The DOGE Is … Everywhere?

Congress is careening toward a March 14 government shutdown deadline, the federal government is about to breach its statutory debt limit, and Republicans are struggling to even initiate the process required to enact President Donald Trump’s legislative agenda. But around Washington, it seems all anyone can talk about is Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE.

The DOGE has greatly expanded its scope — even since we wrote about it last week — and lawsuits to stop its work have proliferated. What agencies is the DOGE embedded in now, what is it doing, and how is it faring in the courts – and in the court of public opinion?

We’ll answer those questions this week, but before we do so let’s take a look at the White House’s latest statements about Musk’s role within the DOGE.

What Is Musk’s Role At The DOGE?
As The Hill reported, in a court filing this week, Joshua Fisher, director of the White House Office of Administration, argued Musk is not actually part of the DOGE even though he is very much the public face of it. Musk, Fisher said, is an employee of the White House and, as such, has “no actual or formal authority to make government decisions himself.” He is not leading the DOGE, but simply passing on its recommendations to the president, the White House argued.

Shocked by that characterization? There’s good reason to be. Back on December 20, before his inauguration, Donald Trump clearly stated, “the great Elon Musk, working in conjunction with American patriot Vivek Ramaswamy, will lead the Department of Government Efficiency.” Note the word, “lead.”

So why would Fisher contradict his boss, the president?

Because 14 states have filed a lawsuit that alleges Musk’s role and work with the DOGE is unconstitutional since he was not confirmed by the U.S. Senate. Senior White House staff, the category Fisher contends Musk falls under, do not have to be Senate-confirmed. (Notably, President Trump has acknowledged that, unlike the most senior White House staff, Musk does not have an office in the White House. DOGE offices are housed in the Eisenhower Executive Office Building, which is where the world’s richest man reportedly has been sleeping when he is in Washington, D.C.)

Before this week it had been reported by National Public Radio (NPR) that, unlike most White House senior staff, Musk is a “special government employee,” or SGE, a category of government service created in 1962 that “allows the executive branch, the legislative branch, and independent federal agencies to bring on employees for specific roles on a temporary basis.” This group of employees are allowed to work for the federal government no more than 130 days out of a 365-day period.

Federal law places other restrictions on SGEs as well. According to NPR, SGEs:

• Must file either a publicly available or confidential financial disclosure form;
• Must take part in an ethics briefing; and
• May not participate in any government matter that could impact their finances. (When a conflict arises, NPR noted SGEs must either recuse themselves from the matter or divest from the relevant financial interest.)

Has Musk complied with these requirements? It’s unclear. Will courts agree Musk is not really leading the DOGE, as Trump said he would in December? Only time will tell. In the meantime, the DOGE is not letting semantics get in the way of its work.

Where Is The DOGE Currently Embedded?
As we reported last week, the DOGE is at the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB). Since then, it has shown up at more agencies and will arrive at even more soon.

According to a Politico report yesterday, DOGE staff are expected to embed themselves at the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) in the coming days. “They are at the gates,” said one of Politico’s sources. Politico noted Musk has repeatedly clashed with the SEC. After the SEC, under former Chair Gary Gensler, sued Musk for allegedly failing to properly disclose his purchases of Twitter stock, Musk called the SEC a “totally broken organization.” On Monday on Twitter, DOGE staff wrote they are “seeking help from the public!” The post instructed Americans to “Please DM this account with insights on finding and fixing waste, fraud, and abuse relating to” SEC operations.

While SEC staff await the DOGE’s formal arrival, Musk’s team already is at the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) where they are seeking access to the agency’s Integrated Data Retrieval System, which houses information about millions of U.S. taxpayers. “A single person who is affiliated with DOGE and an IRS employee will be assigned to the effort,” Politico reported while noting “the data is a closely guarded secret and unauthorized access to it is a felony.”

In addition to its work at the IRS, the DOGE also is examining the Treasury Department more broadly. According to the ABA Banking Journal, DOGE staffers have recommended the department cancel hundreds of contracts funded through its Community Development Financial Institutions Fund, which provides affordable financing and related services to low-income communities and populations that lack access to robust credit, capital, and financial services.

While it’s unclear if DOGE staff are at the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC), the DOGE website has reported approximately 500 FDIC staff have been fired. The Trump administration also reportedly is considering whether to fold the FDIC into the Treasury Department, something that critics on Capitol Hill rightly point out only Congress can do.

