How DOGE cracked Washington: A focus on arcane agencies gave Musk and his allies swift control of government nerve centers

Political appointees with deep ties to Musk now sit in key leadership positions across agencies that comprise the federal government’s personnel, technology, property and acquisition operations.

The Trump administration’s month-old efficiency initiative that has hit the federal government like an earthquake has no leader. Not officially, at least. Elon Musk is not the administrator of the US DOGE Service, the agency that houses the temporary Department of Government Efficiency. He’s not even a DOGE employee, according to the White House. In fact, the world’s richest man, who was named by President Donald Trump to lead DOGE in November, who posts about it dozens of times a day, who talks publicly about the agency using the pronoun “we,” and who even conducted an impromptu press conference in the Oval Office with Trump, has “no greater authority than other senior White House advisors,” according to a sworn statement submitted in court this week by a White House personnel official. The administration’s decision to downplay Musk’s role in legal filings, even as Trump continues to say that Musk’s “in charge” of DOGE, as he did on Wednesday, has puzzled a Washington still very much trying to divine the operation’s next moves. More critically, it’s also drawn the skepticism of a federal judge. But the mixed messages do offer a valuable window into how the White House laid the groundwork for its shock-and-awe campaign, including what has, up to this point, been an underappreciated level of preparation in the deployment of key appointees inside specific agencies.