The DOGE effort helmed by Elon Musk appears to be focusing on technology and personnel in its stated goal to cut government spending. Staffers connected to DOGE and often to Musk's companies, including SpaceX and Tesla, are fanning out across federal agencies, where they are gaining access to sensitive systems and information on government payments and employees.
The scope of DOGE's work and the identities of the people carrying it out isn't fully clear — leaving agencies in chaos and government workers alarmed.
"One of the reasons we can't tell what's going on and what power they have is because they haven't really made what they're doing public at all," said Deborah Pearlstein, a constitutional scholar who directs the program in law and public policy at Princeton University.
Musk is using his platform X to claim DOGE victories, including feeding the US Agency for International Development (USAID) "into the wood chipper" and "shutting down" what he described as "illegal payments" from the Department of Health and Human Services to nonprofit groups.
Who is part of DOGE and what are they doing?
One set of Musk-connected figures have been named to senior roles at agencies. That includes Tom Krause, CEO of the Cloud Software Group, who on Friday was put in charge of the Treasury Department's system that processes trillions of dollars in payments every year. Musk has posted on X about shutting off foreign aid payments as part of his DOGE cost-cutting.
Amanda Scales, who worked for Musk at xAI, has been named chief of staff at the Office of Personnel Management (OPM), essentially the government's HR department.
Riccardo Biasini, who worked at Musk's Tesla and the Boring Company, is senior advisor to the director at OPM, and was listed as the point of contact for a new government-wide email system the Trump admin is using.
Former Tesla software engineer Thomas Shedd is now running the General Services Administration's Technology Transformation Services unit, which develops tech for the government.
Many DOGE-affiliated staffers are young male software engineers from the tech world. That includes Marko Elez, a 25-year-old Rutgers University graduate who worked at Musk's SpaceX and X. Elez was a temporary appointee at Treasury who was granted access to the Treasury payment system, alongside Krause. Elez resigned from the Treasury Department on Thursday after the Wall Street Journal identified now-deleted racist social media posts.
Vice President Vance on Friday said he disagrees with Elez's posts but that "stupid social media activity" should not "ruin a kid's life," he wrote on X. "So I say bring him back," which President Trump said he would support. Musk replied with: "He will be brought back. To err is human, to forgive divine."
Other Silicon Valley engineers have popped up across agencies, including Gavin Kliger, who worked at Twitter in 2019 and, most recently, as a senior software engineer at the data analytics company Databricks. Kliger's LinkedIn page describes him as "special advisor to the director" at OPM. He also has an email address at USAID, which appeared on a message sent to staff this week about the agency's headquarters closing.
On Thursday evening, Kliger's name appeared in the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau's internal staff directory along with two other DOGE-connected staffers, according to the union representing CFPB workers.
At the General Services Administration (GSA), which manages federal real estate and technology, DOGE-connected individuals have interviewed software engineers about their work. In some cases, they have only provided their first names to the federal employees they spoke to, according to GSA staffers who spoke to NPR on condition of anonymity because they aren't authorized to speak publicly and fear retaliation in their jobs.
It's not consistently clear what the employment status of DOGE-connected staff is. Musk, Krause and Elez were made "special government employees," federal officials have said. That's a temporary role that limits them to working no more than 130 days in a year.
As an unpaid special government employee who is not a commissioned officer, Musk will file a confidential financial disclosure report, a White House official said on Friday, speaking on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to talk about personnel matters publicly. Musk also received an ethics briefing, and other DOGE staff will be treated the same, the official said.
Historically, SGEs have been outside experts who serve on federal advisory boards, though recent administrations have used the designation for senior advisors within the executive branch.
Speaking Friday at the White House, Trump said he is not concerned about the security of personal information and other data accessed by DOGE, adding he was "very proud of the job that this group of young people" are doing. Trump added that his administration's cost-cutting focus would also soon turn to the Education Department and Pentagon, where he suggested without evidence there could be "trillions" of dollars in wasted spending within the $6.75 trillion the federal government spent in fiscal year 2024.
"We're going to be looking at tremendous amounts of money, Peter, being spent on things that bear no relationship to anything and have no value," Trump said in response to a reporter's question.
What is DOGE supposed to be doing?
While DOGE has aggressively sought to retool the federal government to the liking of Musk and President Trump, the executive order creating the entity spells out a much more limited role than how it has been deployed in some agencies so far. A preexisting office called the United States Digital Service was renamed the "United States DOGE Service," moving from the Office of Management and Budget to report to the White House Chief of Staff.
