How Elon Musk Built His DOGE Operation: Timeline and Key Takeaways

The billionaire Elon Musk knew little about the inner workings of the federal government when Donald J. Trump tapped him last year to lead a commission to overhaul the bureaucracy.

The New York Times interviewed more than 60 people familiar with Mr. Musk’s effort to piece together new details about the operation, which Mr. Musk and his advisers mapped out in a series of closely held meetings in Palm Beach, Fla., and through early intelligence-gathering efforts in Washington.

Here’s what we learned:

He got a crash course in the executive branch.

Ensconced at Mr. Trump’s Mar-a-Lago club in Florida after the election, Mr. Musk immersed himself in the workings of the bureaucracy, educated by seasoned conservative operatives like Stephen Miller, who is now deputy chief of staff, and Russell T. Vought, now the director of the Office of Management and Budget.

He realized the advantage of an inside strategy.

Mr. Musk and his allies did not want to create a commission, as past budget hawks had done; they wanted direct, insider access to government systems. His team seized on a little-known unit with reach across the government, the U.S. Digital Service, which President Barack Obama created in 2014 after the botched rollout of healthcare.gov.

The Musk team realized it could use the digital office, whose staff had been focused on helping agencies fix technology problems, to quickly penetrate the federal government — and then decipher how to break it apart.

He pushed for radical changes, the kind he put in place at Twitter.

Mr. Musk expressed impatience with warnings that the team would need a phalanx of lawyers to help with executive orders and regulations. He urged advisers to consider ways to cull the federal work force.

His team laid the groundwork before Inauguration Day.

The team began its move on the digital service office earlier than has previously been reported, while President Joseph R. Biden Jr. was still in office, giving it the ability to operate on Mr. Trump’s first day.

Around the time that Mr. Musk identified the unit as a key part of his strategy late last year, the Trump transition gained a key ally on the inside: Amy Gleason. A veteran of the digital service, Ms. Gleason rejoined its staff as a senior adviser at the end of the Biden administration, and was described to other employees as someone who would aid the Trump transition. Ms. Gleason, who would later be named DOGE’s acting administrator, recommended that the unit bring aboard several young engineers who would later become part of Mr. Musk’s team.

Allies of Mr. Musk, meanwhile, fanned out across the government as part of the transition, extracting intelligence about computer systems, contracts and personnel.

Timeline: How the DOGE Takeover Unfolded

What started as musings by Mr. Musk at a dinner party in 2023 evolved into a radical takeover of the federal bureaucracy. The plan did not solidify until the weeks leading up to Mr. Trump’s inauguration.