Allies On December 6, 2024, investigative journalists at
The New York Times reported that several Silicon Valley billionaires tried to influence the Trump transition team toward deregulation of AI, crypto, and space industries. Those billionaires reportedly included
Marc Andreessen,
Jared Birchall,
Michael Kratsios, and
Shaun Maguire. On January 12, the
Times reported that "an unpaid group of billionaires, tech executives and some disciples of Peter Thiel, a powerful Republican donor" were "preparing to take up unofficial positions in the U.S. government in the name of cost-cutting". Those individuals reportedly included Baris Akis,
James Fishback, Brad Smith, Matt Luby,
Rachel Riley, Joanna Wischer, and Vinay Hiremath.
"DOGE Kids" On February 2,
Wired revealed that DOGE hired six coders aged 1924 with no experience in government: Akash Bobba,
Edward Coristine,
Luke Farritor,
Marko Elez, Gautier Killian,
Gavin Kliger, and Ethan Shaotran. They reportedly conducted video interviews with federal workers without identifying themselves, with queries such as "whom they would choose to fire from their teams if they had to pick one person", and surprise code reviews, silently supervised by "extremely young men". They have been called "Doge Kids" by officials, reporters, and social media users. Coristine has gone by the name "Big Balls" on the internet. According to
Brian Krebs, his past poses security risks: the 19-year-old son of the
LesserEvil owner leaked information from the company where he was interning, mingled with '
The Com', owned domains registered in Russia, and provided tech support to another cybercrime group. Kliger credited
Ron Unz for his political awakening, reposting
Nick Fuentes and
Andrew Tate, along with supremacist memes. Elez too has an
edgelord past, with posts such as "You could not pay me to marry outside of my ethnicity" and "Normalize Indian hate." In February, Farritor and Kliger manually blocked payments for programs approved by
Marco Rubio. Court documents filed on March 14 have revealed that DOGE staffer Marko Elez violated Treasury policy by mishandling personal information. In May, Kliger was accused of having coerced Consumer Financial Protection Bureau staff into a 36-hour shift.
Doxing accusations On February 4, Musk accused those who circulated the names of the DOGE kids of
doxing. The next day,
Ed Martin stated this violated the law. According to New York Times reporter Ken Bensinger, Musk was attempting to describe traditional journalism as doxing in order to invalidate the role of the media in government accountability. , was held at the Treasury on February4, 2025.
Lists On February 4,
Wired identified Rajpal at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. The next day,
The Guardian said Kliger, Farritor entered USAID with
Jeremy Lewin and
Pete Marocco.
CNN also said Farritor has been granted access to Department of Energy's information systems despite their chief information officer's objections, and Kliger, Rajpal, and Chris Young were reported by
Wired at the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau; later
Bloomberg also revealed Lewin, Young, and Jordan Wick in that operation. Days after it identified three lawyers tied to the Supreme Court,
ProPublica published on February 8 a list of who is involved in DOGE; it last updated its list on June 10, reaching 109 names; few have a known contractual status; some have tried to conceal their roles; the White House provided little information. On February 11,
Business Insider listed more than 30 DOGE members, and four new names: Kendall Lindemann, Adam Ramada, Kyle Schutt, and Austin Raynor; ProPublica also disclosed new names: Jenn Balajada, Nicole Hollander, and Ryan Riedel.
Wired revealed the next day that the new chief information officers of the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), the Office of personal Management (OPM), and the Department of Energy (DoE) were tied to Palantir or SpaceX.
The Washington Post published on the same day (February 7) that DOGE overtook 15 agencies with 30 DOGE operatives (staffers and allies); of the few it named, only Noah Peters and Alexandra Beynon were not known. On February 18,
TechCrunch published a list of DOGE staffers, and the senior advisors coming from Musk's inner circle; that list has been updated on May 20. On February 24,
Wired identified Farritor, Lewin, Rachel Riley, and Clark Minor at the National Institute of Health. Days later, the
New York Times said much of DOGE's "operations are opaque, and most of its personnel have not been disclosed by the Trump administration"; they tracked the roles DOGE members officially took, and the agencies to which they were delegated, and also mapped the ties that could explain why the members were hired. On March 6,
Fortune issued its list of "top players" at DOGE.
Bloomberg published the day after a list of DOGE members tied to Peter Thiel.
Wired followed suit, naming three affiliates tied to Palantir. At the end of March,
Politico listed names from DOGE's "legal army".
Wired mapped DOGE's corporate connections as known by the end of March. Musk appeared at the end of the month on
Fox News, along seven DOGE advisors, whom
The Hill profiled.
