Elon Musk, The Shadow of the White House, and the Future of Government Efficiency: Trump’s Challenges to DOGE are Countable
Elon Musk has launched a campaign from inside the federal government to radically upend agencies, exercising a level of control so sweeping that it is stunning former top White House officials, even in a political moment when many things are described as unprecedented.
Improving government efficiency is something President Trump takes very seriously. Musk said that DOGE will have a very serious impact on government waste and fraud and abuse, which is really amazing in its scale and scope, during an audio chat on his X platform on Sunday night.
Democrats are against the wide latitude and access given to DOGE. Schumer said that an unelected shadow government was conducting a hostile takeover of the federal government.
Musk, who gave more money to the election than any other person, has been using X to attack his critics, Democrats and Republicans, who have questioned the reach of Musk’s authority and how much he is receiving from Trump and senior White House officials.
“In terms of rule of law, we are losing it rapidly,” said Eric Rubin, a retired ambassador who spent nearly 40 years in the foreign service. “Musk and DOGE are intentionally creating hundreds of potential court cases that could take months or years to resolve,” he said. “But who knows what kind of damage they can inflict before that happens.”
He won’t do anything without our approval. And we’ll give him the approval where appropriate, where not appropriate we won’t,” Trump said. We won’t let him near the conflict or problem if we think there’s a conflict.
“He may not participate in any United States government matter that has a direct and predictable effect on his financial holdings,” said Richard Painter, who served as the White House’s top ethics lawyer under George W. Bush. If he does, Painter pointed out federal laws governing special government employees.
The DOGE / USAID Interference Committee Corrupted by a “Secure Compartment Information Facility”: A Claims against Musk on the OPM’s Comeback
Multiple reports indicated DOGE representatives sought access to a “secure compartmented information facility,” or SCIF, at USAID, which is a room containing sensitive documents that only someone with a high-level security clearance is permitted to enter.
The DOGE official wrote on X that no classified material was accessed without proper security clearances. Leavitt said on Monday she did not immediately have information about Musk’s security clearance to share with reporters.
Some of the engineers aiding Musk’s government takeover are just barely out of college.
There was an email sent early on Monday morning telling staff that the agency’s Washington headquarters would be closed for the day. There was no response to NPR’s questions about his role at the OPM or the US Agency for International Development.
DOGE was the subject of a lawsuit filed on the day it was created by a group of organizations questioning the legality of the new entity, including the consumer advocacy group Public Citizen, the State Democracy Defenders Fund and the American Federation of Government Employees, a union representing around 800,000 government workers.
Norm Eisen, who was a White House ethics lawyer under Barack Obama, said in an interview that they filed a lawsuit to say “hands off”. “You can’t have my data. My spouse’s data cannot be obtained by you. You don’t have my kid’s data. Eisen is representing the alliance and the unions. This is not right. It’s illegal.”
The Office of Personnel Management locked civil servants out of their computer system in order to keep personal data private, according to the report. The action was linked to Musk’s aides.
The news started on Friday with the departure of a Treasury Department top career official. According to The Washington Post, David Lebryk retired after clashing with Musk surrogates regarding access to the payment system that disburses trillions of dollars for federal worker salaries, Social Security and Medicare. On Saturday, The New York Times reported that Musk now has read-only access to that system, giving him more insight and potential control over government spending — and likely access to your Social Security number.
is a senior policy reporter at The Verge, covering the intersection of Silicon Valley and Capitol Hill. She spent 5 years covering tech policy at CNBC, writing about antitrust, privacy, and content moderation reform.
The OPM did not elaborate on the Reuters report, but its spokesman said it wasn’t accurate. Representatives from the US Agency for International Development did not respond to requests for comment on the recent reports.
Musk has railed in particular against USAID, calling it a “criminal organization.” On Monday he said he and Trump sought to shut down the agency entirely, without addressing their legal authority to do so, NBC News reports. Democratic lawmakers spoke out against Musk’s attempt to wind the agency down and promised to fight the attempt to takeover and called it a constitutional crisis. “Elon, if you want to run AID, get nominated by Trump and go to the Senate, and good luck in getting confirmed,” says Rep. Gerry Connolly (D-VA).
Wyden and Warren demanded answers from Bessent about Musk’s reported access to the Treasury payments system. And protests outside federal buildings have begun popping up, including one on Sunday where DC Media Group reports protesters sought to block access to OPM.
Some users who identified themselves as government employees on the site said they planned to keep plugging away. “I’m going to continue to do my job,” one user writes in a thread about how to handle the situation. One says use your headphones and remain unbothered. Another offer says, head down eyes and ears open.
The State Department is preparing to recall all United States Agency for International Development employees and their families to the United States by Saturday, January 2025
The United States Digital Service was created under former President Barack Obama, but it wasn’t created as a new Cabinet department by Trump.
The Office of Management and Budget has been moved to the Executive Office of the President as a result of Trump’s order.
The decision to scrutinize the six-decade-old organization — which Musk said he made with Trump’s approval — was welcomed by some Republicans but received pushback from Democrats.
Critics are questioning the legality of some of the actions of the office that is authorized to make major changes to the federal government.
The State Department has started the process to withdraw all United States Agency for International Development personnel stationed overseas by this weekend, according to three sources with knowledge of internal planning.
“We are being tasked to assist the department in recalling USAID employees to the United States by Saturday,” Seth Green, the Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Global Operations, wrote in an email to State Department staff on Tuesday afternoon.
It continued: “I understand the feasibility concerns as well as the emotional toll this will take on those impacted as well as the team assisting. We’ve been told to set up a team of experts in the ops Center’s space.
The plan to recall overseas staff was described to NPR by current and former federal government officials who were not authorized to speak publicly and feared retribution.
On Monday night a memo was sent out to State Department employees asking for the number of USAID employees and dependent family members at their locations.
About two-thirds of USAID’s 10,000 employees serve overseas in more than 60 country and regional missions, according to a January 2025 report by the Congressional Research Service.
With the sudden recall, employees would have just days to plan for where to go, how to arrange pet care, and take children out of school, as well as allowing their spouses to make arrangements. Meanwhile, withdrawing over a thousand foreign service officers and their families will likely be extremely costly, multiple diplomatic sources tell NPR.
“It will be very difficult, very expensive and very unignified,” said one person who was not authorized to speak publicly. “A lot of people have kids in school.”
The Trump administration’s funding freeze is preventing the use of funds by the U.S. government in countries that pay for operational costs of the mission. That has led employees both within and outside USAID to fear that soon they’ll lose access to electricity, communications, security backups, trash pickups, medical evacuations, and other services.