WASHINGTON − One week after his November election victory, President Donald Trump named Elon Musk as the head of a so-called Department of Government Efficiency that would work to dismantle the federal bureaucracy.
But now the White House says Musk isn’t in charge of DOGE ‒ nor does he even work for DOGE.
That argument, made in a court filing Monday, contradicts the White House’s public portrayal of billionaire tech entrepreneur Musk as the person steering the ship of DOGE, which has moved from one federal department to another to drastically cut government spending and reduce the federal workforce.
Musk is a “senior advisor to the president,” Joshua Fisher, director of the White House Office of Administration, said in a declaration filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia. Fisher compared Musk’s role to that of Anita Dunn, a onetime top White House advisor to former President Joe Biden.
“In his role as Senior Advisor to the President, Mr. Musk has no greater authority than other senior White House advisors,” Fisher wrote. “Like other senior White House advisors, Mr. Musk has no actual or formal authority to make government decisions himself. Mr. Musk can only advise the President and communicate the President’s directives.”
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Fisher added that DOGE operates separately from the White House. “Mr. Musk is an employee in the White House Office. He is not an employee in the U.S. DOGE Service or the U.S. DOGE Service Temporary Organization. Mr. Musk is not the U.S. DOGE Service Administrator,” he said.
The new explanation of Musk’s role came in response to a lawsuit filed by multiple Democratic state attorneys general challenging Musk’s authority in the Trump administration, arguing that his enormous power violates the Constitution’s “Appointments Clause,” which requires Congress to approve officers in the executive branch.
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“Mr. Musk’s seemingly limitless and unchecked power to strip the government of its workforce and eliminate entire departments with the stroke of a pen or click of a mouse would have been shocking to those who won this country’s independence,” the complaint filed last week by 14 states reads.
“There is no office of the United States, other than the President, with the full power of the Executive Branch, and the sweeping authority now vested in a single unelected and unconfirmed individual is antithetical to the nation’s entire constitutional structure,” it said.
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The White House did not respond to requestions by USA TODAY seeking a name of an administrator of DOGE, which operates in the Eisenhower Executive Office Building on the White House campus.
Earlier this month, the White House said Musk is a “special government employee,” a designation under federal statute for an employee retained for 130 days or less in a calendar year. Musk has received a government email address but is not getting paid in his role.
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt, in a Tuesday interview with Fox News, reiterated the “special government employee” title and said “Elon Musk has been tasked with overseeing DOGE on behalf of the president.”
Trump, during a Tuesday news conference from his Florida Mar-a-Lago home, told reporters, “Elon is, to me, a patriot. So you know, you could call him an employee, you could call him a consultant, you could call him whatever you want.”
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Trump has repeatedly referred to Musk as the head of DOGE, including last week in remarks from the Oval Office as he talked about the DOGE team ‒ mostly young IT specialists ‒ growing to about 100 employees.
“I want to commend Elon, because he’s done fantastic,” Trump said as he touted DOGE’s work. “And it’s his group of people, they started off with 12, I call them 12 geniuses. They started off with 12 and they went to 20 and 25. And now they’re up to almost 100.”
Several DOGE employees have direct ties to Musk’s companies, having either worked previously at Tesla, SpaceX or X.
When Trump announced his plans for DOGE on Nov. 12, Trump said in a statement, “I am pleased to announce that the Great Elon Musk, working in conjunction with American Patriot Vivek Ramaswamy, will lead the Department of Government Efficiency.” Ramaswamy later stepped down from the role.
Trump formally created DOGE in a day one executive order that converted an obscure federal agency, the United States Digital Service, into DOGE.
The order instructed all heads of federal departments to provide “prompt access to all unclassified agency records, software systems, and IT systems” to DOGE employees. The order also established a DOGE administrator who will report to the White House chief of staff, but it did not name the administrator.
Reach Joey Garrison on X @joeygarrison.