Who's in charge of DOGE? White House says it's not Elon Musk
WASHINGTON - Who is in charge of DOGE, the Department of Government Efficiency? Not Elon Musk, according to the White House.
The White House says billionaire Musk is not technically part of the DOGE team that is sweeping through federal agencies, but is rather a senior adviser to President Donald Trump.
Why does Musk's role matter?
Why you should care:
Musk's exact role could be key in the legal fight over DOGE's access to government data as the Trump administration moves to lay off thousands of federal workers.
Defining him as an adviser rather than the administrator in charge of day-to-day operations at DOGE could help the administration as it pushes back against a lawsuit arguing Musk has too much power for someone who isn't elected or Senate-confirmed.
RELATED: Elon Musk's DOGE seeks access to IRS taxpayer data, AP reports
What we know:
The declaration was filed Monday as the Trump administration fends off the lawsuit from several Democratic states that want to block Musk and the DOGE team from accessing government systems. The litigants say Musk is wielding "virtually unchecked power" in violation of the Constitution.
The Trump administration, on the other hand, says Musk is not a DOGE employee and has "no actual authority to make government decisions himself," Joshua Fisher, director of the White House Office of Administration, said in court papers. The documents do not name the administrator of DOGE, whose work Musk has championed in posts on his social-media platform X and in a public appearance at the White House.
What we don't know:
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt declined Tuesday to tell reporters at the White House who the DOGE administrator is, though minutes before she said in an interview with Fox News Channel that Musk has been tasked with overseeing the effort on behalf of the president.
RELATED: Trump, Musk defend DOGE's work: 'We found fraud and abuse'
Layoffs, she told reporters, are up to individual agency heads. "Elon Musk, just like everybody else across the federal government, works at the direction of President Trump," Leavitt said.
What is DOGE?
The backstory:
DOGE, or the Department of Government Efficiency, is Trump's special commission tasked with slashing federal spending.
Trump said it would "provide advice and guidance from outside of government."
DOGE was originally headed by billionaire Tesla CEO Elon Musk and former Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy, who jointly vowed to cut billions from the federal budget and usher in "mass headcount reductions across the federal bureaucracy."
But Ramaswamy left DOGE this week as he mulls a run for governor of Ohio.
Much of DOGE’s work is happening behind the scenes. Team members have shown up at the Department of Veterans Affairs, the Treasury Department, the Federal Emergency Management Agency and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, among other agencies. Their arrival is never publicly announced, and career staff members are looking over their shoulders for unfamiliar faces in the hallways.
Making the new entity part of the government could allow it to more easily access information across agencies. The agency can also potentially do much of its work behind closed doors, even as some regulations on governmental disclosure will persist.
For instance, the Executive Office of the President is generally not subject to many Freedom of Information Act requirements. But it is covered by the Presidential Records Act, which means its records must be maintained.
Opposition to DOGE
Dig deeper:
The DOGE team has roamed from agency to agency, tapping into computer systems, digging into budgets and searching for waste, fraud and abuse, while lawsuits pile up claiming Trump and DOGE are violating the law. At least two are targeting Musk himself.
Last week, Musk called for the U.S. to "delete entire agencies" from the federal government as part of the push to radically cut spending and restructure its priorities.
U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan seemed skeptical in a hearing Monday when Justice Department lawyers asserted that Musk has no formal authority.
"I think you stretch too far. I disagree with you there," Chutkan said.
The Source: The Associated Press contributed to this report. The information in this story also came from White House statements, court filings, and official remarks from government officials, including White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt and Joshua Fisher, director of the White House Office of Administration. This story was reported from Los Angeles.