When Barack Obama created the United States Digital Service in 2014, it was meant to disrupt the arcane tech processes that had led to catastrophes like the original HealthCare.gov rollout. A team of young, private sector workers had been able to come in and fix the site — why couldn’t they be deployed throughout the government to modernize an arcane tech infrastructure?
The launch of USDS was met with deep skepticism from longtime civil servants, but ultimately it helped start and upgrade numerous government websites. Now, more than a decade later, Elon Musk has taken over the agency and brought in his own young tech workers he’s deploying in agencies to “improve the quality and efficiency” of government IT systems.
But USDS has morphed into the “United States DOGE Service,” and Musk is using the agency’s uniquely nimble design to push the limits of U.S. privacy law, Congress’ power of the purse and the Constitution itself.
“What has happened has been just the most obscene perversion of what the idea of USDS was supposed to be,” said one former White House official who worked with the U.S. Digital Service across multiple administrations and spoke to NOTUS on the condition of anonymity. “To give him some sort of modicum of legitimacy through an executive order that then allows them to do things that are clearly illegal.”
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Obama’s description of the agency’s duties in 2014 — “to find solutions to management challenges that can prevent progress in IT delivery” — is nearly interchangeable with Donald Trump’s executive order changing the agency’s name and outlining DOGE’s duties.
“The USDS Administrator shall commence a Software Modernization Initiative to improve the quality and efficiency of government-wide software, network infrastructure, and information technology (IT) systems,” Trump’s order states.
But Trump’s order did open the door for Musk to seize more power: It created a temporary organization within USDS to bring on volunteers, and moved DOGE up the White House food chain. Crucially, it directed all agency heads to give USDS “full and prompt access to all unclassified agency records, software systems, and IT systems.”
The first digital service administrator, Mikey Dickerson, told NOTUS that some of the same skeptical rhetoric about DOGE sounded eerily similar to the scrutiny he got a decade ago. What’s actually different now? The expanded scope of power and unprecedented way Musk is using it, he said.
“‘I can’t believe that anyone would think that these 22-year-olds are qualified to work in the government, they have no relevant experience who think they are anyway, don’t they know about all the federal rules? Don’t they know that we have a custom and a way to do these things?’” Dickerson told NOTUS, quoting the naysayers. “That’s pretty much word for word the same shit that we heard in 2013, 2014.”
“I don’t see all of that as necessarily, particularly valid. If you’re going to criticize the DOGE, then criticize what they’re actually doing,” he said. “What they’re actually doing is bonkers. It’s insane.”
There’s no shortage of laws where red lights are flashing over Musk’s reported access, and questionable storage, of Americans’ data — from federal data protection laws like the Privacy Act and the Federal Information Security Modernization Act, to the Impoundment Control Act setting narrow limits on when the executive branch can block congressionally authorized spending.
Even Republicans have said putting DOGE under the USDS umbrella provided some “cover,” as Sen. Kevin Cramer described it Tuesday to reporters, to drive spending cuts without input or authorization from Congress.
“I think DOGE provides a bit of a cover for people to do what they know — in some cases — should be done, but haven’t had the nerve to do it,” Cramer said, admitting that he’s “a little uncomfortable” with the president using DOGE to block congressionally appropriated spending, though he veered away from calling it illegal.
“I don’t find that outside the spirit of our system, courts will have to decide whether it’s outside the literal boundaries of the President’s authority,” Cramer said.
Musk — who the White House insists is acting within the bounds of the law — is personally overseeing what amounts to an aggressive seizure of much of the federal bureaucracy, directly lifting tactics from his takeover of Twitter and importing the Silicon Valley ethos of “move fast and break things.”
Musk is serving as “special government employee” in his role running DOGE and while “DOGE may be seen as disruptive by those entrenched in the federal bureaucracy,” a White House official said, “it is necessary and aligns with the mandate supported by more than 77 million American voters.”