The earlier incarnation of the USDS acted as a sort of digital strike team to partner with federal agencies on targeted projects to improve software, websites and technology infrastructure. Within the new USDS, there is also now a "U.S. DOGE Service Temporary Organization" that has a mandate to advance Trump's "18-month DOGE agenda" of cutting costs and streamlining the government's operations.
Trump's order also directs the USDS to "improve the quality and efficiency of government-wide software, network infrastructure, and information technology (IT) systems." To do so, each federal agency head is supposed to establish a DOGE team of at least four employees — which may include special government employees — to coordinate with the DOGE entity on cutting back spending.
DOGE employees have also reportedly taken wide latitude with the type of information and systems they have sought access to, as the order also says the USDS "has full and prompt access to all unclassified agency records, software systems, and IT systems." DOGE representatives gained access to classified material at USAID over the objections of the agency's security officials, the Associated Press reported.
The deployment of DOGE staffers and reported actions they have taken within several federal agencies paint a different picture than the expectations of the executive order.
Much of the early work, especially with DOGE-affiliated employees in the Office of Personnel Management, has focused on efforts to reduce the headcount of federal workers, whose salaries typically comprise about 5% of the overall budget, and on cutting programs and priorities that Trump and Musk disagree with, like USAID.
Mimicking a similar offer Musk made to Twitter employees when he took over the social media company, OPM sent a mass email to more than two million federal employees Jan. 28 titled "Fork in the Road," which offered a "deferred resignation" to employees with a promise of pay and benefits through the end of September. On Thursday, a federal judge paused the offer's deadline until Monday in response to a lawsuit from labor unions arguing the proposal was unlawful and unenforceable.
Meanwhile, there are lingering issues with the government's software and IT infrastructure that need addressing. A new Government Accountability Office report says the federal government spends more than $100 billion on IT, but agencies have failed to implement what the report describes as critical changes to how technology is acquired, managed and implemented.
Is there oversight of DOGE?
DOGE is operating under the direction of President Trump, who has committed to policing any conflicts encountered by Musk, who operates six companies, including SpaceX and Tesla.
"When we think there's a conflict or a problem, we won't let him go near it," Trump said on Monday.
When pressed on this at the White House recently, Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said she is confident Musk would "excuse himself" if any of DOGE's work intersected with his companies.
Former White House ethics lawyers have told NPR even special government employees must comply with conflict of interest laws that prohibit working on any U.S. government matters that could have an effect on financial holdings.
That should, experts told NPR, force Musk to either divest in any financial interests that create a conflict, or recuse himself from government work that could involve something like a federal contract, or investigation, tied to one of his companies.
"That's exactly the kind of law that was passed to make sure that what you're doing is not treating the government as your own personal piggy bank, but treating it as a tool to be used in the interest of achieving what the American people elected you to go do," Pearlstein said.
Congress has so far not challenged any of DOGE's work. Republicans control both chambers in Washington, and they have already blocked an attempt by Democrats to subpoena Musk for questioning about possible conflicts.
Some members of Congress have written letters to Musk companies demanding answers about whether the tech billionaire is engaging in self-dealing, though, again, without support from Republicans, the letter-writing is not likely to lead to public hearings.
How might lawsuits affect their work?
The lawsuits aimed at DOGE came fast.
Within minutes of Trump being sworn in, the first lawsuit against DOGE was filed alleging that the team is illegal, since it gave private individuals roles in government decision-making, though this was before the White House clarified that some DOGE workers are special government employees.
Since then, DOGE's work has prompted numerous suits, including one on Thursday from unions representing employees at USAID. Musk has railed against the humanitarian assistance agency as a "criminal organization. The Trump administration plans to reduce its staff to fewer than 300 from more than 13,000.
Another legal battle launched by unions representing Treasury workers led to a federal judge issuing an order on Wednesday limiting what kind of access DOGE employees can have to highly sensitive systems that process trillions of dollars in government payments every year.
And on Friday, the University of California student government sued to stop DOGE from gaining access to data on the millions of student borrowers who have federal government loans.
Legal experts say the scope of DOGE's work is likely to hinge on the outcome of what could become dozens of lawsuits challenging the unit's power. Some of those cases could end up being decided by the Supreme Court.
NPR's Chris Arnold contributed reporting.
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