President Donald Trump and Elon Musk have repeatedly affirmed Musk’s leadership of the so-called Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE). But according to a new court filing from the White House, the administrator of DOGE isn’t Elon Musk after all. Who is? No one knows. The White House won’t tell the public, an administration lawyer has reportedly said he had no idea, and even people who work for the US DOGE Service can’t get a straight answer.
On Monday evening, Joshua Fisher, the director of the White House Office of Administration, claimed Musk wasn’t actually in charge of the so-called department he has championed for months. Fisher issued a sworn statement in a lawsuit brought by the state of New Mexico and 13 other Democratic attorneys general accusing Musk of exercising authority beyond the scope of his role. Rather than serving as the DOGE administrator or an employee of DOGE at all, Fisher said, Musk’s formal role is “senior advisor” to the president with “no greater authority than other senior White House advisors.” This could make Musk’s authority and standing at USDS legally murky—especially as a number of lawsuits embroil the organization’s activities.
The statement has also compounded confusion at USDS, formerly called the US Digital Service and rebranded as the US DOGE Service on January 20. Multiple legacy USDS employees tell WIRED they have no idea who the acting administrator is, despite requesting their identity multiple times.
Musk announced that he would lead DOGE shortly after Trump won the presidential election last year and has spent the weeks since Trump took office championing DOGE’s work on X, the media platform that he owns, and spreading misinformation about the role and expenditures of numerous government agencies targeted by DOGE. In a recent Oval Office appearance, Trump referred to DOGE as Musk’s “team.” If Musk is not serving as the administrator, his leadership appears to be unofficial and in name only. But this would leave it unclear who the official administrator actually is—or whether the office is vacant.
This isn’t a trivial matter. The executive order establishing DOGE plainly states, “There shall be a USDS Administrator established in the Executive Office of the President who shall report to the White House Chief of Staff.” It goes on to say that an organization called the U.S. DOGE Service Temporary Organization will be set up within the USDS, to be headed by the administrator and “dedicated to advancing the President’s 18-month DOGE agenda.”
According to Fisher’s statement, Musk has nothing to do with any of this.
“The U.S. DOGE Service is a component of the Executive Office of the President. The U.S. DOGE service Temporary Organization is within the U.S. DOGE Service. Both are separate from the White House Office,” Fisher wrote in his statement. “Mr. Musk is an employee in the White House Office. He is not an employee of the U.S. DOGE Service or U.S. DOGE Service Temporary Organization. Mr. Musk is not the U.S. DOGE Service Administrator.”
Before Trump was inaugurated, the USDS administrator was Mina Hsiang. After she left, Ted Carstensen was the highest-ranking legacy USDS leader, but he resigned from the organization on February 6.
“After Ted resigned, we received no correspondence as far as who the head of this organization was,” says a current USDS employee, who requested anonymity due to concerns of retaliation.
Some people WIRED spoke with at USDS view Amy Gleason, a former USDS official who served in the first Trump administration, as a liaison between legacy USDS, DOGE, and other agencies, but little is known about her official role. Steve Davis, a longtime Musk associate and the president of the Boring Company, is another name rumored to be formally leading DOGE. Davis has worked with Musk for years, and led the billionaire’s cost-cutting efforts when taking over Twitter, now X, in 2022. Davis went as far as sleeping in the Twitter HQ with his wife, Nicole Hollander, and their child. (Hollander is now a high-level General Services Administration official.)
“Steve Davis has always been articulated as the leader of DOGE, but when I ask if he’s the administrator, [managers] say we don’t know,” one former USDS employee tells WIRED. “When I ask if he’s the interim administrator, they say ‘we don’t know.’ They’ve said Brad Smith [a health care entrepreneur with ties to Davis] is serving in a chief of staff role.”
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Meanwhile, as USDS staffers are trying to figure out who is running their agency, dozens of them have been laid off. Around 50 people out of USDS’s approximately 200 employees were fired on Friday. Sources tell WIRED that product managers, designers, and members of the talent team were hit the hardest, along with some engineers.
“No rhyme or reason. Literally in the middle of work,” another source said of the Friday night firings. “There are so many of us.”
“I have heard that our directors at USDS (legacy) still have not received any kind of list or justification for the intention to terminate emails sent Friday evening,” says another source at the agency.
Last week, multiple agencies were rocked by sudden layoffs. Dozens of Consumer Financial Protection Bureau employees were fired after receiving emails botching their names and roles. Later in the week, the entire CFPB team tasked with investigating big tech were terminated, a former CFPB official told WIRED. After the CFPB firings, other agencies, including the General Services Administration, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the Department of Education, the Department of Veterans Affairs, the Department of Transportation, the Department of Energy, terminated thousands of workers.
The White House did not respond to multiple requests for comment.
While Musk’s DOGE workers have taken over at USDS for the last month, very few legacy employees have interacted with their new colleagues whatsoever. Earlier this month, WIRED reported that DOGE had built a “firewall” separating Musk’s team from the rest of the organization’s workforce. The only time legacy staff had a meeting with a representative from DOGE was on February 1 with Stephanie Holmes, who identified herself as the team’s new HR person.
The only other experiences legacy USDS staff have had with DOGE staff were their surprise one-on-one interviews with DOGE-affiliated engineers who refused to identify themselves during the first week of the Trump administration.
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