As DOGE Cuts Harm Millions, Americans Are Denied Basic Information About the Agency

It was billed as a bold new experiment in “efficiency.” In the days following Donald Trump’s second presidential victory, he unveiled the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), tapping Elon Musk to lead it. Its mandate was vague but sweeping: slash waste, cut red tape, and strip the federal bureaucracy down to its bones.

What has followed threatens the foundation of democratic accountability itself: DOGE operatives have been dismantling programs that provide essential services for millions of people with almost no oversight or independent scrutiny. 

DOGE has taken a hatchet to federal programs that aid people in their most vulnerable moments. It will be harder to tell millions of Americans if and when to evacuate during severe weather events thanks to DOGE’s cuts to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). Individuals with cancer, diabetes, and heart conditions could miss out on the newest medical treatments due to the $4 billion in National Institute of Health medical research grants DOGE slashed. Hundreds of thousands of people are out of jobs after DOGE eliminated federal positions and the contracts that contributed to local economies across the country. Those experiencing economic instability and hunger could face shortages at food banks because of the $1 billion excised from the Department of Agriculture. 14 million people could die over the next five years as a result of DOGE’s cancellation of 83 percent of  U.S. Agency for International Development’s programs that provided essential services across the globe. For example, a seven-year-old Nigerian boy died after the USAID-funded clinic that treated his sickle-cell disease abruptly closed this spring.

As this powerful agency wields its unprecedented authority to a devastating and deadly effect, DOGE is systematically evading the transparency laws that allow Americans to hold their government accountable for such outcomes.To prevent the public from seeking records about how it’s structured, DOGE has claimed it isn’t an agency (it is). To block the American people from understanding who’s been directing orders, White House lawyers have argued Elon Musk was never in charge (he was). Even seven months after Donald Trump created DOGE, it’s hard to know who works for it or even how its workers are employed. 

The lack of answers about DOGE and its structure underscores the agency’s deep resistance to transparency. From its creation to its staffing choices to its tangled leadership structure, DOGE appears engineered to keep the public in the dark, allowing it to dismantle federal agencies and amass unprecedented access to sensitive government data. 

Access to government records and information about the actions taken by individuals within agencies like DOGE is how we guard against corruption and ensure that those in power are acting in the public interest. Without information about what DOGE officials are doing, the American people cannot hold the agency accountable for the deadly results of its work.

The stakes could not be higher so it’s worth revisiting how DOGE began and how it evades transparency. On his first day back in office, Trump signed an executive order establishing DOGE and it was quickly apparent that the agency would not be a toothless blue-ribbon commission or a mere vanity project. DOGE had real, sweeping, alarming power. In addition to dismantling agencies and cancelling approved spending, DOGE operatives also overruled instructions from Senate-confirmed Cabinet members and directed the termination of tens of thousands of federal employees. Its members also gained access to multiple agencies’ most sensitive computer systems containing classified information as well as private health and financial records which were previously only available to agency employees. DOGE has not cut anywhere close to Musk’s target and the cost savings it has claimed have been riddled with errors. 

Musk left DOGE in May and his relationship with the president has since soured, with Trump threatening to use DOGE to go after the many government contracts Musk’s companies hold. Now, the White House seemingly wants it to expand. But as DOGE wields unprecedented power over essential government services, basic questions about the agency remain unanswered — apparently deliberately. 

What is DOGE?

DOGE is an agency with sweeping power to dismantle federal programs, created by an executive order. Trump renamed the U.S. Digital Service (an office created by President Barack Obama to correct difficulties launching healthcare.gov) the “U.S. DOGE Service” and required all federal agencies to create their own DOGE teams of at least four people. Trump also moved the renamed office from the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) to make DOGE a free-standing unit within the Executive Office of the President (EOP) — a move the administration later pointed to as justification for why it could hide the agency’s work from public scrutiny. 

Under the OMB, the U.S. Digital Service had been subject to two transparency laws: the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) and the Federal Records Act (FRA). FOIA requires federal agencies to make records available to the public and bars the destruction of requested records — allowing Americans to see what their government is doing and why. The FRA requires agencies to preserve records that they create or receive, ensuring there’s a permanent record of government decisions that belong to the people. Now that DOGE is a separate entity within EOP, the Trump administration is claiming that those laws don’t apply and that DOGE is only subject to the Presidential Records Act, meaning records about its current and ongoing impact could be shielded from the public until at least 2034 — effectively allowing DOGE to dismantle government programs without Americans being able to see the justification or hold officials accountable until long after the damage is done.