The Washington Post published its own comprehensive list on April 8.
Bloomberg made a second list in mid-April, about Musk associates.
Transparency concerns While a spokesperson for DOGE stated "increasing its transparency was a goal of the White House", some details about its operations were not made public by the administration. The structure of DOGE has not been published. USDS staffers reported that the DOGE team embedded isolated themselves from the other members of the agency.
CNN sent
Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests in February for security clearance records of DOGE members who were granted access to sensitive or classified government data; the response, from an OPM email address, was: "Good luck with that they just got rid of the entire privacy team". Sources told CNN that employees from the communications staff and those who handle FOIA requests were also dismissed. Administration officials have contested DOGE membership in internal communications, in public, and in courts.
Amy Gleason argued in group chat she had no control over DOGE members hired by other agencies, nor any responsibility regarding their actions, including firings.
General Services Administration (GSA) administrator and DOGE member
Stephen Ehikian stated "there is no DOGE team at GSA" even though DOGE leadership occupied the sixth floor at GSA protected by security, with IKEA bedroom furniture, a child's play area and washing appliances. In a legal case involving the
Department of Labor, DOGE lawyers objected to the plaintiffs' meanings of "DOGE employee", "sensitive systems", "access", "records", and "authority", which they deemed "vague and ambiguous"; they restricted the concept of DOGE employee to "individuals who have a formal relationship" with the US DOGE Service. In a court case involving the
"Fork in the road" mass email, DOGE member
Jacob Altik has been presented as an OPM lawyer when trying to shut down the
African Development Foundation along with other DOGE members. Few DOGE members spoke to the press. Musk appeared on Fox News multiple times and spoke to Joe Rogan, but has been criticized for declining challenging interviews.
Leadership One month after being taken over by DOGE, Multiple legacy USDS employees could not identify its leadership. In a February 17 affidavit,
Office of Administration director Joshua Fischer told Judge
Tanya Chutkan that Musk was not the administrator or an employee of DOGE but a
special government employee with no "authority to make government decisions". Trump declared two days later to have put "Musk in charge" of DOGE. At a February 24 hearing, Judge
Colleen Kollar-Kotelly questioned the constitutionality of retrofitting DOGE as the
United States Digital Service and asked the government attorney, Bradley Humphreys, about its structure; he said that he ignored Musk's role beyond that of Trump advisor. On the next day, Press Secretary
Karoline Leavitt said that Musk is "overseeing DOGE" but refused to identify its administrator. Later the same day, the White House named Amy Gleason, who worked from 2018 through 2021 at
US Digital Service (USDS), as acting administrator. On February 28, Justice Department lawyer Joshua Gardner told Judge
Theodore D. Chuang that he was unable to identify the administrator of DOGE before Gleason. In a filing submitted under seal but partly released in March, the Trump administration recognized that Gleason has been working at
Health and Human Services at the same time that she said having worked full-time as an administrator of the US DOGE Service. At the end of February, neither the White House nor its lawyers could confirm who was running it. After being quoted in lawsuits days later, Trump reportedly told members of his Cabinet that
they rather than Musk and DOGE were to make staffing decisions for their departments, but a few hours later remonstrated "If they don't cut, then Elon will do the cutting." On March 18, Chuang determined that Musk was "the leader of DOGE" and that his actions in dismantling USAID violated the
Appointments Clause. In a May 21
Supreme Court filing,
Solicitor General John Sauer told the court that Musk "is not part of" DOGE. In a separate lawsuit involving Musk's company X, his own lawyers stated that he is "in charge of" DOGE.
Departures During
Tesla's earnings call on April 22, Musk told his investors that he planned to reduce his government work, but that he will "likely" continue for the remainder of Trump's term. Musk clarified that he was not planning to step away from DOGE entirely, saying that he would "spend a day or two per week on government matters for as long as the president would like me to do so". Musk began
working remotely around the same time, months after expressing his intent to ban remote work for federal workers. Musk's
offboarding began on May 28 at the end of his scheduled time as a special government employee. Top Musk lieutenant
Steve Davis, top DOGE advisor
Katie Miller and DOGE general counsel
James Burnham would be leaving as well. Trump officially thanked Musk during an Oval Office farewell on May 30, and said Musk was "not really leaving". During an interview with Brett Baier on June 1, Musk
criticized the
One Big Beautiful Bill Act for undoing DOGE's work. Shortly after, the
Trump–Musk feud erupted.
Institutionalization == Composition ==