Here are all the agencies that Elon Musk and DOGE have been trying to dismantle so far
Elon Musk's Department of Government Efficiency group has made swift work of the billionaire's goal to scale back or dismantle much of the federal government, end diversity policies and otherwise further President Donald Trump's agenda.
DOGE employees, many of whom have no government experience, have been going through data systems, shutting down DEI programs and, in some cases, whole agencies.
As of Feb. 10, ABC has tracked Musk and his DOGE team gaining access to at least 15 federal agencies.
The White House and Republicans have claimed, without citing details, that DOGE is accountable to the president and will be kept away from conflicts of interest. Musk, though, according to lawmakers and attorneys representing federal workers, has violated laws, union agreements and civil service protections.
Trump has repeatedly backed Musk.
"Elon is doing a great job, he's finding tremendous fraud and corruption and waste," he told reporters on Feb. 7.
House Speaker Mike Johnson has also defended Musk and met with him several times since November.
"It's very exciting what they're able to do, because what Elon and the DOGE effort is doing right now is what Congress has been unable to do in recent years because the agencies have hidden some of this from us," Johnson said after meeting with Musk on Feb. 10.
The speaker gave no examples of the "hidden" costs.
Congressional Democrats have protested outside affected agencies, tried to enter them but were prevented from doing so by DOGE and Trump officials and attempted to issue a congressional subpoena for Musk but were blocked by Republicans.
At the same time, opponents have had success fighting Musk's and DOGE's moves in the courts, with judges stopping some of DOGE's orders.
Here is some of what's known about the DOGE efforts since Trump was sworn in, although there has been little transparency about Musk's efforts.
Federal government workers
On Jan. 8, the administration sent out buyout offers to over 2 million federal workers, including employees in the CIA.
On Feb. 5, U.S. District Judge George O'Toole Jr. temporarily blocked the offer and extended the deadline to Feb. 10 following lawsuit filed by federal workers' unions.
On Feb. 10, O'Toole said his temporary restraining order remains in effect until he issues a ruling on a preliminary injunction, but did not offer any indication of when he might issue that ruling.
On Feb. 12, O'Toole Jr. denied a request to issue a preliminary injunction blocking plan to offer a buyout to federal employees. He ruled the federal unions who brought the case lacked standing to sue and because the district court lacks jurisdiction to review the case.
O'Toole Jr. did not include any interpretation about how the buyout deadline is impacted in his order.
Musk posted on a vague threat on X on Feb. 22 claiming that all federal employees would receive an email "requesting to understand what they got done last week."
"Failure to respond will be taken as a resignation," he wrote, without providing further details.
Employees soon received an email from the Office of Personnel Management with the subject line "What did you do last week?" that demanded they detail what they "accomplished" last week, according to multiple sources and an email reviewed by ABC News.
The email, sent from the same OPM HR email address that initially emailed employees the "Fork in the Road" resignation offer, instructs employees to list "5 bullets of what you accomplished last week and CC your manager."
It is not clear if Musk, who used a similar tactic for Twitter employees, has the authority to terminate the employees in this manner.
Centers of Medicare and Medicaid Services
The CMS -- a subagency of the Department of Health and Human Services -- has also been collaborating with DOGE since Feb. 5, according to a CMS official.
Musk tweeted a Wall Street Journal article reporting this, in which he wrote, "yeah, this is where the big money fraud is happening."
Consumer Financial Protection Bureau
On Feb. 7, Musk hinted at shutting down the CFPB, a federal regulatory agency that enforces financial consumer protection laws. That same day, employees were notified that DOGE staff were entering the agency’s D.C. offices and required “read-only” access to certain applications.
Employees were also instructed “not to perform any work tasks” starting Feb. 10 and the agency’s D.C. offices are expected to be closed all week.
The National Treasury Employees Union filed two lawsuits on Feb. 9 against acting CFPB director Russell Vought in an attempt to challenge DOGE’s takeover and access levels.
Department of Defense
DOGE representatives were at the Pentagon on Feb. 14, an official with knowledge of the meeting told ABC News.
The official said that a small lower-level DOGE team was expected to arrive on Friday and make connections with Department of Defense staff to soon begin the process of reviewing the Pentagon’s operations.
Department of Education
DOGE gained access to the Department of Education, which Trump has vowed to dismantle despite such an action needing congressional approval, according to Democratic leaders.
Senate Democrats said on Feb. 7 they launched an investigation into reports that DOGE gained access to federal student loan data.
A federal judge will heard Feb. 10 over efforts by a group of California public university students to block DOGE from accessing the records after the organization representing more than 200,000 students in California’s public universities filed a lawsuit earlier in the day.
DOGE made sizable cuts to the Department of Education, slashing 89 independent research contracts at the department’s Institute of Education Sciences worth nearly $900 million, according to DOGE’s post on X and confirmed by a department spokesperson on Feb. 11.
IES conducts statistics, research, and evaluation for millions of students across the country.