This isn’t just a theoretical problem: American Oversight has already witnessed DOGE deploy these claims to keep information about its work hidden. In response to two separate lawsuits seeking DOGE records, the government has told us that DOGE is not an agency but merely an entity that advises and assists the president. But DOGE’s sweeping and often independent power shows that DOGE is doing far more than that:

• Trump’s second executive order on DOGE ordered agency heads to consult with DOGE on hiring and firing decisions.
• The third executive order granted DOGE the power to review existing government contracts and terminate or modify them “to promote efficiency and advance the policies of [the] Administration.”
• Musk and DOGE enjoy substantial free rein to implement the “DOGE agenda” as they see fit, issuing commands that agency officials and Cabinet secretaries treat as legally authoritative. DOGE exercises this authority independent of the President and senior White House officials, who reportedly are often unaware of DOGE’s actions until they are made public.
• For example, in January, Secretary of State Marco Rubio issued an “Emergency Humanitarian Waiver to Foreign Assistance Pause,” to allow continued payments for “life-saving humanitarian assistance programs.” But despite Rubio’s, USAID managers’, and the White House’s authorization for these payments, DOGE personnel reportedly blocked the payments and Musk bragged about doing so.
• DOGE members have also gained access to sensitive systems or data at the Treasury Department, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, the Social Security Administration, the Department of Health and Human Services, the Department of Labor, the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, the Environmental Protection Agency, and more.
• DOGE has apparently directed agency personnel and policy decisions at the Department of Agriculture, SSA, Department of Defense, and more.

When looking at whether an EOP entity is an “agency” subject to FOIA and the FRA, courts consider the documents and orders used to create the entity as well as the facts on the ground. Our lawsuits argue that the various executive orders that created DOGE and outlined its functions, as well as the history of DOGE’s upheaval of the federal government, demonstrate that DOGE wields substantial power independent from the president — making it an agency subject to FOIA and the FRA. This is an important distinction because Americans are experiencing the toll of DOGE’s slash-and-burn decisions right now and can’t wait nearly a decade for the information necessary to hold officials’ feet to the fire. 

Who is in charge of DOGE?

As DOGE cuts programs affecting millions of Americans, there are at least three people who might be or have been in charge of DOGE: Elon Musk; Amy Gleason, the acting administrator of the U.S. DOGE Service; and Steve Davis, a longtime aide to Musk and the person reportedly running DOGE’s day-to-day operations.

Donald Trump appointed Elon Musk as the head of DOGE a week after he was elected to a second term. This selection immediately raised alarm bells due to the enormous potential for conflicts of interest. Musk founded, owns, or controls businesses that receive billions of dollars in government contracts. DOGE could (and did) cut contracts to Musk’s competitors. The potential for preferential treatment is especially concerning because Musk did not file the ethics forms designed to guard against corruption. DOGE also gained the power to access records containing trade secrets and other business information that could reportedly give Musk a business advantage for years. 

Despite these concerns, Trump, White House officials, and Musk himself repeatedly and publicly emphasized Musk’s control over DOGE until his departure in May. For example, in February, Trump told an audience of investors and company executives in Miami, “I signed an order creating the Department of Government Efficiency and put a man named Elon Musk in charge.” 

But three days prior to Trump’s statement, the White House had told a federal judge that Musk was neither the DOGE administrator nor a DOGE employee. According to the White House filing in a lawsuit brought by Democratic state attorneys general, Musk had “no actual or formal authority to make government decisions himself — including personnel decisions at individual agencies.” Later that month, the White House announced that Amy Gleason is the acting administrator of USDS, but reporting suggested that Gleason was a “scapegoat” and only in charge on paper.

Instead, some suggested, Musk’s longtime aide Steve Davis was really in charge. The New York Times reported Davis has “effectively become the day-to-day leader of DOGE,” and wields more authority than Gleason, who has sometimes been unaware of Davis’s orders. Davis has cut diversity initiatives, met with lawmakers, and called SSA leaders to demand that a DOGE programmer be given access to databases containing sensitive information. He also pushed Trump administration officials to let him email all government employees simultaneously.

