- Trump initially promised that Elon Musk’s DOGE would operate outside of government.
- But his executive order instead renamed the Obama-era American Digital Service, making DOGE part of the federal government.
- Experts say the approach solves some legal challenges while creating problems in other areas.
On November 12, Donald Trump announced “Elon Musk”Department of Government Efficiency“, would “provide advice and guidance from outside government” to help reverse bad regulations and reduce government spending.
The DOGE that Trump created by executive order on Jan. 20 looks almost nothing like it: It is officially part of the White House and reports to Chief of Staff Susie Wiles, will have the power to hire government employees, and its stated mission is to update federal government IT software and systems – far the vision outlined by Musk of cutting annual spending up to 2 trillion dollars.
“I was disappointed to see the limited scope that DOGE is now responsible for,” said Romina Boccia, director of budget and rights policy at the libertarian Cato Institute. “On the bright side, it may mean that it will be more likely to fulfill its mandate because it is more targeted.”
Trump’s executive order says DOGE will replace the US Digital Service, or USDS — a type of technical special operations team created during the Obama administration after the Healthcare.gov meltdown — and will include an “interim organization” which makes it easier to hire employees. Each federal department must establish a four-person team to coordinate with the new office, which is supposed to complete its work by mid-2026.
“I think it’s important that the notice calls for an HR specialist, an attorney, an IT specialist and then a general manager to be placed in each of the applicable agencies,” Craig Saperstein, a partner at the law firm Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman. who specializes in government relations, told Business Insider.
DOGE, he said, may still be focused on cutting regulations, changing workforce rules and streamlining government operations.
The decision to place DOGE within the federal government is “probably the result of lawyers advising DOGE and the administration realizing that their proposed private structure for DOGE would be subject to legal challenge,” Caleb Burns, a partner at Wiley Rein, told BI. . of the new structure. “It may be a necessary evil from their point of view, to avoid a court fight.”
Now that DOGE is inside the government, it is subject to new transparency and ethics rules, said Aimee Ghosh, another partner at Pillsbury, particularly around public information laws.
“There are more mechanisms to request or request it, or for outside groups to file a lawsuit seeking access,” she said, noting that it’s still unclear how public information statutes will apply to DOGE.
Trump, Musk and DOGE did not return requests for comment.
Limits of power
Being part of the government means Musk can’t use his private wealth to fund DOGE’s operations. Tom Schatz, whose group Citizens Against Government Waste criticizes federal spending, said that wasn’t necessarily a bad thing. The USDS has suffered from mission creep as its personnel has grown to more than 200 people, he said, while Musk’s team is reported to have a staff of about 20.
But Dylan Hedtler-Gaudette, director of government affairs at the Project on Government Oversight, said there would be easy ways for Musk to overcome those limits. The interim DOGE organization is allowed to use volunteers and so-called special government employees, who may not have to disclose information about their assets and income to ethics officials, he said.
The White House Counsel’s Office and the Office of Government Ethics are likely to review whether Musk or any DOGE staff would have to sell any assets or avoid discussions about certain agencies to avoid conflicts of interest. But Hedtler-Gaudette said those signatures are not worth much because both offices are subject to political pressure.
“The overall framework of ethics and conflict of interest laws, rules and regulations that we have on the books are extremely weak,” he said.
Since 2014, USDS has worked with federal agencies to help them improve how they deliver services, said Jen Pahlka, who helped establish the office in 2013 and 2014. The agency was created with team members brought to clean up the disastrous launch of Healthcare.gov, and has since helped pioneer technology like the IRS’s widely praised Direct File program.
Congressional appropriations for USDS have fluctuated, she said, and some people have criticized ethics waivers that have made it easier for USDS to recruit people from the private sector without forcing them to sell their stakes in startups backed by ventures or investment funds. But she said ethics issues under Musk may be more significant than before.
“It is being politicized,” she said. “I don’t think to that extent it will be now.”
Were the DOGE lawsuits in vain?
At least three lawsuits filed shortly after Trump was sworn in challenged DOGE’s compliance with the Federal Advisory Committee Act, a 1972 law that requires outside advisory panels to meet publicly and include members from diverse ideological backgrounds. Earlier in January, the New York Times reported that two ethics experts who have criticized Trump, Virginia Canter and Norm Eisen, volunteered to be part of DOGE but were rejected by the Trump transition team.
It’s unclear what will happen to those lawsuits now that DOGE has officially become part of the White House. But at least one group that sued said its suit should still be able to move forward.
Trump’s executive order “is not inconsistent with our lawsuit,” Nandan Joshi, an attorney at the consumer advocacy group Public Citizen, said in an email. “Our lawsuit is based on information that the administration will ask a private task force to make recommendations on regulatory and spending cuts without complying with the Federal Advisory Committee Act. Nothing in the EO contradicts that information.”
Kel McClanahan, an attorney for another group suing DOGE, raised the possibility that there could be multiple organizations using the DOGE name, saying in an email that the executive order “muddies the waters.”
“We have no reason to believe that the entity created by the recent Executive Order is the same animal as the advisory committee we are discussing,” he said. “The deciding factor will be what the new US DOGE Service actually does and how.”
Another change from DOGE envisioned in Donald Trump’s November announcement: Vivek Ramasamy is not part of it. “It was my honor to help support the creation of DOGE. I am confident that Elon & team will succeed in improving government,” Ramaswamy posted on X.
He is reportedly exploring a run for governor of Ohio.