The DOGE is also at the U.S. Department of Defense, where Musk and his team have reportedly asked for lists of probationary workers so “mass firings could begin later this week.” In the wake of two crashes involving U.S.-based airlines, the Trump administration also has cut about 400 Federal Aviation Administration jobs. The DOGE also has been working to make staff and program cuts at the Departments of Education, Health and Human Services (HHS), and Interior, and at the Environmental Protection Agency.

Yesterday, AXIOS reported the DOGE is reviewing contracts at NASA, accessing IT systems at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), which oversees everything from climate and weather forecasting to fisheries regulation, and cutting about 1,000 staff from the two organizations. AXIOS explained the DOGE’s engagement at NASA and NOAA poses a conflict of interest for Musk since his company, SpaceX is a “major” NASA contractor and NASA and NOAA “are studying the effects of frequent rocket launches as well as reentry of used satellites into Earth’s upper atmosphere.”

On its website, the DOGE has published a list of its tens of billions of dollars of “savings” so far, though news reports have questioned whether the numbers reported have been inflated. (Indeed, the DOGE as of this writing continues to trumpet the cancellation of an $8 billion government contract that, in actuality, was only an $8 million government contract.)

How Is The DOGE Faring In The Courts?
As noted above, Musk and the DOGE are already the focus of several court cases. So far, the DOGE is faring pretty well.

Last Friday, U.S. District Judge John Bates declined to issue a restraining order blocking the DOGE from accessing information at the CFPB and Departments of Labor and HHS even though he had “serious concerns” about its access to the data. On Monday, another federal judge ruled he could not stop the DOGE team from accessing student loan information because the plaintiffs presented no evidence to suggest that the DOGE’s access would result in “disclosure of any sensitive, personal information.”

In the case brought by 14 states where the White House alleged Musk is not really leading the DOGE, a judge has denied a request by the states to limit Musk’s and the DOGE’s access to sensitive government systems. U.S. District Judge Tanya S. Chutkan ruled the states had failed to show they faced imminent, irreparable harm from DOGE’s continued access to data and payment systems. While ruling in favor of the DOGE, Judge Chutkan did concede the states “legitimately call[ed] into question what appears to be the unchecked authority of an unelected individual and an entity that was not created by Congress and over which it has no oversight.”

Over at the CFPB, the DOGE’s efforts to enact mass layoffs and delete troves of Bureau data were temporarily halted by a court order late last week.

What about the court of public opinion? How are Musk, the DOGE, and the broader Trump administration faring there? An Associated Press poll from late January found 41 percent of Americans approved of the creation of the DOGE while 39 percent disapproved and 19 percent were unsure of how they felt. An Emerson poll revealed this week had DOGE approval at 41 percent as well.

Musk himself is not as popular. An Economist/YouGov poll released on February 12 found 52 percent of voters have an unfavorable view of Musk, a number that was up seven points from a week earlier. This shift was due mostly to souring opinions from Independents and younger voters.

Business leaders may be losing their sense of optimism, too. This morning Politico reported the Federal Reserve Bank of New York released a study Tuesday that found manufacturers in its region “are considerably less optimistic about future business conditions than they were a month ago.” Additionally, the National Association of Home Builders monthly sentiment tracker fell sharply this month due to concerns about tariffs and other cost factors.

Meanwhile, Republican lawmakers also are questioning Musk. AXIOS reported Senate Appropriations Committee Chair Susan Collins (R-Maine) said the administration is moving “too fast” on government worker layoffs and spending cuts. She said some of the DOGE’s actions “violate” current law. Chair Collins also noted Musk’s team is “making mistakes,” referencing accidental firings of officials working on bird flu and at the Nuclear Security Administration.

What’s Next?
The DOGE does not appear to be slowing its work. In the coming weeks, it plans to trim staff from dozens of additional federal agencies, “including those that protect employees’ civil rights and others that investigate complaints of employment discrimination in the federal workplace,” The Washington Post reported this week. Among the agencies targeted will be a Veterans Affairs office that ensures all veterans receive equal access to care and an HHS office that provides information about the health of minority populations.

And while the Supreme Court could rule this week on whether some of the Trump administration firings have been legal, President Trump is pressing forward, too.

Indeed, yesterday the president signed an executive order giving political appointees power over federal agencies that have long functioned independently. “The order does not affect the Federal Reserve’s sway over interest rate policy, but impacts its other functions, such as regulations, bank supervision, and its budget,” The Hill explained. The newspaper said the Trump administration is expected to apply the order first to the Federal Election Commission, the Federal Communications Commission, the SEC, and the Federal Trade Commission.

Expect more litigation imminently.