The vague leadership structure has resulted in conflicting reports from DOGE staff about the agency’s chain-of-command. ProPublica has reported that the hierarchy is unclear to most federal employees who interact with DOGE, but that Gleason seems to be in charge of budget-slashing, while day-to-day operations are run by Davis and sometimes Musk. One source from USAID told the Guardian that the day-to-day operations were “the DOGE dudes just literally on the phone with Musk just getting directions from him.” One former DOGE staffer told PBS that it was unclear who was in charge and that Musk was “not super involved” at Veterans Affairs. 

Who works for DOGE?

It’s not just the leadership structure that has been concealed from the public. Despite DOGE’s enormous power and impact, Musk and the Trump administration have deliberately attempted to hide who works for DOGE — including by Musk threatening anyone who revealed individuals’ identities. 

Part of the issue is that DOGE has deliberately obscured what it means to work for DOGE, hiring staffers through multiple different employment arrangements. Many, like Elon Musk, were hired as “special government employees,” a category that permits them to skirt the ethics and financial disclosures required of most government workers. There is also no clear definition of what it means to work for DOGE because its members have worked in many different capacities, including being employed by the DOGE unit inside the White House, working for the U.S. Digital Service, being detailed to or embedded at various agencies, and being hired as permanent employees of the agencies. Some, like billionaire venture capitalist Marc Andreessen, have said they are helping DOGE — but it is not clear how. 

Another big problem is that the Trump administration and DOGE have made false or misleading claims to dodge transparency and accountability. American Oversight sent FOIA requests to dozens of agencies asking for records that would identify people on the DOGE teams that the first DOGE executive order required agencies to create. But the agencies’ responses only sparked more questions about who exactly was working for DOGE. “[T]he CDC does not have a DOGE team, and therefore there are no documents pertaining to your request,” the agency said in response to our request. So did the Food and Drug Administration and the Department of the Interior.

But public reporting indicates that this is misleading at best. ProPublica and the New York Times have both identified one DOGE staffer connected to the CDC. ProPublica identified three DOGE employees connected to the Department of the Interior; the New York Times identified five, including two DOGE liaisons assigned to the department. In February, Politico reported that DOGE staff had visited the FDA, and DOGE itself has boasted of cuts it made to the agency. 

Similarly, Wired found that at least six DOGE workers have email accounts from the General Services Administration, but GSA’s acting administrator told reporters the agency didn’t have a DOGE team. The Federal News Network also found that DOGE members dominated a list of individuals with C-suite access at GSA.

ProPublica and the New York Times maintain DOGE trackers that compile the names of DOGE workers and the agencies they are affiliated with. Many of these individuals are inexperienced appointees with little to no background or expertise in government. The trackers also highlight that DOGE has assigned some of its members to multiple agencies. For example, Marko Elez is an employee of the Department of Labor who is detailed to or has been tied to HHS, Treasury, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and associated agencies, SSA, and USDS. Aram Moghaddassi is a DOGE member associated not only with Labor, but also with the Treasury, the SSA, the Transportation Security Administration, and several DHS sub-agencies. Additionally, a response we received from the Small Business Administration to a separate FOIA request lists Moghaddassi as a “Special Advisor” to Administrator Kelly Loeffler, indicating that Moghaddassi may have also done DOGE work at the Small Business Administration.

Through our FOIA request to the Agriculture Department, we identified six individuals working for DOGE whose names were previously unreported: Jeremy Lichtman, Timothy Ronan, Samuel Berry, Akash Bobba, Conor Fennessy, and Joshua Fox. We also obtained resumes of several political appointees at the Department of Labor who are known DOGE staffers: Miles Collins, Marko Elez, and Aram Moghaddassi. These records offer more details on the individuals’ previous experience and connections as well as their pay.

As DOGE officials try to operate behind closed doors and withhold documents from the public, American Oversight is continuing to defend the public’s right to know. In February, after DOGE failed to turn over records we requested, we filed a first-of-its-kind FOIA lawsuit against the agency. In April, we sued DOGE again, this time alleging that its use of ephemeral messaging platforms like Signal violated the FRA and opened the door to destroying records documenting how DOGE officials made decisions that impact essential services for millions of Americans. In July, we sued more than 20 federal agencies for failing to release records identifying the names and roles of individuals serving on agency DOGE teams. Follow our ongoing investigation here.