Tag
The Department of Government Efficiency, an executive initiative led by Elon Musk to slash federal spending and dismantle government agencies. Incidents tagged DOGE involve mass firings, unauthorized data access, and dismantlement of federal programs.
16 incidents
Grade 2 of 5: Major Abuse of Power
DOGE employees at SSA secretly worked with a political advocacy group to match Social Security data with voter rolls to find 'evidence of voter fraud and to overturn election results.' A signed data-sharing agreement and Hatch Act referrals followed. A whistleblower alleged DOGE copied 300+ million Americans' records into an unsecured virtual database.
Grade 2 of 5: Major Abuse of Power
The National Weather Service lost roughly 550 to 600 staff, including meteorologists and storm modelers, through probationary firings and early retirements, leaving 30 forecast offices without lead meteorologists. The NWS Goodland, Kansas office became the first to abandon 24/7 operations. Five former NWS directors warned the cuts endanger lives heading into tornado and hurricane season.
Grade 1 of 5: Significant Democratic Concern
The deputization of Musk's private bodyguards as federal agents — with training requirements waived at White House request — represents an unprecedented merger of private security with federal law enforcement authority, bypassing the safeguards that exist to prevent untrained armed individuals from exercising government power.
Grade 2 of 5: Major Abuse of Power
DOGE fired 350 NNSA nuclear weapons workers, including warhead assemblers at Pantex and radioactive waste managers at Savannah River, as part of a 2,000-person Department of Energy purge. Most firings were rescinded within 24 hours after bipartisan alarm over nuclear stockpile security, but the incident exposed DOGE's indiscriminate approach to agencies with critical national security functions.
Grade 2 of 5: Major Abuse of Power
The systematic dismantlement of the Department of Education began with DOGE slashing $881 million in research contracts and eliminating IES, followed by cutting half the workforce, and culminated in an executive order to shutter the entire department.
Grade 2 of 5: Major Abuse of Power
Musk used his government role leading DOGE to dismantle the CFPB, the agency positioned to regulate his XMoney digital payments platform, while gaining access to competitors' confidential financial data — a conflict of interest that ethics watchdogs and senators have flagged as potentially criminal under 18 U.S.C. 208. No charge or official finding has been made.
Grade 2 of 5: Major Abuse of Power
DOGE operationally shut down the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau — a Congressionally-created agency protecting 330 million Americans from financial fraud — by ordering staff to cease all work, deleting social media accounts, and planning to fire nearly all 1,700 employees. Federal courts intervened but the agency remains gutted.
Grade 2 of 5: Major Abuse of Power
Mass layoffs at the FDA driven by the Department of Government Efficiency eliminated over 3,500 staff in 2025, causing foreign food safety inspections to drop by nearly half, outbreak investigations to go unsolved at record rates, and critical programs like avian influenza testing to be halted.
Grade 2 of 5: Major Abuse of Power
DOGE directed mass firings of probationary employees, coerced ~75,000 resignations through the 'Fork in the Road' program, and orchestrated reductions in force totaling ~300,000 federal positions. Courts found the probationary firings illegal, but the Supreme Court sided with the administration on appeal.
Grade 3 of 5: Serious Rights Violation
DOGE accessed Treasury, OPM, and SSA databases containing millions of Americans' personal data without authorization or completed background checks. Federal judges ordered data disgorged and deleted, finding Privacy Act and APA violations, though the Supreme Court later partially reversed.
Grade 2 of 5: Major Abuse of Power
Executive Order 14151 directed elimination of all federal DEI programs. DOGE implemented a three-phase purge, firing thousands of workers — including many who had no current DEI role — and in later court depositions DOGE staffers described using ChatGPT to flag humanities grants as DEI. A December 2025 class-action lawsuit alleges the purge targeted minorities, women, and LGBTQ+ employees.
Grade 2 of 5: Major Abuse of Power
DOGE associates including Tom Krause (Broadcom executive) and Marko Elez (25-year-old with racist posts) accessed Treasury's $6 trillion payment system. Elez was mistakenly given write access to payment records. 19 AGs sued. Federal judges in New York temporarily blocked access, one calling the rollout 'chaotic and haphazard.' In a separate case, the 4th Circuit vacated a Maryland injunction in August 2025.
Grade 2 of 5: Major Abuse of Power
The world's richest man led government cost-cutting while his companies held $38 billion in government funding. Zero Musk contracts were cut. SpaceX won new billions in Pentagon contracts during the cuts. No financial disclosure for Musk was made public.
Grade 4 of 5: Critical Rights and Rule-of-Law Concern
DOGE operated as an unaccountable parallel executive structure. Musk's associates accessed federal payment systems, personnel databases, Social Security administration data, IRS systems, and classified networks. Congress had not authorized DOGE to exist, to fire employees, or to redirect agency funds. Courts issued numerous injunctions against DOGE actions. Multiple agencies had their websites taken offline, their career employees locked out, and their operations functionally suspended within weeks of inauguration. USAID was effectively eliminated — folded into the State Department without Congressional action — ending decades of foreign assistance infrastructure. Federal workers who objected or filed suit faced retaliation.
Grade 2 of 5: Major Abuse of Power
Schedule F's reclassification potentially covered hundreds of thousands of federal workers, stripping civil service protections that prevent politically-motivated firing. The 'deferred resignation' buyout offer — which OPM claimed would allow employees to stop working but continue receiving pay until late September 2025 — was criticized as legally uncertain, including under the Antideficiency Act; a federal judge in Massachusetts briefly paused the deadline in February 2025 but then ruled that the unions challenging it lacked standing. Tens of thousands of workers accepted. Agencies including USAID, the Department of Education, and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau were simultaneously subject to mass reductions in force. By spring 2025, an estimated 100,000+ federal workers had left or been terminated.
Grade 2 of 5: Major Abuse of Power
Systematic destruction of the government oversight apparatus: 17 inspectors general fired, heads of the Office of Special Counsel and Office of Government Ethics removed, whistleblower retaliation cases up 9x at DOE, and federal employees reporting fear of speaking up or reporting wrongdoing.