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Network of the Department of Government Efficiency
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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The network of the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) consists of affiliates and allies associated with Trump's efficiency initiative during his during second presidency. DOGE members entered or joined various federal agencies.[2] They took control of information systems to facilitate mass layoffs. DOGE actions have met various responses, including lawsuits.
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While Elon Musk promised full transparency, the identity of DOGE personnel has not been publicly disclosed; staffers revealed by investigative journalists were young coders without government experience.[3] Roughly 40 members are tied to Musk; others come from Silicon Valley, the Trump administration, and conservative law.[4] In July 2025, ProPublica tracked down more than 100 DOGE members, of whom at least 23 made cuts at agencies regulating where they previously worked.[5]
DOGE's structure has not been published.[6] Leadership was also blurred: while Amy Gleason was named Acting Administrator[7] and Steve Davis reportedly managed daily operations,[8] Trump has described Musk as being "in charge",[9] and a court has declared him de facto leader.[10] Musk and his inner circle left DOGE at the end of May.[11][12]
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Background
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Perspective
Allies
On December 6, 2024, New York Times investigative journalists named Sillicon Valley billionaires who tried to influence the Trump transition team toward deregulation of AI, crypto, and space industries: Marc Andreessen, Jared Birchall, Michael Kratsios, Shaun Maguire, and other Musk allies.[13] On January 12, they reported that "an unpaid group of billionaires, tech executives and some disciples of Peter Thiel, a powerful Republican donor, are preparing to take up unofficial positions in the U.S. government in the name of cost-cutting". Communication between them was encrypted through Signal; Baris Akis, James Fishback, and Brad Smith were introduced, along Matt Luby, Rachel Riley, and Joanna Wischer; Vinay Hiremath was the only one to comment.[14]
"DOGE Kids"
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On February 2, Wired revealed that DOGE hired six coders aged 19–24 with no experience in government: Akash Bobba, Edward Coristine, Luke Farritor, Marko Elez, Gautier Killian, Gavin Kliger, and Ethan Shaotran.[3] They reportedly conducted video interviews with federal workers without identifying themselves, with queries such as "whom they would choose to fire from their teams if they had to pick one person",[15] and surprise code reviews, silently supervised by "extremely young men".[16] They have been called "Doge Kids" by officials, reporters, and social media users.[17][18][19][20]
Coristine has gone by the name "Big Balls" on the internet.[21] According to Brian Krebs, his past poses security risks:[22] the 19-year-old son of the LesserEvil owner[23] leaked information from the company where he was interning,[24] mingled with 'The Com',[25] owned domains registered in Russia,[26] and provided tech support to another cybercrime group.[27] Kliger credited Ron Unz for his political awakening,[28] reposting Nick Fuentes and Andrew Tate, along with supremacist memes.[29] Elez too has an edgelord past, with posts such as "You could not pay me to marry outside of my ethnicity" and "Normalize Indian hate."[30]
In February, Farritor and Kliger manually blocked payments for programs approved by Marco Rubio.[31][32][33] Court documents filed on March 14 have revealed that DOGE staffer Marko Elez violated Treasury policy by mishandling personal information.[34] In May, Kliger was said to have coerced Consumer Financial Protection Bureau staff into a 36-hour shift.[35]
Doxing accusations
On February 4, Musk accused of doxing those who circulated the names of the DOGE kids.[36] The next day, Ed Martin stated this violated the law,[37] According to New York Times reporter Ken Bensinger, Musk was attempting to describe traditional journalism as doxing in order to invalidate the role of the media in government accountability.[38]
Lists
On February 4, Wired identified Rajpal at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.[39] The next day, The Guardian said Kliger, Farritor and Jeremy Lewin entered USAID along Pete Marocco.[20] On February 7, NPR noted the opacity of the scope of DOGE's work and the identities of its members; it named four with senior roles: Ricardo Biasini, Tom Krause, Amanda Scales, and Thomas Shedd, all with Musk ties;[40] CNN said Farritor has been granted access to Department of Energy's information systems despite their chief information officer's objections,[41] and Kliger, Rajpal, and Chris Young were reported by Wired at the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau;[42] later Bloomberg also revealed Lewin, Young, and Jordan Wick in that operation.
