Elon Musk and DOGE are hacking the government

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In the shorthand of the tech industry, Elon Musk has hacked into the government.

The billionaire tech magnate has never been elected to office or been confirmed by the Senate for a high-level government job, but in the span of a few days, Musk has still gained access to sensitive federal data through his position as head of President Donald Trump’s Department of Government Efficiency project, or DOGE, to push a far-reaching agenda and potentially spark a constitutional crisis.

Musk has embraced Silicon Valley’s most notorious instincts to “move fast and break things” in a lightning battle to muscle into the computer systems and power structures of federal agencies. As he did with his corporate takeover of Twitter in 2022, he has brought in a team to assess details such as office building leases, budget line items, vendor contracts and the performance of individual employees — with the stated intention of radically downsizing the organization.

With a cadre of engineers as young as 19 years old, and with the encouragement of Trump, Musk has demanded and been given access to sensitive government databases and the Treasury Department’s payment system with an unprecedented series of bureaucratic maneuvers.

There are deep concerns among many Democrats and some Republicans that Musk — and his staff members who are not government workers and are not bound by the same ethics and rules that apply to federal workers — are acting in secret, without accountability and potentially against the law in the Trump administration’s effort to shrink the federal government.

DOGE is an office within the Executive Office of the President, according to a Trump executive order from Jan. 20, and Musk has been named a “special government employee,” according to a White House official. It is a temporary position that allows him greater access, but it also bypasses some of the disclosure obligations required of full-time government employees.

DOGE’s targets include the U.S. Agency for International Development, which closed its headquarters Monday in anticipation of shutting down entirely. Musk’s DOGE has staff members working at the Treasury Department, which pays the government’s bills, and he has said on X that he wants to slash or overhaul the Government Accountability Office and the Education Department.

A person who has been affiliated with Musk’s SpaceX is working as an adviser to the FBI director, NBC News has reported. The White House Office of Personnel Management has offered federal employees the option of taking “deferred resignations,” or buyouts, in an echo of Musk’s Twitter shakeup.

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., said Musk was operating a “shadow government” that put all government services at risk.

“If DOGE attacks USAID today, then you can be sure they’ll move on to another target tomorrow. Who knows, maybe it’ll be the Postal Service or the IRS or even the Social Security Administration?” he said.

It was not clear what Musk and his DOGE team planned to do with their access to sensitive data, such as Treasury records of all payments made by the government, but in social media posts, Musk has openly mused about cutting federal jobs, canceling contracts, stopping payments or selectively releasing records to illustrate his points about alleged waste. It is a playbook he has already used; he selectively released internal Twitter documents after he bought the company, arguing that the previous management had been politically biased.

Many Democrats — and even some Republicans — say the attempted unilateral remake of the federal government is unlawful, as Trump and Musk have shoved aside not only career civil servants but also the authority of Congress itself.

“It’s a potential constitutional crisis,” said Brian Riedl, a former Senate Republican staff member who is now a senior fellow at the conservative Manhattan Institute. In a phone interview, he said he was concerned that Musk’s power is going unchecked.

“Someone with as much power as Elon Musk has should be Senate-confirmed,” he said. “There needs to be some accountability to Congress and the voters.”

Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., vice chair of the Senate Appropriations Committee, said Musk was breaking the law.

“An unelected, unaccountable billionaire with expansive conflicts of interest, deep ties to China and an indiscreet ax to grind against perceived enemies is hijacking our nation’s most sensitive financial data systems and its checkbook so that he can illegally block funds to our constituents based on the slightest whim or wildest conspiracy,” she said at a news conference Monday at the Capitol.

Musk has been using as his primary example of suspected government waste a dubious claim that $50 million of taxpayer money went to pay for condoms sent to the Gaza Strip. The Associated Press reported last week that there was no evidence for the claim.

And he has acted largely in secret, withholding not only the names of newly hired government officials who are helping him make decisions, but also the details of the decisions themselves and the supposed legal authority under which he is operating. On Monday, after people began posting the names of DOGE employees online, Musk accused them of breaking the law.

