Challenges to the Rule of Law under Elon Musk and DOGE

What is the Department of Government Efficiency?

On January 20th, 2025, President Trump established and implemented the “Department of Government Efficiency” through an executive order. The main purpose of this new department was “to implement the President’s DOGE Agenda, by modernizing Federal technology and software to maximize governmental efficiency and productivity.” 

This executive order effectively changed the United States Digital Service created under President Obama’s administration to a different name titled the “United States DOGE Service (USDS)”. The original Digital Service was created in 2014 to fix many technology-related glitches that the government was facing. However, after this executive order, the new Department of Government Efficiency is now led by billionaire Tesla CEO Elon Musk. President Trump and Elon Musk have promised to cut billions from the federal budget to ensure efficiency in government spending.

In addition to this new executive order, President Trump signed another executive order on February 11th titled “Implementing The President’s ‘Department of Government Efficiency’ Workforce Optimization Initiative” aiming to “restore accountability to the American public” through a “critical transformation of the Federal bureaucracy”. This enabled DOGE to begin reducing employees in federal agencies and cutting spending to “maximize efficiency and productivity”. However, this new government agency has received backlash from many organizations presenting several legal challenges.

How is DOGE Challenging the Rule of Law?

In an effort to cut down on government spending, DOGE employees and Musk have attempted to gain access to the federal payment system through the Treasury Department. This payment system includes information such as tax refunds, veterans’ benefits, salaries for workers, and Social Security payments. This unrestricted access to such sensitive information is strictly prohibited under federal law violating the Privacy Act of 1974 and the Internal Revenue Code laws. Both of these laws restrict taxpayer and other personal information unless the person is an employee engaged in official duties that require having access to those records. 

As a result, a lawsuit has been filed by unions of federal employees, including the American Federation of Government Employees, against Scott Bessent, Secretary of the Treasury, and the Department of the Treasury. While a federal judge temporarily restricted DOGE’s access to the payment system, it presented a threat to transparency and accountability within the government.

DOGE along with President Trump have continued to push for access to sensitive information. DOGE employees have also attempted to access information from the Social Security Administration, which keeps medical information, bank account numbers, and other sensitive data about millions of Americans which provides more than $1 trillion in benefits each year. While labor unions and state governments have filed lawsuits against the Trump administration, it is unclear exactly how successful they have been.

What is Next for DOGE?

As DOGE continues to be supported by the Trump administration, questions have been raised regarding the legal status of DOGE. At first, it was publicly declared that Elon Musk was the head of DOGE having complete authority over it. Yet, recent court filings state that Musk is not officially recognized as the DOGE service administrator. This confusion and lack of transparency have led to many doubts regarding the true intentions of DOGE within the federal government.

After a month of DOGE’s creation, it has claimed to save $55 billion in federal funds. Yet, this is hard to verify as there have been inaccurate reports such as an $8 billion agreement that was revised to $8 million. Through all of these decisions, it is unclear as to what the exact role of DOGE will be in the future. From the Education Department to the Agriculture Department, DOGE has been moving rapidly to remove federal workers even if it means violating federal laws for the sake of efficiency.

Image Source: NPR