Days after it identified three laywers tied to the Supreme Court,[43] ProPublica published on February 8 a list of who is involved in DOGE; it last updated its list on June 10, reaching 109 names; few have a known contractual status; some have tried to conceal their roles; the White House provided little information.[44] On February 11, Business Insider listed more than 30 DOGE members, and four new names: Kendall Lindemann, Adam Ramada, Kyle Schutt, and Austin Raynor;[45] ProPublica also disclosed new names: Jenn Balajada, Nicole Hollander, and Ryan Riedel.[46] Wired revealed the next day that the new chief information officers of the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), the Office of personal Management (OPM), and the Department of Energy (DoE) were tied to Palantir or SpaceX.[47] The Washington Post published on the same day (February 7) that DOGE overtook 15 agencies with 30 DOGE operatives (staffers and allies); of the few it named, only Noah Peters and Alexandra Beynon were not known.[48]
On February 18, TechCrunch published a list of DOGE staffers, and the senior advisors coming from Musk's inner circle;[49] that list has been updated on May 20.[50] On February 24, Wired identified Farritor, Lewin, Rachel Riley, and Clark Minor at the National Institute of Health.[51] Days later, the New York Times said much of DOGE's "operations are opaque, and most of its personnel have not been disclosed by the Trump administration"; they tracked the roles DOGE members officially took, and the agencies to which they were delegated, and also mapped the ties that could explain why the members were hired.[52]
On March 6, Fortune issued its list of "top players" at DOGE.[53] Bloomberg published the day after a list of DOGE members tied to Peter Thiel.[54] Wired followed suit, with three members tied to Palantir were recruiting talent there.[55] At the end of March, Politico listed names from DOGE's "legal army".[56] Wired mapped DOGE's corporate connections as known by the end of March.[4] Musk appeared at the end of the month on Fox News, along seven DOGE advisors, whom The Hill profiled.[57] The Washington Post published its own comprehensive list on April 8.[58] Bloomberg made a second list in mid-April, about Musk associates.[59]
Obfuscation
While Musk promised "maximal transparency" and Trump revealed the size of DOGE (c. 100 people), details about its operations were not made public by the administration.[60] USDS staffers reported that the DOGE team embedded isolated themselves from the other members of the agency.[61] CNN sent Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests in February for security clearance records of DOGE members who were granted access to sensitive or classified government data; the response, from an OPM email address, was: "Good luck with that they just got rid of the entire privacy team". Sources told CNN that employees from the communications staff and those who handle FOIA requests were also dismissed.[62]
Administration officials have contested DOGE membership in internal communications, in public, and in courts.[63] Amy Gleason argued in group chat she had no control over DOGE members hired by other agencies, nor any responsibility regarding their actions, including firings.[64] General Services Administration (GSA) administrator and DOGE member Stephen Ehikian stated "there is no DOGE team at GSA"[65] even though DOGE leadership occupied the sixth floor at GSA protected by security, with IKEA bedroom furniture, a child's play area and washing appliances.[66][67] In a legal case involving the Department of Labor, DOGE lawyers objected to the plaintiffs' meanings of "DOGE employee", "sensitive systems", "access", "records", and "authority", which they deemed "vague and ambiguous"; they restricted the concept of DOGE employee to "individuals who have a formal relationship" with the US DOGE Service.[68][69] In a court case involving the "Fork in the road" mass email, DOGE member Jacob Altik has been presented as an OPM lawyer when trying to shut down the African Development Foundation along with other DOGE members.[70]
Few DOGE members spoke to the press. Musk appeared on Fox News multiple times and spoke to Joe Rogan, but declined challenging interviews.[71]
Leadership
One month after being taken over by DOGE, Multiple legacy USDS employees could not identify its leadership.[7] In a February 17 affidavit, Office of Administration director Joshua Fischer told Judge Tanya Chutkan that Musk was not the administrator or an employee of DOGE but a special government employee with no "authority to make government decisions". Trump declared two days later to have put "Musk in charge" of DOGE.[72] At a February 24 hearing, Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly questioned the constitutionality of retrofitting DOGE as the United States Digital Service and asked the government attorney, Bradley Humphreys, about its structure; he said that he ignored Musk's role beyond that of Trump advisor.[73] On the next day, Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said that Musk is "overseeing DOGE" but refused to identify its administrator.[74][75]
Later the same day, the White House named Amy Gleason, who worked from 2018 through 2021 at US Digital Service (USDS), as acting administrator.[76][77] On February 28, Justice Department lawyer Joshua Gardner told Judge Theodore D. Chuang that he was unable to identify the administrator of DOGE before Gleason.[78] In a filing submitted under seal but partly released in March, the Trump administration recognized that Gleason has been working at Health and Human Services at the same time that she said having worked full-time as an administrator of the US DOGE Service.[79] At the end of February, neither the White House nor its lawyers could confirm who was running it.[7]
In his March 4 joint address to Congress, Trump repeated that DOGE "is headed by Elon Musk".[80][81] After being quoted in lawsuits days later, Trump reportedly told members of his Cabinet that they rather than Musk and DOGE were to make staffing decisions for their departments, but a few hours later remonstrated "If they don't cut, then Elon will do the cutting."[82] On March 18, Chuang determined that Musk was "the leader of DOGE" and that his actions in dismantling USAID violated the Appointments Clause.[10] In a May 21 Supreme Court filing, Solicitor General John Sauer told the court that Musk "is not part of" DOGE.[83] In a separate lawsuit involving Musk's company X, his own lawyers stated that he is "in charge of" DOGE.[84]
Departures
During Tesla's earnings call on April 22, Musk told his investors that he planned to reduce his government work, but that he will "likely" continue for the remainder of Trump's term.[85][86][87] Musk clarified that he was not planning to step away from DOGE entirely, saying that he would "spend a day or two per week on government matters for as long as the president would like me to do so".[88] Musk began working remotely around the same time,[89] months after expressing his intent to ban remote work for federal workers.[90] Musk's offboarding began on May 28 at the end of his scheduled time as a special government employee.[91][92] Top Musk lieutenant Steve Davis, top DOGE advisor Katie Miller and DOGE general counsel James Burnham would be leaving as well.[93] Trump officially thanked Musk during an Oval Office farewell on May 30, and said Musk was "not really leaving".[94] During an interview with Brett Baier on June 1, Musk criticized Trump's "big beautiful bill" for undoing DOGE's work.[95] Shortly after, the Trump–Musk feud erupted.