Edward Martin, the Trump-appointed interim U.S. attorney for Washington, D.C., said in a statement on X late Monday that he was prepared to prosecute people who were “targeting DOGE employees.

Our initial review of the evidence presented to us indicates that certain individuals and/or groups have committed acts that appear to violate the law in targeting DOGE employees,” he said, adding, “We also have our prosecutors preparing.” Earlier Monday, Martin wrote a public letter to Musk vowing to “pursue any and all legal action against anyone who impedes your work or threatens your people.”

Musk’s posts on social media indicate he is working unconventional, long hours, and he said he worked through the weekend. He has told multiple people that he is sleeping at DOGE’s offices, Wired reported last week.

The acronym for Musk’s project, DOGE, is a joking reference to a volatile digital currency, and DOGE is not an official department created by Congress, but by any measure Musk has more influence with Trump than most Cabinet members.

Trump pledged Monday that the White House would closely oversee Musk’s activity.

“Elon can’t do and won’t do anything without our approval, and we’ll give him the approval where appropriate. Where not appropriate, we won’t,” he told reporters Monday in the Oval Office.

But the questions hanging over DOGE are extraordinary, especially as they relate to the Constitution: Members of Congress are in charge of writing spending bills and control the nation’s checkbook. Cabinet leaders and department heads are subject to confirmation by the Senate.

Trump, asked Monday about potential financial conflicts of interest for Musk, said: “Where we think there’s a conflict or a problem, we won’t let him go near it.”

As a “special government employee” in the Trump administration, Musk must abide by ethics and conflict-of-interest policies that are generally less onerous than they are for full-time government staff members. He still has full-time jobs as the CEO of two major corporations, Tesla and SpaceX, and he is the owner of various other tech companies, including X, xAI and Neuralink.

The Trump administration has not published a list of DOGE employees or even made it clear how many of them are full-time employees, as opposed to outside advisers or volunteers. On Sunday, Wired published the names of six young men, ages 19 to 24, who it said were working for DOGE.

One of the DOGE staffers, Gavin Kliger, was the person who sent an email early Monday informing all USAID employees that the headquarters would be closed to most of them, according to a copy of the email seen by NBC News. He graduated from the University of California, Berkeley, in 2020, according to his LinkedIn profile. He did not immediately respond to a request for comment Monday.

Musk has boasted about his staff, calling them some of the “world’s best software engineers” and comparing them to warriors from ancient Greece.

“Not many Spartans are needed to win battles,” he posted Sunday on X.

DOGE is not being transparent about other aspects of its work, including how many job cuts it may have recommended or prompted and any halts to congressionally approved spending that it may have suggested. Even measuring the impact of DOGE may be difficult because it is not clear how people outside the government could validate some of the metrics Musk is citing, such as the value of cuts. (Last week, Musk said DOGE was cutting the deficit by about $1 billion a day, without providing details, and then said he was “cautiously optimistic” about getting to $4 billion a day.)

On Monday, Musk said on X that a small office within the government focused on technology, known as 18F, “has been deleted,” without providing any additional details. The 18F office, launched during the Obama administration, said last year it had completed 455 digital projects, including modernizing the U.S. Forest Service’s online permit process and helping create the popular Direct File project for free tax-filing.

Over the weekend, Musk called government workers “the opposing team” and taunted them for not working over the weekend.

Tech billionaire and newly minted “special government employee” Elon Musk has received quiet White House reminders in recent days that while he has wide, nearly unprecedented latitude to slash spending and reorient the federal government at a breakneck pace, his power is not unchecked.

Trump has suggested publicly, and aides have signaled behind the scenes, that Musk is still a staffer and needs to report to White House chief of staff Susie Wiles.

“I’m not sure it was his preferred direction, and it did not seem like he was expecting it,” a Trump aide told NBC News of Musk’s being told he needed to answer to Wiles. “But it has been reiterated to him in ways that, yes, he reports to the chief of staff.”

Another person familiar with the situation, who was granted anonymity to speak freely, reiterated the sentiment and added that Musk has acknowledged Wiles is the leader of the team at the White House.

Wiles told NBC News that she has “a very productive and friendly relationship” with Musk.

