institute and the law professor and former Bush-administration lawyer Jack Goldsmith, have described Musk's ambitions as unconstitutional, most of the establishment right has cheered him on or stayed quiet. Senator Thom Tillis of North Carolina conceded that Musk's project might not be strictly constitutional, but told the news site NOTUS that "nobody should bellyache about that."
The DOGE process, if that is what it is, mocks two basic tenets of our government: that we are nation of laws, not men and that it is Congress which controls spending and passes legislation. The president must faithfully execute Congress's laws and manage the executive agencies consistent with the Constitution and lawmakers' appropriations — not by any divine right or absolute power.
In his role as senior advisor to the President, Mr. Musk has no greater authority than other senior White House advisors. Like other senior White House advisors, Mr. Musk has no actual or formal authority to make government decisions.
The Trump administration [...] says Musk is not a DOGE employee and has "no actual authority to make government decisions himself"
In a 68-page opinion Tuesday, U.S. District Court Judge Theodore Chuang, an Obama appointee, wrote that "the Court finds that Defendants' actions taken to shut down USAID on an accelerated basis, including its apparent decision to permanently close USAID headquarters without the approval of a duly appointed USAID Officer, likely violated the United States Constitution in multiple ways, and that these actions harmed not only Plaintiffs, but also the public interest, because they deprived the public's elected representatives in Congress of their constitutional authority to decide whether, when, and how to close down an agency created by Congress."
But independent watchdogs and outside analysts say Trump and Musk are using overly broad claims of fraud to build political support for sweeping cuts to programs and offices.
The first phase of the rapid-fire effort by Tesla, opens new tab CEO Elon Musk and President Donald Trump to cut waste from government agencies appears driven more by an ideological assault on federal agencies long hated by conservatives than a good-faith effort to save taxpayer dollars, according to two veteran Republican budget experts.
MUSK: I think it would be great to just have a government efficiency commission that takes a look at these things and just ensures that the taxpayer money, the taxpayers hard-earned money is spent in a good way. I'd be happy to help out on such a commission [...] TRUMP: I'd love it. (1hr49m58s)
The acronym of the new department – DOGE – also references the name of the cryptocurrency dogecoin that Musk promotes.
People close to Musk have privately undercut Ramaswamy for weeks, frustrated with his lack of participation in the heavy lifting, according to sources familiar with the internal dynamics. There has been friction between the incoming rank and file DOGE staff and Ramaswamy, the sources said, and Ramaswamy has been subtly encouraged to exit.
One of the things I learned PayPal was that [...] you know who complains the loudest and the most amount of fake righteous indignation? The fraudsters
Trump didn't create a new Cabinet-level department with DOGE, but rather renamed the previously existing United States Digital Service, which was created under former President Barack Obama.
The executive order creating DOGE notes that the office is to be run by an administrator who reports directly to the White House chief of staff.
It marks the first time a judge has ruled that Musk is likely exercising enough independent authority to require him to be confirmed by the Senate under the Appointments Clause. "The record of his activities to date establishes that his role has been and will continue to be as the leader of DOGE, with the same duties and degree of continuity as if he was formally in that position,'" wrote Chuang, an appointee of former President Obama. Chuang rejected the Trump administration's argument that Musk is not the DOGE administrator and is instead merely a senior adviser to the president who has no independent authority.
[DOGE]'s "savings" mostly fall into two baskets that have nothing to do with efficiency or rooting out waste, fraud, and abuse. One is via ideology-driven demolitions of activities and whole programs that Trump simply doesn't like. [...] A second DOGE strategy represents mindless terminations of federal employees who are easy to fire, not those who are doing a particularly poor job.
Phase 1 focuses on rescissions of Biden administration executive orders related to DEI and the shutting down targeted agencies. Phase 2 consists of placing on-leave employees in non-DEI roles — who DOGE determines were tied to DEI — as well as other employees working at offices whose existence was mandated by law. Phase 3 is slated to include large-scale firings, the documents show.
Much of DOGE's agenda maps onto Project 2025, a plan of action drawn up by conservative groups allied with Mr. Trump to shrink the federal bureaucracy and greatly enhance presidential authority.
The change, which OPM announced in a memo Tuesday, will make the roles "general," opening them up to a wide variety of appointees.
Among the group that now runs OPM is Amanda Scales, a former Musk employee, who is now OPM's chief of staff. In some memos sent out on Jan. 20 and Jan. 21 by Ezell, including one directing agencies to identify federal workers on probationary periods, agency heads were asked to email Scales at her OPM email address
The Social Security Administration's acting commissioner has stepped down from her role at the agency over Department of Government Efficiency requests to access Social Security recipient information, according to two people familiar with the official's departure who were not authorized to discuss the matter publicly.
Trump told reporters at a press conference on Feb. 18 that King did not resign but was rather fired
Musk, who has faced multiple lawsuits over alleged racism at his companies, is a vocal critic of DEI work. "DEI must DIE. The point was to end discrimination, not replace it with different discrimination," Musk wrote on X in December. "'Diversity, Equity and Inclusion are propaganda words for racism, sexism and other-isms."
It is promoting the X account as the main source, with the website secondary," Declan Chidlow, a web developer, tells WIRED. "This isn't usually how things are handled, and it indicates that the X account is taking priority over the actual website itself.
THESE "EXPERTS" LEFT THEIR DATABASE OPEN – roro
Mr Musk's efficiency drive seemed grounded in conspiracy theories. Democrats, Mr Musk argued, had turned the government into a device for funnelling money to illegal immigrants. The federal workforce, he reckoned, was riddled with ghost employees who did not actually exist. None of it was true.