Some of its American Institutes for Research (AIR) evaluation and education statistics contracts have been terminated, AIR’s managing director for corporate communications, Dana Tofig, told ABC News. AIR expands apprenticeships to strengthen workforce systems and increases the effectiveness of education nationwide, according to its website.
Federal Aviation Administration
The Department of Transportation and Musk announced on Feb. 5 that he had access to FAA technologies to make "rapid safety upgrades," the billionaire said on X.
The next day, Democratic Sen. Maria Cantwell sent a letter to Secretary of Transportation Sean Duffy, arguing that it was a “conflict of interest for someone whose company is regulated by the federal government to be involved in anything that affects his personal financial interest, his company or his competitors.”Musk does business with the FAA, particularly with his space technology company, SpaceX. In September, SpaceX was fined over $600,000 by the FAA for failing to follow license requirements for two rocket launches.
Federal Emergency Management Agency
Four FEMA officials were fired by the Department of Homeland Security on Feb. 11, a day after Musk posted on X claiming that he found tens of millions of dollars had been spent by the agency to lodge migrants in New York hotels.
The terminated officials were FEMA's chief financial officer, two program analysts and a grant specialist, according to DHS.
Internal Revenue Service
A member of the DOGE team was at the IRS headquarters on Feb. 13, multiple sources familiar with the visit told ABC News.
The DOGE aide initiated multiple meetings with IRS employees, the sources said, asking, in part, about the agency’s technology, including how audits and compliance are done, according to the sources.
Musk asked earlier in a post on X earlier this month: "Would you like @DOGE to audit the IRS?"
The agency began laying off more than 6,000 new and newly promoted employees across the country on Feb. 20, sources familiar with the planning told ABC News.
Medicare
A key member DOGE member met with leadership at the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, the federal agency that oversees the nation’s Medicare and Medicaid insurance programs on Feb. 13, according to internal records reviewed by ABC News.
The meeting, which was titled "Planning Touch Base," included a top DOGE lieutenant, Rachel Riley, along with recently Trump-appointed top brass at CMS, including Acting Administrator and Chief of Staff Stephanie Carlton, John Brooks, Deputy Administrator and Chief Policy and Regulatory Officer at CMS, and Kim Brandt, the agency's new deputy administrator and chief operating officer, and other long-term staff at the agency, according to the records.
National Institutes of Health
U.S. District Judge Angel Kelley issued a temporary restraining order on Feb. 10 that blocked the National Institutes of Health from taking any steps to implement or enforce a cap on indirect costs.
On Feb. 21, workers at an NIH department focused on dementia research, including the department’s incoming leader, were fired, three people familiar with the terminations told ABC News.
The firings at the Center for Alzheimer’s and Related Dementias (CARD) affected roughly a tenth of the nearly 100 employees at the center.
National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration
At least one member of DOGE entered the Department of Commerce -- the parent of NOAA, the agency responsible for forecasting the weather, researching and analyzing climate and weather data, and monitoring and tracking extreme weather events like hurricanes. That person was granted access to NOAA's IT systems, Sen. Chris Van Hollen, D-Md., said on Feb. 5.
DOGE members accessed computer systems to search for staff and data related to diversity programs.
On Feb. 27, NOAA employees received layoff notices. It is unclear how many NOAA staffers are effected, but House Natural Resources Committee ranking member Jared Huffman, D-Calif., said 1,000 employees were terminated.
Treasury Department
The Treasury Department gave Musk and DOGE access to the vast federal payment system responsible for handling trillions of dollars in government expenditures.
However, after two public employee unions and a retiree advocacy group filed a lawsuit against the move, a federal judge ordered on Feb. 5 that read-only data be given to two DOGE employees.
One of those employees was Elez, who resigned from his post a day later.
On Feb. 8, a New York federal judge granted the states suing over DOGE a temporary restraining order that blocked DOGE from accessing taxpayer records, including the Social Security numbers and bank account information of millions of Americans.
U.S. District Judge Jeanette Vargas issued an order on Feb. 14 that continued to block individuals associated with DOGE from accessing sensitive Treasury Dept. records and payment systems.
U.S. Agency for International Development
Musk announced on Feb. 2 that he was going to shut down USAID, which is responsible for humanitarian efforts around the globe.
The agency's website was shut down prior to his announcement, leaving many aid groups and American aid workers abroad in the dark about their programs and future.
A lawsuit was filed on Feb. 6 to prevent the move a day before USAID workers were facing being forced from their jobs. A day later Judge Carl J. Nichols, a Trump-nominated federal judge, announced a temporary restraining order that prevents Trump and DOGE from placing 2,200 employees on administrative leave.
According to current and former USAID officials on Feb. 7, all USAID humanitarian work around the world had been stopped.
On Feb. 13, Nichols extended his order by one week and said that no USAID employees should be evacuated from their host countries before Feb. 21 at 11:59 p.m. The judge requested the government provide him with specific benefits USAID employees would receive if they chose to stay at their overseas posts past 30 days.
Nichols requested the government provide him with specifics about what the government intends to have in place for employees overseas who are placed on administrative leave “to ensure that they are not put at any risk to their person, safety or the like.”