Trump told reporters Monday that he continues to support DOGE’s efforts but added that Musk has the authority to take action only if “we agree with him.” Trump did not outline whether he disagrees with any of Musk’s actions to date.

“He has access only to letting people go that he thinks are no good, if we agree with him. And it’s only if we agree with him,” Trump said. “Elon can’t do and won’t do anything without our approval, and we will give him the approval where appropriate. Where it’s not appropriate, we won’t.”

Still, Musk — whose effort is supposed to last 18 months — clearly has access that most normal White House staffers do not. The person familiar with the dynamic and the conversations said Musk and Trump speak regularly by phone, with the calls going both ways.

“That’s the one person who the richest man in the world will be deferential to — the most powerful man in the world,” a person close to both Trump and Musk said.

Musk, Trump’s biggest political donor, has taken up a perch in the grand Secretary of War Suite, according to the person familiar with the dynamic. The historic suite consists of 10 rooms in the Eisenhower Executive Office Building next to the West Wing.

Musk and his team — some as young as 19 years old, and many without any government experience whatsoever — have spread out across the federal government, treating it like a private company they need to downsize and modernize.

Musk has bragged about his exploits in posts on X, the social media platform he owns, which, at times, he has used as a sounding board to determine his next target.

A Trump ally who worked on his transition team said Musk is moving fast out of necessity.

“He’s moving at light speed in a way that we’ve never seen before, delivering on reforms that have been promised not just by Trump, but by the conservative movement for 45 years,” the person said. “That’s the only way it can be done, because the more time you waste, you just are allowing yourself to get deep-stated into the mud.”

The person close to both Musk and Trump but not directly involved in DOGE praised Musk for his willingness to “break things” in the federal government that needed overhaul.

Musk’s frenetic pace and early success at disrupting huge swaths of the federal government have given the appearance to many that he is functionally a shadow president, even as those inside the White House try to reinforce the idea that he must follow, at least on paper, a chain of command.

“It 1,000% feels like Elon Musk is running the government,” said an official at the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, who was granted anonymity to speak freely out of fear of retaliation.

“I’m also incredibly frustrated that as a private citizen, as a human, I do not feel safe voicing my personal opinions because they contradict those of Elon Musk and other people, because I’m afraid that I will lose my job without cause,” the person added.

A USAID contractor let go after DOGE’s actions said: “He’s running way more and has more influence than any one individual. Again, unelected, un-Senate-approved, unvetted. I think all those things are important. He has an incredible influence on the White House.”

Musk also has a key ally in the Justice Department.

On Monday, Ed Martin, the Trump-appointed interim U.S. attorney for Washington, D.C., said his prosecutors are preparing to go after those who publicly identify the small collection of engineers who are playing a key role in DOGE’s efforts. Martin did not specify who might face prosecution for naming the Musk engineers or which federal laws were allegedly violated.

Muck quickly responded on X to the announcement with a warning: “Don’t mess with @DOGE.”

The person close to both Musk and Trump but not directly involved in DOGE praised Musk for his willingness to “break things” in the federal government that needed overhaul.

President Donald Trump said Tuesday he was signing an executive order to give tech billionaire Elon Musk more power over the federal workforce, adding to Musk's swift and sweeping consolidation of political influence.

With Musk standing to his right in the Oval Office, Trump praised the work of his office, known as the Department of Government Efficiency Service (DOGE). And Trump said he wanted Musk to now do more, even as DOGE faces multiple lawsuits from labor unions and Democratic state attorneys general over whether it is acting within the law.

The new executive order directs federal agencies to "coordinate and consult" with DOGE to cut jobs and limit hiring, according to a summary provided by the White House. Each agency will be ordered to "undertake plans for large-scale reductions in force" and limit hiring to only "essential positions," the summary says.

Musk, the CEO of Tesla and SpaceX and the wealthiest person in the world, is wielding federal authority without giving up his private-sector jobs while also serving as a "special government employee." It is a temporary position that bypasses some of the disclosure obligations required of full-time government employees.

He wore an all-black "Make America Great Again" hat and had one of his 11 children underfoot for the briefing.

