In an effort to slash government spending, President Trump has asked the world’s richest man, Tesla CEO Elon Musk, to lead his Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE). In turn, Musk and his team have spent the first few weeks of Trump’s second term waging a largely unchecked war on the federal bureaucracy — an onslaught that was finally challenged Thursday when a dozen states announced they would sue to block DOGE’s access to government payment systems containing Americans’ personal data. Here’s what you need to know about DOGE.
What is the Department of Government Efficiency?
Unlike, say, the Department of Education, DOGE is not a federal department at all.
Why? Because Congress has to approve the creation of a new department.
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In contrast, DOGE was created by executive order — which technically makes it a “temporary organization” (with the official name of “the U.S. DOGE Service Temporary Organization”). It’s set to “terminate” on July 4, 2026.
According to Trump’s executive order, the goal of DOGE is to “maximize governmental efficiency and productivity” by “modernizing Federal technology and software.” Elsewhere, Trump has vowed that DOGE will “dismantle Government Bureaucracy, slash excess regulations, cut wasteful expenditures, and restructure Federal Agencies.”
To carry out this mission, Trump’s executive order granted “DOGE Teams” embedded within various agencies “full and prompt access to all unclassified agency records, software systems, and IT systems” to the “maximum extent consistent with law.”
Where did the idea for DOGE come from?
Musk, who also owns X, the social media platform formerly known as Twitter, endorsed Trump’s presidential campaign on July 13, 2024. One month later, Musk suggested during a livestreamed conversation on X that Trump should form a new presidential commission focused on “government efficiency” and appoint him to it.
“I’d love it,” Trump responded.
Trump soon confirmed that he was actually considering Musk for an advisory role or Cabinet job. “He’s a very smart guy,” Trump said on Aug. 19. “If he would do it, I certainly would. He’s a brilliant guy.”
The same day on X, Musk posted an AI-generated image of himself standing before a “Department of Government Efficiency” lectern. “I am willing to serve,” he wrote.
Ultimately, Musk spent a quarter of a billion dollars to help Trump win the 2024 election. In November, the president-elect announced that Musk (along with entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy) would lead a new “Department of Government Efficiency” tasked with “provid[ing] advice and guidance from outside of Government.”
“This will send shockwaves through the system, and anyone involved in Government waste, which is a lot of people!” Musk said at the time, according to Trump’s announcement.
Who is involved in DOGE?
Ramaswamy stepped aside before Trump took office, leaving Musk to lead DOGE by himself. The White House has said that Musk is a “special government employee” — that is, someone “who works, or is expected to work, for the government for 130 days or less in a 365-day period” — which means he is exempt from some of the usual rules around financial disclosures and conflicts of interest.
As the owner of Tesla, SpaceX and other companies, Musk has significant business before the federal government.
Musk’s DOGE team reports to Steve Davis, a longtime Musk adviser and CEO of Musk’s Boring Co. who played a key role in cutting costs at X and SpaceX. According to the New York Times, Davis “has himself amassed extraordinary power across federal agencies.”
Among the 40 people reportedly working under Musk and Davis are a former Tesla engineer; a former employee at Musk’s xAI; a SpaceX employee; an X employee; a banker involved in Musk’s acquisition of Twitter; the wife of Stephen Miller, Trump’s deputy chief of staff for policy; and several 19-to-24-year-old engineers with little or no experience in government.
On Feb. 3, the New York Times reported that Musk “was widely seen as operating with a level of autonomy that almost no one can control,” according to a Trump official.
But the president quickly disputed this claim. “Elon can’t do and won’t do anything without our approval,” Trump told reporters Monday. “If there was something that didn’t have my OK, I’d let you know about it really fast.”
What has DOGE done so far?
In just a few short weeks, Musk’s DOGE team has:
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Dismantled the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), the government’s lead agency for international humanitarian aid and development assistance, by putting its staff on leave, shuttering its website and halting its overseas work. “We spent the weekend feeding USAID into the wood chipper,” Musk posted on X. “Could [have] gone to some great parties. Did that instead.” Trump later claimed the agency was run by “radical lunatics.”
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Gained full administrative access — over the objections of career civil servants — to the Treasury Department computer system responsible for virtually all government payments: $5 trillion per year in Social Security checks, tax refunds, government salaries, contractor payments and more. According to “emails reviewed by The New York Times,” DOGE tried to use this access to “freeze” USAID payments.
Is DOGE breaking the law?
Experts say it’s possible, even likely, that DOGE is engaging in illegal activity. USAID, for instance, was established as a government agency by Congress in 1998 — meaning that only Congress can choose to shut it down or fold it into the State Department. As Saikrishna Prakash, a law professor at the University of Virginia, recently told Time magazine, Trump lacks the “constitutional authority to ignore a statute that establishes a department or agency.”
DOGE’s efforts to access sensitive data at Treasury and elsewhere could run afoul of several laws as well, according to Time — “including the Privacy Act of 1974, the Federal Information Security Modernization Act (FISMA), and the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (CFAA), as well as strict taxpayer privacy provisions under the Internal Revenue Code.”
Multiple lawsuits have already been filed as critics contend that DOGE is attempting to politically manipulate or even withhold government payments without proper congressional authorization. But the courts tend to move a lot slower than Musk.
How much government spending can DOGE actually cut?
Initially, Musk promised to cut $2 trillion from the nearly $7 trillion federal budget. But last month he backed off a bit, saying that was just the “best-case outcome.”
“I think we’ll try for $2 trillion,” Musk said. “But I do think that you kind of have to have some overage. I think if we try for $2 trillion, we’ve got a good shot at getting $1 [trillion].”
Yet most economists disagree.
“Trump has proposed roughly $8 trillion more in tax cuts and spending hikes over the decade,” Jessica Riedl, a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute who served as chief economist to former Republican Sen. Rob Portman of Ohio, recently explained on X. “For all of DOGE’s bluster, administrative and executive reforms would at best save 1-2% of federal spending and offset only a small fraction of Trump’s red ink agenda.”
Riedl went on to note that “Trump has already taken Social Security, Medicare, defense, veterans, border (and interest) off the table, which is 2/3 of all spending” — leaving little room for trillion-dollar savings.
“You can’t significantly cut the deficit just by cutting waste, firing bureaucrats, and defunding immigrants and foreigners,” Riedl wrote. “There are no easy short cuts. You have to stop cutting taxes and then address Social Security, Medicare, defense, and a lot of other popular programs. Wake me when the GOP goes there.”