Vought was the budget director in Trump's first term and pushed to reshape the federal civil service by creating a new class of federal workers known as Schedule F. He has said civil servants who work in the government — people who are not political appointees — should be loyal to the president, and not the institutions they work for.
[Micah Meadowcroft, CRA research director] described Vought's work preparing executive orders and policy playbooks as "the second phase" of Project 2025.
"A chief architect of Project 2025 — the controversial conservative blueprint to remake the federal government — Vought is likely to be appointed to a high-ranking post in a second Trump administration. And he's been drafting a so-far secret "180-Day Transition Playbook" to speed the plan's implementation to avoid a repeat of the chaotic start that dogged Trump's first term.
the vice-president-elect is a prominent ally of the Heritage Foundation and a longtime friend and collaborator with foundation president and Project 2025 architect Kevin D. Roberts. Vance wrote the foreword for Roberts's upcoming book, Dawn's Early Light: Taking Back Washington to Save America
"Impound, baby, impound!" wrote Mark Paoletta in an X post that tagged Musk. Paoletta, who served as the OMB general counsel under Vought (and has since returned to that post), was referring to the idea of impoundment, whereby a president declines to spend money that Congress has appropriated. He suggested Musk could use the tactic "as a tool" to "find savings." Vought's think tank had published numerous papers suggesting just such an approach, one of which Paoletta included in his message to Musk. In the weeks that followed, Musk repeatedly brought up the idea of using DOGE to unilaterally withhold funds and mentioned impoundment in a Wall Street Journal opinion piece in November 2024.
The best way to implement the Project 2025 vision, its authors are clear, is to gut the federal bureaucracy, firing career civil servants and those who lack the requisite MAGA loyalty. "The new Administration must fill its ranks with political appointees," the document flat-out directs.
Project 2025 proposes that the entire federal bureaucracy, including independent agencies such as the Department of Justice, be placed under direct presidential control - a controversial idea known as "unitary executive theory". In practice, that would streamline decision-making, allowing the president to directly implement policies in a number of areas.
Berulis said he noticed five PowerShell downloads on the system, a task automation program that would allow engineers to run automated commands. There were several code libraries that got his attention — tools that he said appeared to be designed to automate and mask data exfiltration. There was a tool to generate a seemingly endless number of IP addresses called "requests-ip-rotator," and a commonly used automation tool for web developers called "browserless" — both repositories starred or favorited by Wick, the DOGE engineer, according to an archive of his GitHub account reviewed by NPR.
Wick posted the code for a tool that automatically downloads DMs from Twitter accounts. The code specifies Twitter accounts, which existed only until the social platform rebranded to "X" in October 2023, suggesting the possibility that the tool could be used to search through the digital past of government employees looking for disagreeable opinions or references. Another tool appeared to be designed for collecting sensitive data from government agency org charts. The tool contained fields for capturing the employee's office, a 1-5 satisfaction rating, union status, and whether or not their position is statutorily mandated.
{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)Scott Kupor, a managing partner at the powerful investment firm Andreessen Horowitz, stands as Trump's nominee to run the OPM. But already in place, according to sources, are a variety of people who seem ready to carry out Musk's mission of cutting staff and disrupting the government
The OPM was one of the first agencies accessed by DOGE, where those connected to Musk tapped into OPM systems, created the hr@opm.gov email address, and began contacting federal workers ahead of the government buyout program. The same email has since been used to demand federal workers send a list of five accomplishments to recap their week.
To state this plainly: DOGE forced out the directors and staff of a nonexecutive agency, installed one of its own GSA staffers as president, and that person is now attempting to hand the institute's $500 million headquarters over to the agency he came from, at zero cost.
While the move may at first seem like a logical decision to modernize government services, critics were quick to point out the benefits of magnetic tapes over digital. The post by DOGE features a Community Note highlighting a few reasons to use magnetic tape, including the fact that they can store data much more efficiently and offer a physical "airgap" so that data cannot be stolen by cybercriminals.
Typically in my experience [...] you do this kind of decision based on a cost-benefit analysis, which I'm not seeing," says Roberto Di Pietro, professor of computer science at King Abdullah University of Science and Technology. "The saving is $1 million, but what is the cost [of the overall project]?" [...] Tapes have a very long life. If you have SSDs, data decays much faster," Di Pietro says. "Every five years you need to move data [...] and that's a cost.
DOGE says they will save $1M per year at the US GSA by converting from magnetic tape to some other permanent storage. It is not clear how they will do this unless they are converting to more modern magnetic tape.
Anyone can put numbers and words on a website," Gimbel said in an interview. "In order to be transparent, the numbers and words have to be accurate. They've already been shown not to be accurate so why should I trust it?
Last week, the group posted for the first time a list of grants it says it has canceled, with no outward-facing information that could identify each grant or assess the accuracy of the claimed savings. Such information was contained in the hidden metadata on its website. But the next day, that metadata was removed, too.
The move was legal—not to mention strategically impressive—some lawyers with government experience have told The Dispatch, because the U.S. Digital Service was born of the executive branch, not created by congressional statute. [...] Also impressive to those lawyers was declaring DOGE a "temporary organization" [...] which allows it to hire individuals for any length of time and compensation Trump and Musk prefer.
During a hearing, "defendants took the position that DOGE is not an agency," but Hollander rejected this claim. Even if it was true, DOGE not being an agency would hurt its defense, the judge wrote. "This is curious. If DOGE is not an agency, then its employees cannot be detailed from DOGE to the SSA under the Economy Act," she wrote.
The filing creates "legal insulation" for Musk [...] As an adviser without any ability to enact policy on his own, "Musk cannot be sued for DOGE activities," and any subsequent suits would "really be against the president or the United States government" instead.
So long as an actual government official is pushing the 'cancel' button, I don't know that Musk is holding any actual substantial authority.
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