Schrödinger's Vizier

Nope, that cat's in an agency. And he's definitely the administrator.

This week federal judges in two separate cases signaled that they think that the so-called “Department of Governmental Efficiency” (DOGE) is a federal agency and Elon Musk, as its real head, should have been confirmed by the Senate. The judges all but accused the Trump administration of deliberately hiding the ball by pretending that Musk is a mere presidential “advisor” without any actual power.

If this ruling holds, it could radically reshape the landscape of lawsuits seeking to block Musk’s slash and burn takeover of the federal government. And it might just be the key to putting this evil genie back in the bottle.

Curbing DOGE

In some sense, “DOGE” has always been a headfake. Back in November of 2024, President-elect Trump announced that Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy would “provide advice and guidance from outside of Government, and will partner with the White House and Office of Management & Budget to drive large-scale structural reform, and create an entrepreneurial approach to Government never seen before.” Taking the president at his word that DOGE would be an advisory committee, national security lawyers geared up to enforce the Federal Advisory Committee Act’s requirements that committees be ideologically “balanced” and make its meetings and records available to the public.

But on his first day in office, Trump signed Executive Order 14158, which “renamed” the United States Digital Service as “the United States DOGE Service.” Instead of creating a new outside agency subject to those pesky FACA requirements, Trump simply skinsuited DOGE into an existing department within the Executive Office of the President.

The order also created the US DOGE Service Temporary Organization within USDS until July 4, 2026, requiring that heads of all executive agencies establish internal “DOGE Teams” with a minimum of four employees to “coordinate their work with USDS and advise their respective Agency Heads on implementing the President ‘s DOGE Agenda.”

On Feb. 11, Trump followed up with yet another executive order requiring that the DOGE bros seconded to each federal agency “provide the United States DOGE Service (USDS) Administrator with a monthly hiring report for the agency.” No such administrator was ever named, though, and the government has gone to great lengths not to say who he or she might be.

The answer to the question is obviously Elon Musk, who has been leading a public rampage through the federal government and taking personal credit for “feeding USAID to the woodchipper.” The deranged billionaire and his underlings brag online every day about canceling government contracts and firing thousands of employees. Trump has undeniably appointed Musk as Human Resources Manager for the entire federal government, and yet the administration continues to press the creative fiction that Musk is simply a special government employee advising Trump, who ponders his wise counselor’s advice and decides whether or not to proceed.

Schroedinger’s Vizier

DOGE’s incursion into every federal agency sparked at least a dozen lawsuits, but two in particular get at the strategic ambiguity of Musk’s status.