After Musk left, DOGE affiliates started to integrate agencies as in-house colleagues, not as members of a separate organization embedded to them; legacy employees told Wired they were asked not to call them "DOGE". According to Sahil Lavingia and other sources, Davis was still involved after he officially left, through Signal.[2] In June, OMB director Russell Vought said that DOGE has become "far more institutionalized at the actual agency".[96] Multiple DOGE employees changed employment classifications; Coristine resigned from DOGE and was embedded to the Social Security Administration in June.[97] DOGE has continued to recruit tech workers, promising up to $195,000.[98]
Retrospective
During the summer of 2025, journalists filled gaps in the early DOGE takeover. On July 30, Wired found out that by February 3, Coristine and Donald Park sought admin access to the National Finance Center (NFC), an agency under the Small Business Administration (SBA) umbrella that issues payroll payments to the Department of Justice (DOJ), Department of Homeland Security (DHS), the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), and others.[99]
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Composition
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Perspective
Type
DOGE members have been classified into leadership, staffers and allies; allies either have no formal affiliation with DOGE[13][14] or joined the administration through other means.[52] Types of staffer resemble DOGE teams mentioned in the first executive order:[100] executive, tech, and lawyer.[a] An "affiliate" is thus either a leader or a staffer.[4]
DOGE involvement extends beyond employee status: personnel consisted of volunteers at first.[45] While the Office of Presidential Personnel made political loyalty to Trump a cornerstone of its hiring strategy, DOGE employees were onboarded through a separate Musk-led process.[101] Musk said in March 2025 that there are around 100 employees and that he planned to double the staff.[102] Special government employees have an advisory role limited to a 130-day work period that can be paid or unpaid. Those who earn a substantial salary have to disclose it. Unlike federal workers, special employees are allowed to keep outside salaries and may not need to disclose conflicts of interest.[103][104]
Roles
Many DOGE members are embedded in other government units under specific roles.[105] At least 23 employees hired at the OPM between Jan. 20 and Feb. 20 worked for DOGE.[106] By March, DOGE was installed at GSA[107] and SSA.[108] DOGE teams have been detailed to almost every executive branch agency; six members affiliated to GSA tried to embed DOGE teams in units outside of it.[109]
Ties
Wired mapped four connections: Musk (roughly 40 DOGE members were tied to him), conservative lawyers, Trump, and Silicon Valley.[4] ProPublica found 29 executive managers, 28 engineers, 16 investors, and 12 lawyers; more came from finance than any other field; it also found that most staffers are young (60% under 40) men (83% male) with limited government experience.[5] Bloomberg found connections between DOGE members and either Musk or Thiel.[59][54]
At least 23 DOGE officials are making cuts at agencies that regulate where they previously worked.[5] Many DOGE members made financial contributions to the Trump campaign.[110]
Involvement
Besides appearing in lists, DOGE affiliates were covered with specific news of their exploits. Five were named when NBC broke the news that DOGE transferred data out of the Department of Labor on February 13: Sam Beyda, Derek Geissler, Cole Killian, Adam Ramada and Jordan Wick.[111] On June 16, the New York Times listed the key 8 DOGE official involved with SSA.[112]
Network
Keys
- [a] – New York Times' billionaires list[13]
- [b] – New York Times' insider look[14]
- [c] – ProPublica's updated list[44]
- [d] – Business Insider's squad[45]
- [e] – TechCrunch's universe[50]
- [f] – New York Times' tracker[52]
- [g] – Fortune's top power players list[53]
- [h] – Bloomberg's Thiel network[54]
- [i] – Wired' SSA list[108]
- [j] – Politico's "legal army"[56]
- [k] – The Hill's Fox News list[57]
- [l] – Bloomberg's Musk associates[59]
- [m] – Washington Post's list[58]
- [n] – Bloomberg' OPM list[106]
Table
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References
External links
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