BY EMERSON LAYNE

After president Donald Trump was inaugurated on January 20th, a new agency was formed. The Department of Government Efficiency, DOGE, is run by tech billionaire Elon Musk. Soon after DOGE’s creation, it soon ran into controversy when DOGE’s team gained access to USAID, the U.S. National Treasury, and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. So what is DOGE?

DOGE, Department of Government Efficiency, is a temporary agency that was created by president Trump through an executive order and currently run by Elon Musk, who was converted into a special government employee. Both Musk’s government status and DOGE are permitted to exist for roughly one year. DOGE vows to cut down and redirect what they deem as unnecessary funding and to eradicate DEI programs in the federal government. Recently, Musk has made comments on eradicating entire agencies in the federal government, although not specifically saying what agencies. 

While it is a temporary agency, it is not an official one. Congress is the only branch of government that can create agencies and departments. Only through a granted power, presidential reorganization authority, may a president create a department or agency, which the current president Donald Trump does not have. 

So far, DOGE has forced their way into departments such as the National Treasury, CFPB, USAID, and programs related to Social Security. It is reported that DOGE has gained access to sensitive data within these departments pertaining to personal information on federal employees and U.S. citizens. Many people, including federal workers, have brought up concerns about DOGE gaining access to private information and sensitive data. But, the U.S. Treasury has stated that DOGE has “read only” access to this information. 

So who is this DOGE team? Well, according to an investigation by WIRED, at least six individuals are young male software engineers in their teens and early 20’s. These individuals were found to have worked for Musk in his other companies including xAI, Tesla, SpaceX, and the Boring Company. All individuals were found to have no government experience or qualifications to be running a department such as DOGE. Some individuals were found to have no college degrees at all. One separate employee, Marko Elez, 25, quit his position due to a recent resurface of deleted racist and vulgar social media posts Elez made. Musk and Vice president JD Vance stated that Elez should be rehired, under the reasoning that “stupid comments shouldn’t ruin the kid’s life”. 

Musk’s motives while running DOGE were also called into question. Musk’s SpaceX and Tesla both have various contracts with the federal government, worth billions of dollars. Musk and even Karoline Leavitt, White House press secretary, implied that Musk does not have a conflict of interest regarding DOGE and the federal government. If conflict arose, Musk would excuse himself from DOGE and could face legal action due to his special government employee status. 

While it’s difficult to say what DOGE will specifically do next or what other controversies will occur, its existence is uncertain, since it was never a real agency.