The structure and goals of the cost-cutting effort have changed over the past 10 weeks. Here’s how.
With the official establishment on Monday of President Trump’s closely watched effort to slash federal spending — which he has called the Department of Government Efficiency — some key information was revealed, including details about how the group will be structured and a new focus on modernizing technology.
But a number of critical questions have not yet been answered.
Mr. Trump’s executive order creating the group underscores how much the idea has been worked through over the past few weeks.
In November, Mr. Trump initially said the group would provide outside advice as it worked closely with White House budget officials. The president’s order, however, brings the group inside the federal government. The order also follows a major shake-up in leadership. Elon Musk will be its sole leader after Vivek Ramaswamy bowed out of the project.
How will the group be structured?
The order essentially means that the group will be an official unit within the executive office of the president. The so-called “United States DOGE Service” will take over the United States Digital Service, which was created in 2014 by former President Barack Obama to improve government services through the use of technology.
The order also created a temporary organization within the larger service that will end on July 4, 2026. It is unclear how its mission will differ from that of the broader U.S. DOGE Service, although its deadline is the same one that Mr. Trump originally set for the group to provide recommendations to drive out “waste and fraud” within the federal budget.
There will also be “DOGE teams” embedded within federal agencies that can consist of special government employees, a specific category of temporary workers who can only work for the federal government for 130 days or less in a 365-day period. Mr. Musk himself may be one of them, but the executive order did not make that clear.