Trump and Musk took questions from reporters in a freewheeling exchange for more than half an hour, but the two spoke mostly in generalities and did not give details about the alleged fraud they said DOGE had found.

For weeks, Musk has railed against what he says is waste, fraud or abuse that DOGE has identified, although many of the examples he has posted about on social media lack specifics. On Monday, the DOGE account on X said the administration had terminated 89 contracts worth $881 million, but it did not say what they were or why they counted as waste.

In other instances, independent fact-checkers have cast doubt on Musk’s examples of alleged waste. His claim that the United States spent $50 million on condoms for the Gaza Strip was widely criticized for lacking evidence.

Asked by a reporter about the condom fact-checks, Musk acknowledged that some of what he has said about alleged waste in the government has turned out to be false.

“Nobody’s going to bat a thousand,” Musk said. (Earlier in the day, Musk had been posting phallic jokes on X.)

Musk also said he had worked with Secretary of State Marco Rubio to “turn on funding” for Ebola and HIV prevention, making them exceptions to his attempt at an overall spending freeze. He said pausing that funding had been a “mistake.”

“We will make mistakes, but we also fix the mistakes very quickly,” he said.

The two said little to calm concerns that they were violating the Constitution, including by trying to shutter federal agencies without the approval of Congress and refusing to spend money that Congress had appropriated. Among DOGE’s targets for elimination are the U.S. Agency for International Development, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and the Education Department.

In response to a reporter's question, Musk said it was not a conflict of interest for him to intervene in the operations of the Defense Department, for which SpaceX is a major contractor. He said he delegates the relevant work at SpaceX.

“First of all, I’m not the one filing the contract. It’s people at SpaceX,” he said. And he added: “If you see any contract where the where it was awarded to SpaceX and it wasn’t by far the best value for money for the taxpayer, let me know, because every one of them was.”

SpaceX had $3.8 billion in federal contracts last year, according to government data.

Trump brushed aside a reporter’s question about whether he would eventually need congressional approval to cut spending.

"I really don't know," he said. "If I need a vote of Congress to find fraud and abuse, it's fine with me. I think we'll get the vote."

Trump also attacked a federal judge in New York who granted a temporary restraining order Saturday related to DOGE's activity in the Treasury Department. He called the judge an "activist."

But he said in response to a later question that he would abide by any adverse court rulings.

"I always abide by the courts — always abide by them — and will appeal," he said.

In the three weeks since Trump took office, plaintiffs have filed 52 lawsuits over his executive orders and other administrative actions, including DOGE’s activity, according to a database maintained by Just Security, a legal publication based at New York University.

The image of Trump and Musk taking questions side-by-side appeared to put to rest any doubts over whether Musk had Trump’s support for his expansive overhaul proposals. And the latest executive order appeared to be aimed at expanding the scope of Musk's influence.

Trump did not sign the DOGE-related executive order in the presence of reporters, but the White House said later that he had signed it.

There are about 2.4 million federal employees, excluding postal workers, according to the Pew Research Center. The number has grown by a little over 1% per year since 2000, but as a share of all civilian employment it has changed little, Pew said in a report last month.

Government investigations into Mr. Musk’s companies are stalling amid President Trump’s firings and Biden administration resignations.

Elon Musk controls six companies, including Tesla. Mr. Musk’s companies secured $13 billion in federal contracts over the past five years. Credit...Carly Zavala for The New York Times.

The reporters have spent the past year investigating Elon Musk’s business with the federal government.

Kirsten Grind is an investigative business reporter writing stories about companies, chief executives and billionaires across Silicon Valley and the technology industry.

President Trump has been in office less than a month, and Elon Musk’s vast business empire is already benefiting — or is now in a decidedly better position to benefit.

Mr. Trump and Mr. Musk, the world’s richest man who has been given enormous power by the president, have been dismantling federal agencies across the government. Mr. Trump has fired top officials and pushed out career employees. Many of them were leading investigations, enforcement matters or lawsuits pending against Mr. Musk’s companies.

Mr. Musk has also reaped the benefit of resignations by Biden-era regulators that flipped control of major regulatory agencies, leaving more sympathetic Republican appointees overseeing those lawsuits.