On February 11, 2025, President Trump signed an Executive Order (EO) outlining the mission of the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE): eliminate “waste, bloat, and insularity” in the federal bureaucracy and empower “American families, workers, taxpayers, and our system of government itself.”
More specifically, the EO laid out a plan to reform the federal workforce through a large-scale reduction in force, or RIF. Pursuant to Executive Order 14170, signed on President Trump’s first day in office on January 20, 2025, which mandated a hiring freeze, this new EO requires the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) to submit a plan to reduce the size of the workforce “through efficiency improvements and attrition.” Thereafter, each agency will only be permitted to hire one employee for every four that depart. In addition, each agency will now have a DOGE Team Lead, and all future hiring decisions must be “data-driven” and made “in consultation with the agency’s DOGE Team Lead, consistent with applicable law.” It is unclear what the applicable law is, but the EO does give the agency head the ability to override the DOGE Team Lead if they determine a vacancy should be filled.
Under the EO, all positions “not mandated by statute or other law should be prioritized for termination.” Those workers focused on diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives should also be terminated, while employees focused on public safety, immigration enforcement or law enforcement, national security, homeland security, and public safety are exempt. The EO also allows the Director of the Office of Personnel Management to grant further exemptions if they deem them “otherwise necessary.”
Each DOGE Team Lead must provide the United States DOGE Service (USDS) Administrator with a monthly hiring report for the agency. It is not certain at this point who that person is other than the de facto head of DOGE, businessman Elon Musk. Further, each Agency Head has 30 days to submit a report to the Director of OMB that discusses whether the agency or “any of its subcomponents should be eliminated or consolidated.” This report must also reference any statutes that “establish the agency, or subcomponent of the agency, as statutorily required entities.” Finally, within 240 days, the EO requires the USDS Administrator to submit a progress report to the president regarding the order’s implementation and recommendations on whether provisions should be “extended, modified, or terminated.”
While this EO clarifies DOGE’s mission, multiple lawsuits have notably been filed in opposition to the initiative, including by 19 Democratic attorneys general and the American Federation of Government Employees. Several lawsuits allege violations of the Federal Advisory Committee Act (FACA), which mandates transparency and balanced representation in advisory committees. The suits claim that DOGE operates without proper disclosure and fails to provide public access to its records and proceedings, breaching federal transparency requirements. Several court decisions have already temporarily restrained DOGE activities.
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