But in Trump’s first few weeks in office, Musk’s work has gone well beyond the niche tech support role of the former U.S. Digital Service, or the narrow duties outlined in Trump’s executive order on the agency, which outlined essentially the same mandate as it had for the past decade. Musk has had his hands on everything from Jan. 6-related pardons to shutting down foreign aid.
“Elon Musk knew a lot about this and was the mastermind behind it,” a White House liaison to the Justice Department, Paul Ingrassia, told reporters outside a jail in Washington, D.C., as Trump freed Jan. 6 rioters.
“We spent the weekend feeding USAID into the wood chipper,” Musk said in a social media post this week, lamenting that he could have “gone to some great parties.”
Musk has also embedded himself and allies in the Office of Personnel Management, despite calling himself “White House Tech Support” in his X bio — a description closer to DOGE’s actual mandate from the president.
Inside the Office of Personnel Management, employees are working in a chaotic and oftentimes directionless environment as they discuss amongst themselves whether or not to sign on to Musk’s federal buyout plan, weighing the uncertainty of the agreement against the prospect of sweeping layoffs in the coming weeks, sources in the agency told NOTUS.
But the working environment inside agencies like OPM — where Musk is digging in — is worsening by the day, according to multiple staffers who spoke with NOTUS on the condition of anonymity for fear of reprisal. (OPM declined to comment for this story.)
Democrats called the use of the agency to make constitutionally dubious, Congress-free spending cuts downright illegal.
“He’s already breaking the law right now. Law enforcement officials should be taking action. Where are they?” Sen. Elizabeth Warren told NOTUS.
“One area that we’ve always been bipartisan, it’s been on national security. If that’s going away, and when our nation’s secrets could be randomly sent out, people’s lives are at stake,” Sen. Mark Warner echoed.
Other Democrats said the moves made by Musk and Trump represent a five-alarm fire for democracy and the government itself.
“They’re destroying the federal government as we speak,” Sen. Chris Murphy said. “They’re really lighting agencies on fire one by one, they’re ignoring congressional requirements to spend money. We’re in the middle of a crisis.”
Meanwhile, Republicans shrugged off Musk’s actions if it’s getting them what they want.
“We want to change things! We’re trying to change things,” Republican Sen. John Hoeven told NOTUS. “Of course, somebody is going to push back because they’ve always done it a different way, but that doesn’t mean it’s against the law.”
When NOTUS pressed about whether Republicans would stop it even if Musk was breaking the law, “I suppose if there was something that we thought was a problem, we would have that option,” Hoeven said half-heartedly.
“I’m not very concerned about it,” Sen. Josh Hawley said of Musk’s moves. “If we have to do something statutorily, I’m happy to do it.”
“I fear deep state actors are violating U.S. law,” Sen. Ron Johnson told NOTUS. “I’ve got far greater concern of some of the deep state actors inside these agencies with access to that information than I do with Elon Musk.”
That’s been Musk’s argument too — if laws are being broken, he’s pointing away from himself. “Career Treasury officials are breaking the law every hour of every day by approving payments that are fraudulent or do not match the funding laws passed by Congress,” Musk alleged on X.
Dickerson, the first Silicon Valley disruptor to the federal tech infrastructure, faced his own scrutiny over the technicalities of the law — and learned something that provides little comfort to those horrified by Musk’s level of access.
“I’m afraid that a huge amount of the kinds of technicalities that people are hoping that will be able to stop DOGE with, they’re about to find out that the laws don’t have the teeth,” he told NOTUS, pointing to limited fines and slaps on the wrists over privacy violations. And there’s one other factor: Trump always has a pardon in his pocket.
“The Trump administration, even if [Musk] breaks the law in the most obvious way imaginable, everything we’ve seen says that there’s going to be no consequences.”
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Claire Heddles and Mark Alfred are NOTUS reporters and Allbritton Journalism Institute fellows.
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