Elon Musk’s DOGE mandate is updating software and firing federal workers
One day in, Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) looks like it will have a tough time living up to the expectations he and President Donald Trump outlined months ago.
According to executive orders signed by Trump after his inauguration on Monday, DOGE is no longer the “outside of government” group promised to take on what Musk calls “overregulation” and the federal deficit. Instead, it’s mostly focused on updating software and headcount reductions.
DOGE, a task force headed by Musk and formerly led by billionaire Vivek Ramaswamy, was promised as a means of finding as much as $2 trillion to cut in federal expenditures, in part by slashing funding for non-government organizations and eliminating whole federal agencies. That’s a tall order, and one Musk has backed away from.
But Trump on Monday renamed the United States Digital Service, a decade-old technology unit created after the faulty launch of HealthCare.gov, as the United States DOGE Service. “The U.S. DOGE Service Temporary Organization,” which has a July 4, 2026, expiration date, will be part of the executive branch.
The order outlines a plan to develop a team of at least four employees per federal agency, including a team lead, an engineer, a human resources specialist, and an attorney. Agency leaders will have 30 days to assemble such a team. The USDS itself will continue its prior mission of modernizing software, network infrastructure, and information technology systems, just under a new name.
“[Musk is] getting an office for about 20 people we’re hiring to make sure these get implemented,” Trump told reporters on Monday, referring to his executive orders, as he signed DOGE into law.
The department is also tasked to work with the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) on a federal hiring plan, according to a second executive order. It calls for a plan to put an end to any diversity requirements, which Musk has vehemently opposed, and the use of modern technology to improve hiring.
Trump has already nixed remote work, a key priority for Musk, who has repeatedly lambasted such work. He’s also argued that cutting regulations will allow for fewer staff, as there would be less for employees to do.
“There will be meaningful progress every week,” Musk promised on Monday.
The American Federation of Government Employees, which represents hundreds of thousands of federal workers, along with Public Citizen and the State Democracy Defenders Fund, on Monday sued Trump and the OMB over DOGE, arguing that they had violated federal transparency requirements.
Another coalition, which includes the Center for Auto Safety and Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, also sued over an alleged lack of transparency with DOGE’s efforts. The Center for Biological Diversity asked a federal judge for public records related to DOGE and Trump’s transition team, while the National Security Counselors filed a fourth lawsuit.
“AFGE will not stand idly by as a secretive group of ultra-wealthy individuals with major conflicts of interest attempt to deregulate themselves and give their own companies sweetheart government contracts while firing civil servants and dismantling the institutions designed to serve the American people,” AFGE National President Everett Kelley, who represents 800,000 workers, said in a statement.
