New Delhi: Soon after US President Donald Trump passed an executive order Tuesday to establish the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), one of its prospective co-heads, Vivek Ramaswamy, announced his resignation. His exit comes amid rumours that he intends to run for the governor’s office in Ohio.
Announced by Trump in November last year, Ramaswamy, along with Tesla and X CEO Elon Musk, was supposed to lead DOGE. Musk remains a part of the department.
Troubles for DOGE did not end with Ramaswamy’s exit. The National Security Counselors Tuesday filed a lawsuit against DOGE, alleging that the newly formed department was breaking a law governing federal advisory committees.
According to Reuters, other lawsuits have come in from the American Public Health Association, the American Federation of Teachers, and Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington. The organisations say DOGE “has limited official power to carry out any reorganisation, let alone the sweeping cuts proposed by Musk and Ramaswamy”.
The department would work to “dismantle government bureaucracy, slash excess regulations, cut wasteful expenditures and restructure federal agencies”, according to an X post on DOGE, shared by Musk in November 2024.
On 20 January, Trump formally renamed the United States Digital Service to the United States DOGE Service (USDS) to implement Trump’s stated agenda of “modernising federal technology and software to maximise governmental efficiency and productivity”.
A temporary organisation created under the USDS, the US DOGE Service Temporary Organization will implement the agenda till 4 July 2026 before its dismantling.
The order also calls for the creation of ‘DOGE teams’ within different government agencies—consisting of at least four employees, including a team lead, an engineer, an HR specialist, and an attorney.
It also has provisions for a software modernisation drive, which would be implemented across government agencies to “improve the quality and efficiency of government-wide software, network infrastructure, and information technology (IT) systems”.
Musk took to X after the official announcement of the department Tuesday, saying that “DOGE will greatly improve government efficiency, saving your tax dollars and ending rampant inflation”.
On the other hand, the DOGE X handle Tuesday posted a screenshot of the same webpage at different times to show that the chief diversity officers executive council in the US personnel management office no longer exists.
Since November last year, the DOGE has regularly posted about various government expenditures and grants from its X handle, often questioning allegedly wasteful spending patterns.
(Edited by Madhurita Goswami)