Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) DOGE

Despite its name, the Department of Government Efficiency was not a cabinet department created by Congress. On January 20, 2025, President Trump signed an executive order renaming the U.S. Digital Service, a technology unit created in 2014, as the U.S. DOGE Service within the Executive Office of the President, and creating a temporary DOGE organization scheduled to end on July 4, 2026. Elon Musk led the effort as a special government employee until he left at the end of May 2025.

DOGE teams were placed in agencies across the government, where they sought access to payment and personnel systems, canceled contracts, grants, and leases, and pushed for staff reductions, including deferred resignation offers, firings of probationary employees, and large reductions in force. DOGE was closely involved in the dismantling of USAID and in cuts at agencies ranging from the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau to the Institute of Museum and Library Services. Each agency was also required to have a DOGE team working with its leadership.

DOGE claimed savings in the tens or hundreds of billions of dollars, but independent analysts found its public tallies contained errors and overstatements, and federal spending overall continued to rise. Lawsuits challenged its access to sensitive data and its legal authority, with mixed results, including a Supreme Court order in June 2025 allowing DOGE access to Social Security data. By late 2025 officials said many of its functions had been absorbed by other agencies. The temporary organization formally ended on July 4, 2026, as scheduled, without an official public accounting of its savings. Supporters credited DOGE with confronting waste and an entrenched bureaucracy, while critics said it caused chaos, violated laws on spending and privacy, and cut services without measurable savings.